BMA 1984.63

The background, even more energetic than the skeleton, is a virtual maze of circles and loops, twists and turns, made resplendent with shiny silver sequins and pools of glistening turquoise beads. It is an image built up with layer upon layer of vividly colored cloth in tones of red, maroon, pink, green, orange, purple, and blue. A layer of elaborate stitchery (impossible to see in the slide) forms an intricate web over the surface.

What is this image all about? Why does this "Nuclear Nanny," presumably dead, seem so alive? What should we think about a somber skeleton surrounded by vibrant colors, snazzy beads, and sequins?

When Joyce Scott made Nuclear Nanny, she was deeply concerned that if today's people carelessly misuse nuclear power, they will do irreversible damage not only to the planet but also to future generations of the human race. A "nanny" is a person who cares for and protects children as they grow. Perhaps by presenting this nanny as a skeleton, Scott is asking several questions: Are we, as a human race, protecting our children or are we presiding over their destruction? Are we surrounding ourselves with so much frenzied activity and glitz that we cannot see what the future might bring?

Scott's work can be interpreted in many ways. She has said that she likes her work to be somewhat mysterious and "multi-meaningful." Still, she says "I...try to give you signposts along the way."

"Playing off the line between life and death is common to many, if not all cultures. But for me as an African American, and being brought up in the Pentecostal church, one of the things that I know is the notion that this life is temporal..."

One critic summarizes Scott's work by saying that "Scott insists on taking on the biggest issues in the smallest scale and most intimate materials."

"It's important to me to use art in a manner that incites people to look and then carry something home - even if it's subliminal - that might make a change in them...through my art I cannot solve all our social problems. I can, hopefully, help get you, the viewer, to open your brain. I think that's what all artists do."

Handling cloth comes as second nature to Joyce Scott who grew up in a family of quilters. Her mother, a quilter for more than sixty years, passed the skills on to Joyce as did her two grandmothers and a grandfather. Joyce went to school in Baltimore City and remembers that her teachers encouraged her and recognized that she had "that glint you get in your eye when you're pursuing something."

After graduating from Maryland Institute, College of Art, Joyce went on to study crafts in Mexico and Central America, the American Southwest, and Africa. Her list of interests grew longer and longer to include weaving, crocheting, leatherwork, beadwork, metalwork, tie-dye, batik, paper-making, and of course, quilting. The more she learned, the more she liked to combine techniques from many "odd corners of the world." One of the little-known places where Scott studied is the San Blas Islands of Panama. From the native Cuna Indians, she learned the art of making a "mola."

A Panamanian mola is a shirt which has been stitched using a highly sophisticated appliqué technique. The technique involves making a stack of colored cloths, sewing the stack loosely together, then cutting a hole into the upper layer so that part of the second layer is exposed. The artist can proceed to cut a hole in the second layer to expose part of the third layer, and so on down to the bottom of the stack. Each cut edge is carefully turned under and hemmed.

The mola technique developed many years ago when the Cuna Indians started trading their island's coconuts for colored cotton cloth, needles, scissors, and knives. Their molas are decorated with pictures of birds, fish, snakes, flowers, and even more up-to-date images such as helicopters seen in advertisements or posters.

Nuclear Nanny is not a true mola in the sense that it is not a shirt. However, it uses the mola technique to produce an irregularly shaped panel of vibrant color and striking images. Joyce Scott believes wholeheartedly that a work of stitchery can be just as much a work of art as a painting.

"There is no difference between crafts and the so-called fine arts.... Crafts are just art in different media. I don't make class distinctions in art. The only distinctions I make are between the crummy and the good....

"I think there is something strange about the idea that it's not as aesthetically profound for someone to make a cup as it is for someone to make a painting."