Alison Heryer, the Sue Horn-Caskey & Charles F. Caskey Professor of Textile Arts and Costume Design at the Schnitzer School of Art + Art History + Design, has been named the 2024 College of the Arts Researcher of the Year.
Every year, during PSU’s Research Week, the university’s Research Awards recognize faculty members who have shown extraordinary dedication to their fields and have gone above and beyond in their research, scholarship, creativity, and commitment to the success of PSU students. Recipients of the awards are nominated by their colleagues and selected by a jury of their peers.
Heryer is an interdisciplinary artist who combines textiles, performance, and social practice to explore where clothing comes from, how it is made, and how it is used to construct identity. She obtained her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art from Washington University in St. Louis and her Master of Fine Arts in Costume Design from the University of Texas at Austin.
Her research focuses on developing sustainable and inclusive approaches to clothing the body in various contexts such as entertainment, fashion, and contemporary art.
Apart from costume design, Heryer explores innovative uses of textiles in performances, installations, and exhibitions. Her previous projects include Vestige, Picnic, Calorie Count, and WEAVE / REPAIR.
Heryer created Vestige in collaboration with choreographer Tere Mathern as part of a residency Heryer did in 2017 with New Expressive Works. The goal of N.E.W.’s annual urban residency program is to create an incubation space where artists from diverse backgrounds can come together to create an original 20-minute performance piece. Heryer and Mathern’s piece, Vestige, utilized movement, fabric, and paper to create a dynamic visual experience. Oregon ArtsWatch described the performance as “a sensuous and inventive piece that definitely engaged the audience.”
In 2012, Heryer created the social engagement initiative, Picnic, in Kansas City. The project involved the creation of a large, abstract quilt pieced together from four hundred canvas squares that Heryer invited community members to decorate using red house paint, brushes and an assortment of various items to use as stamping implements. The squares were then staked into the ground as a large, irregularly shaped picnic blanket in the Kansas City Sculpture Park. In 2022, she brought the initiative to Portland, placing the installation in Oregon Contemporary’s courtyard, as an effort to combat the social isolation that had developed in the wake of the pandemic. Both installations worked to encourage community members to share discourse and engage with one another through the medium of a picnic blanket.
Heryer and the other awardees will be recognized at the annual Research Awards Ceremony on Friday, May 10, 2024.
In addition to being named the College of the Arts Researcher of the Year, Alison Heryer also recently received the College of the Arts Dean’s Council Award for Research, Scholarship, and Creativity. She will be formally recognized for both achievements by Dean Leroy Bynum, Jr. at the College of the Arts Commencement ceremony in June 2024.