Today we’d like to introduce you to Mac Barnes
Hi Mac, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up in a community of textiles within my grandmother’s church group in Charlotte, North Carolina who made quilts and blankets for wounded veterans. This is where I learned to crochet, knit, and sew when I was around 8 or 9 years old. Seeing how simple textile materials like yarn and fabric could be used to craft an emotionally positive impact in others’ lives made me fall in love with the medium. Inspired by the quilters in her group, I began watching YouTube videos about quilting from people like Jenny Doan from MO Star Quilt Company. I tried to emulate her simple block patterns using rags and other scrap fabrics around the house. This style of learning online, the comfort it brought me, and the ritualistic practice of doing so after school all have greatly become the foundation for my quilt practice today. At Washington University in St. Louis, where I am currently going into my 3rd year as an undergraduate, I am learning computer science to make the next generation of quilts more interactive, more engaging, and more connected to the stories they tell. From digital interaction to AI, computerized patchwork techniques, embroidery, and more, I am trying to develop new techniques that fuse computer science and traditional quilting to tell human stories in stronger more impactful ways. The reverse of this–understanding human stories and their passions is what I do at the entrepreneurship space on campus. There, I am part of a team analyzing startup companies and their founders both technically and from a story side for our venture capital network that invests in these companies. This analyst work and my art inform each other in ways that help me look beyond just other quilters for better storytelling methods and explore entrepreneurs from all walks of life.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Life’s journey is rarely straightforward, and mine has been no exception. I’ve navigated the insecurities of being a queer man among peers, the imposter syndrome that comes with often being the youngest quilter in the room, and the struggle of being told I must choose between computer science and art to find success. I’ve felt the helplessness of watching loved ones endure abusive relationships and have wrestled with creative burnout, stress, and anxiety.
Still, I find such a path to be an excuse for the time I spend with my work. The real story here is not the particular struggle I faced at a given time, but the fact that I had my work there to support me when I could not always support myself. Quilters, their works, their stories, my interviewees, and teachers—each has, often unknowingly, offered me strength in moments as small as a smile or a wave, and as big as unconditional acceptance and love.
They—and by “they,” I also mean my work—are my community. With them by my side, I feel capable of anything.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
At heart, I am a textile artist. It is my therapy, my voice, my play, my source of excitement, and where I find my favorite role models. Recently, my textile art has been art quilts that engage viewers in dialogue around difficult social/emotional topics. However, unlike other talented quilt artists doing similar work, I am attempting to include novel technologies to either a) tell the story better or b) make the interaction with the quilt more exciting, personal, and tangible. For example, my portrait series “A Walk in Their Shoes” told the stories of six real people I interviewed who have overcome significant obstacles in their lives (racism, homophobia, relationship/sexual violence, coming of age, etc). I used tools like computerized fabric-cutting methods, digital drawing processes, and software to embroider things like handwriting to communicate their stories of becoming and overcoming better. Still, quilts like these are hung on walls or in frames and only white-gloved workers can handle them. However, this is not how we experience quilts in our everyday lives. Our tangible, tactile, material response to quilts is where we get a lot of the warm, feel-good emotions around quilts that I try and use to invite difficult conversations. So, to “meet in the middle” and to push the medium further I have been exploring technologies that use our phones, AI, NFC technology (think tap-to-pay), and other devices to make my audiences’ experience with my quilts even more engaging. Additionally, all of my work uses a majority of recycled materials to be cognizant of both the colorful stories they hold, the real environmental costs of new textiles, and the hazards they pose in landfills.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
To me, success is not a standard or definition but a feeling. There have been several times I have felt successful such as when I graduated from my STEM-intensive high school, when I won the national Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards, when I earned a scholarship to WashU, or even when others asked me about parts of my work I hadn’t considered. For example, I once had a gentleman ask the intention behind a certain shade of lilac fabric on the face of one of the individuals I had done in my “A Walk in Their Shoes” series. He had an entire theory as to why I chose that shade of purple and used it in that location, yet I hadn’t given it the slightest thought. Three years after making the work, staring at it, talking about it, and promoting it, I still found a new take on the work and its meaning through his comments. That felt successful. However, these moments of success can feel superficial, up to chance, or sometimes even forgettable with time. I find the moments that stick with me the most; the ones that feel most successful are when I find personal validation in my work, long after it has been displayed somewhere, purchased, or despite poor technique (that I hopefully since have improved upon). Sometimes I don’t feel my work is successful until I come back to it later on, but when that uneasiness subsides and I find a newfound attachment to what it has to say; that… that feels like success.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.macbarnes.art
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/macbarnes.art/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mac.barnes.1293
