Stained glass in motion: Inside the work of a Colorado banner artist
DEL NORTE, Colo. — Fabric stretches across a 7-foot table as Mettje Swift and her assistant lean over the surface, guiding a heated cutting tool through a smooth curve. The blade melts through the nylon in one steady motion. Piece by piece, the banner begins to take shape.
“Banners are as old as people,” said Swift, founder of Banner Art Studio in Del Norte. “They’ve always been used to make a statement about who you are, what your aspirations are, and where you want to be.”
Swift is creating a new banner for the Music in the Mountains event in Durango, which takes place from July 9 to Aug. 2. The piece, measuring about 30 feet wide and 5 feet tall, will hang downtown.
Swift has created banners for other local celebrations, including Animas River Day, Durango Wine Experience and the World Mountain Bike Championships. She describes her work with pride.
“My banners don’t even compete with other banners. It’s almost a separate art form. It has the power of stained glass in motion,” Swift said.
Swift has been making banner art for almost 50 years. Starting in 1978, she has created cross-street banners, indoor installations and other fabric-based works using translucent nylon.
She began with sewing and theater stagecraft in college before learning the border appliqué technique that shapes her work. She hand-cuts and sews each piece together using a layering technique similar to stained glass, allowing light to pass through. The lightweight material also moves with the wind, adding movement to the piece (but not too much movement, like the doomed “Valley Curtain” piece from the artist Christo in 1972).
Swift’s process is labor-intensive. Each project begins with conversations about what a client wants to express, followed by large-scale pattern-making, hand-cutting each nylon piece with a heated tool and sewing the panels together one by one.
A single cross-street banner, which costs between $6,000 and $7,000, can take up to six weeks to complete in her studio.
“Mettje’s banners are very colorful and long-lasting,” said Tim Walsworth, executive director of the Durango Business Improvement District and a Snowdown board member. “Even though they might cost more, they stand out much better than a vinyl banner does. The point of putting up these banners in Durango is last-minute advertising for an event, so anything that catches people’s attention more is well worth it.”
Ultraviolet light, emitted by the sun, is the biggest threat to nylon, but in Durango’s canyon setting — where sunlight is more limited — banners can last up to 40 years.
Swift’s banners have appeared in Durango, Silverton, Ignacio and Denver. She said towns who commission her work use the banners not just as signage but as art pieces.
“The banners are alive because they move with the wind,” Swift said. “When you add light and color, you see the life, and that’s what captures my heart and most people’s."
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