"BUTTON ART" by REMY "MIMA" CABACUNGAN
"Button Art"
REMY "MIMA" CABACUNGAN
Pop-Up Exhibit Nov. 2, 2019
Just as the African-American community was graced by the masterful quilters of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, the Filipino-American community was graced by the cushion art of Remy “Mima” Cabacungan. In 2005, just before turning 98 years old, Mima participated in the group exhibit “Brown Strokes on White Canvas” at the University of Phoenix, curated by Julian Oteyza and Linda Pirrone. You can see a write-up I did at Our Own Voice, December 2008, accompanied by a press release that offers the history to Mima’s “Button Vision” for creating art based on embroidered cushions. I thought the works profound with their colorist perspectives, uplifting the pretty cushion genre into sophisticated postmodernism.
Here are some examples; I love the joyful wit of the third image entitled “Dalmatian”!
Ever since I saw the images of Mima’s “button art” at that exhibit, I had longed for one such cushion. Well, Mima’s daughter, poet-playwright-curator-editor-cultural activist Reme Grefalda visited San Francisco recently and donated one of Mima’s cushions to North Fork Arts Projects’ collection of Filipino-PilipinZ artists. Thus, I’m pleased to present a pop-up exhibit of the cushion in, but of course, the living room of NFPA’s curator:
"Button Art" (mixed genre, 16" x 12", circa 2005)
As you can see on this particular cushion, Mima created a graceful, elegant and lovely work through carefully choosing which buttons to sew against the blue silk. Mima apparently made her button choices from a jar of buttons collected over the years—I remember my own mother refusing to toss out buttons and just collecting them for possible future use which may not occur; thus, I inherited a large button collection when Mom passed. Surely many Filipino households—and non-Filipino households—offer the same trove from parents and relatives long gone. But I’m so grateful that Mima did find a use for her buttons before it was too late, and that she created fine art as a result!
Deep gratitude to Reme Grefalda for carrying the cushion to me on a long train ride from the northeast. Here she is before she gave the cushion to North Fork Arts Project:
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