trenton doyle hancock weaves monumental tapestry with odabashian

odabashian, one of the oldest custom hand made rug companies in the americas, has collaborated with american artist trenton doyle hancock on a monumental tapestry commissioned by the museum of fine arts in houston. the piece is on permanent display at the new ‘nancy and rich kinder building’ designed by steven holl, which opened in november, 2020. titled ‘color flash for chat and chew, paris texas in seventy-two’, the 10 x 24 foot piece is made of wool and silk, and is meticulously hand-caved for high-contrast detail.

images by thomas dubrock

‘the tree iconography has been part of my work for over twenty years now, and I describe it as the magic side, the side for potential and growth,’ says trenton doyle hancock in an interview with odabachian CEO, jaime odabachian. ‘for me it also connects very specifically to the geography from where I grew up in paris, northeast texas. the museum of fine arts, houston wanted something similar to ‘good vegan procession #5’, which they had previously exhibited. that piece was originally a backdrop for ‘cult of color: call to color,’ by stephen mills, 2008. it measures 54ft wide by 18ft high. it’s a very tactile piece. since I did not want to make a scale replica for the smaller space the commission would live in, my suggestion was to create something new but keeping it in the world of textiles and that’s how odabashian came on board.’

‘myself and the museum agreed on was something with a very similar feel in terms of color, lyricism, and general emotional impact,’ trenton doyle hancock continues. ‘the scale (10ft by 24ft) is still quite large, so I made templates of trees in my sketchbook at a manageable scale, and shared them with johanna boccardo at odabashian. together we started to reimagine and build up the composition on the computer. once I got to the odabashian studio in miami we defined the forms and colors on the computer and with many samples to hand to decide techniques and materials. I wanted to make sure we could control that the piece had a consistent tonal range and that we could diced what stood out and what didn’t. from there it was a case of refining the design on the computer and then sending the patterns and samples off for production. it was a fairly tight turnaround and with COVID we were limited to digital updates, but as always the finished piece came back and exceeded my expectations.’