Smoke Signals

Anon.

Smoke Signals, 1979

Woven cigarette packaging

Rikers Island, Queens, New York

Smoke Signals is a well-proportioned shoulder bag woven from popular brand cigarette packaging. These materials were woven into a palette of green looping motifs, surrounded by red patterned diamonds anchored by variegated ivory squares. Many of these geometric forms reveal fragments of well-known images or text easily recognized at the time. Part of viewer enjoyment is the surprising transformation of familiar throw-away materials into handsome, useful new products. Williams, who began weaving bags in 1979, made this beautiful, well-crafted bag to give his mother. The gesture lets him lovingly touch someone outside from the confinement of his cell.

Rikers Island is New York City’s principal correctional facility housing more than 11,000 inmates. It is named for the Rycken family that grew wealthy in the 17th century while the area was still Dutch and known as New Amsterdam. The Rycken fortune was acquired through the sale of slaves and investments in the enterprise of transAtlantic slavery.