“Ahead of her time.” This was one of the first things that Nancy Hemenway Barton’s son, Bill Barton, said about his mother during a lecture last month with Jill D’Alessandro, curator of the Denver Art Museum’s Avenir Institute of Textile Arts & Fashion. And walking through the exhibition, Confluence of Nature: Nancy Hemenway Barton, it’s easy to understand why. Although some of her earliest works date back to the 1960s and ‘70s, Hemenway Barton’s textile sculptures look as though they would fit seamlessly into a contemporary art gallery.
Nancy Hemenway; 1976; Forsdick Studio on Mouse Island, Maine
Courtesy of Wheaton College, Massachusetts. Gift of the Barton Family.
Nancy Hemenway Barton (1920–2008) was a multidisciplinary artist who focused primarily on textiles, creating large-scale wall reliefs made from hand-loomed fabrics. Many of these materials she sourced from Indigenous communities whom she had made connections with while living abroad. Her work was influenced by the cultural textile traditions of South America, where she lived for several years, and also by her love of music and poetry. Her greatest inspiration, however, was the natural world.
Bill Barton described how Hemenway Barton was taking “what she saw in nature and what she studied in nature … and distilling it. Over and over, taking the images that she got from nature, even the minutest observations, and turning them into a process, what she compared to the making of maple syrup: how you distill it, and distill it, until you get down to the essential sweetness.”
Epiphyte; 1972–77; cotton; 95 x 162 in.
Denver Art Museum: Gift of the artist’s sons and their families, estate of Nancy H. Barton.
That essential sweetness can be felt in all the works currently on display at the Denver Art Museum. The careful layers of thought behind each work are revealed further when you look at the artist’s writing, which often accompanied her work.
“The seed of a bird on a lonely bough high above the earth bursts and drops fresh roots, air spun, twisting down, down until an armature of wood begun so subtly spreads to overcome a gentler host.
Adventitious branch constructing sculpture from epiphytic heritage explodes rock and soil, covering forest, simply by existing without toil.
Its secret strength, ability on air to thrive, while
A trusting host needs
Nourishment to stay alive.
MORAL: Sometimes just breathing is enough.”
Blazer; 1988; lamb’s wool; couching, chain and satin stitch embroidery; 104 x 112 in.
Courtesy of Wheaton College, Massachusetts. Gift of the Barton Family, estate of Nancy H. Barton.
Confluence of Nature: Nancy Hemenway Barton explores the artist’s five major bodies of work: Ancient Images of Mexico and the Andes; Textures of Our Earth; Aqua Lapis; New England Light; and Late Works. The exhibition is on view now through October 19, 2025 at the Denver Art Museum in the Textile & Fashion Arts galleries in the Martin Building. This exhibition is included with general admission.
All images courtesy of the Denver Art Museum.
Thaw; 1994; cotton, wool; running stitch embroidery
Photo credit: Eric Stephenson, Denver Art Museum. On loan by the artist’s three sons and their families.
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Emily Pillard wears many different hats in her work for Fiber Art Now and Quiltfolk magazines. She received an MA in art history and museum studies from the University of Denver and engages in her own artistic practice in her free time.
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