Xenobia Bailey facts for kids

Xenobia Bailey (born 1955) is an American artist. She is famous for her colorful, African-inspired hats and large crochet artworks called mandalas. She uses fiber art to create her unique pieces.

Early Life and Learning

Xenobia Bailey was born Sherilyn Bailey in Seattle in 1955. In the 1980s, she changed her name to Xenobia. This name comes from a strong warrior queen from ancient Palmyra. After changing her name, she moved to New York City.

She started her career designing costumes for a group called Black Arts/West. In 1977, she earned a degree in Industrial Design from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. She also studied at the University of Washington. There, she learned about ethnomusicology, which is the study of music and culture from around the world. She also took classes in tailoring and making hats.

In the late 1980s, Xenobia taught art through a special program. This is where she met Bernadette Sonona, a master at needlework. From Bernadette, Xenobia learned how to create amazing needlework without using patterns.

Amazing Artworks

Funktional Vibrations, a mosaic artwork from 2016. You can see it at the 34th Street subway station in New York City.

Bailey's art often uses old African styles. She brings back forgotten designs and cultural treasures. Her goal is to create new, nature-inspired, futuristic art. She wants to help communities that were affected by the Atlantic Slave Trade.

Her large crochet pieces and mandalas are full of bright colors. They often have circles inside circles and repeating patterns. Her art includes costumes, hats, and wall hangings. These pieces are very different from traditional crochet items like shawls.

Xenobia's work is part of her big project called Paradise Under Reconstruction in the Aesthetic of Funk. She wants to create a special textile art style for African Americans. This style was not able to fully develop because of slavery.

Bailey uses a special crochet method. She mostly uses circular rows of single crochet stitches. This creates a fabric called tapestry crochet. Her designs are flat, geometric, and very colorful. They are inspired by African, Chinese, Native American, and Eastern ideas. Her art also has a "Funk" style from the 1970s.

She uses ideas from the Kongo cosmogram, a symbol important in Kongo spiritual beliefs. Her special stitch looks like a flowing line, almost dripping. She calls it the "liquid stitch."

Xenobia's hats have been shown in many places. They appeared in ads for United Colors of Benetton. They were also on The Cosby Show and in the Spike Lee movie Do The Right Thing. In the movie, Samuel L. Jackson wore one of her hats.

An artist named Nick Cave inspired her to make larger wall pieces. In 2000, her piece "Sistah Paradise Great Wall of Fire Revival Tent (Mandela Cosmic tapestry of energy flow)" was shown. It was a hand-crocheted piece, 10 feet high and 5 feet wide. In 2000, she also won the Creative Capital Award for her art.

In 2003, her designs were featured in an Absolut Vodka advertisement. Xenobia has also been an artist-in-residence at several places. These include the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Society for Contemporary Craft. She even experimented with electroluminescent wire in her crochet. Her art has been shown in many museums.

In 2006, she created a hanging artwork called Mothership 1: Sistah Paradise's Great Walls of Fire Revival Tent. This piece was part of her Paradise Under Reconstruction project. It helped tell the story of African enslavement in America.

In 2014, Bailey worked with students from Boys & Girls High School in Brooklyn. They designed furniture for the Historic Hunterfly Road Houses. Sixty students, aged 14–17, used recycled materials for their designs.

In 2016, Xenobia Bailey made a huge glass mosaic for the New York City Subway. It is at the 34th Street – Hudson Yards station. She named this artwork Funktional Vibrations. Bailey crocheted the design first. Then, a studio digitized it and turned it into the mosaic. That same year, she also took part in the SITE Santa Fe Biennial art show.

Bailey was an artist-in-residence in 2018 at the McColl Center for Art + Innovation in Charlotte, North Carolina.

In 2020, Bailey revealed a new public mosaic called "Morning Stars." It is at the new Pier District in St. Petersburg. Also in 2020, she designed a permanent artwork for the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington DC.

In the summer of 2021, Bailey's artwork Mothership was shown at Brookfield Place. It was displayed under her canopy called Functional Frequency Environment.

In 2024, Xenobia Bailey had her first solo gallery show in New York City in over twenty years. It was called "Paradise Under Reconstruction in the Aesthetic of Funk: The Second Coming." The show featured about twenty of her recent and older crochet works.

Art Collections

Xenobia Bailey's art is kept in many permanent collections. These include the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. Her work is also at the Allentown Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Arts, the Texas Fashion Collection, and the Museum of Arts and Design.

Exhibitions

Solo Shows

• 2002: Xenobia Bailey: Paradise Under Reconstruction in the Aesthetic of Funk—Phase IV (January 18 - February 17)
• 2008: Jersey City Museum, [RE]Possessed (June 16 - August 24, 2008)
• 2015: Funktional Vibrations, Glass Mosaic, at the 34th St–Hudson Yards Station (Permanent Installation 2015)
• 2020: Morning Stars, St. Pete Pier, St. Petersburg, Florida (permanent installation)
• 2020: Permanent installation, Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Washington, DC

Group Shows

• 2015: Fiber: Sculpture 1960–Present at ICA Boston (October 1 - January 4, 2015)
• 2017: Studio Views: Craft in the Expanded Field, Museum of Arts and Design, New York City (October 24 - December 17, 2017)
• 2019: Vibration & Frequency Experiment Funktional Material Culture Design Lab, Seattle at Wa Na Wari

Awards and Honors

In 2000, Xenobia Bailey won a Creative Capital grant. This was for her project, Paradise Under Reconstruction in the Aesthetic of Funk. In 2017, Bailey won the Americans for the Arts Public Art Year in Review Award. This was for her artwork Paradise Under Reconstruction in the Aesthetic of Funk: A Quantum Leap, Starting From The Top…!!! In 2019, Bailey was one of the first people to receive the BRIC Colene Brown Art Prize.