Travis Meinolf

Travis Meinolf is an artist and self-titled “Action Weaver” currently based in Berlin, Germany. Meinolf works primarily in woven textiles, but builds this traditional practice into interactive social projects that are radical, educational and successful in locating convergence points between community intervention and aesthetics. For COLONY, Meinolf has used his weaving projects as a sounding board to inquire further into his own family’s history with Old World Catholicism. Using a legend about his patron saint, Martin, as a model, Meinolf has designed and woven garments consisting of two layers: one to be kept by the wearer and another to be given away to someone in need.

Meinolf holds a BA in Industrial Arts from San Francisco State University and an MFA in Textiles/Social Practice from California College of Arts. He has been widely exhibited and collected in recent years, including exhibitions at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art, San Francisco; Koh-i-noor in Copenhagen, Denmark; and Guertin's Graphics in Chicago, IL. His society-based weaving projects have been featured in Craft Magazine and Handwoven Magazine. Learn more about Meinolf’s projects here.

From Meinolf’s personal statement: “As a weaver my primary methodology is to make connections, to manipulate elements and produce structure and pattern, which embody meaning. In my studio practice this entails gathering yarns and using the loom to organize them into cloth. My social practice involves engaging with groups and individuals and encouraging them to tap into their own productive capacities; the potential that lies within each of us to create objects which function in a real, physical sense, and also semiotically: these things and the processes used to produce them can operate as political and aesthetic statements. The overarching goal of my artistic project is to present productive labor as an engaging, satisfying endeavor, whose products could be shared freely within a community to serve the needs of all of its members.”

Earlier this month, Meinolf’s work was reviewed by the Acquisitions Director of SFMOMA. The museum purchased the resulting work from his first public weaving project.

Additionally, Meinolf’s woven textiles are also currently featured at PS1 in a project by Stephanie Syjuco included in the exhibition 1969 that reflects on that pivotal year by displaying works made in 1969 from the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection. Along with significant works from mid-century artists, PS1 invited a number of contemporary artists to respond to the work of this era through the creation of new works. Stephanie Syjuco’s “Borrowed Beuys” recreates a Joseph Beuys’ installation that MOMA could not risk exposing to the exhibition spaces at PS1 (which are not climate controlled). Syjuco enlisted the help of friends and acquaintances through e-mail, facebook and other networking tool, inviting others to give her specific elements to recreate the Beuys piece. In lieu of Beuys’ famous grey felt blankets, two of Travis Meinolf’s blankets have been used.