Wilson started collecting found lace fragments as a material source to make Topologies, an artwork first shown in the 2002 Whitney Biennial and represented by a large wall mural in the MAD Drawing Room. She worked from these same lace sources as subjects to animate in the creation of Errant Behaviors.

Wilson searches for damaged lace bits, parts or fragments of larger wholes – sometimes passed down from family or gifts from friends, but most often acquired from flea markets and church rummage sales. If the lace wasn’t already a dark color, it was dyed – privileging the graphic aspect of linear structures against a lighter surface.

The MAD Drawing Room includes fragments of traditional laces alongside a selection of other kinds of openwork – including grids, sheers, and meshes from commercial fabrics, functional nets and gauzes – all presented as study samples in the manner of an archive. The hand dyeing of fragments opens to a broader color range using natural dyestuffs. The rationale for placement on the study tables is visual and subjective, creating compositions of interrelationships that combine Wilson’s own handwork with lace and openwork from diverse origins.

Extending from Wilson’s Davis Street Drawing Room (2022-23), the participatory aspect of the MAD Drawing Room invites visitors to pick up a pencil, paper, and hand magnifier and to sit at a study table to look closely and draw or write. Or, to read in the library or photograph. Prompts are available for both slow close looking and listening. Visitor responses are welcome, if visitors choose to share their responses on a designated wall space. In the lineage of art practices that foreground the relationship between artist and audience, these participant responses shape the collective meaning-making of this experience.

The MAD Drawing Room is about slow close looking and listening, about invention and critical thinking, about finding complexity and meaning in textiles and sound, and about the everyday and contemporary art.