Sophia Gupman: Reframing Letty Esherick’s Legacy

This month we opened a new exhibition by our current Artist-in-Residence, Kelly Cobb: Working at a Joyous Creative Thing: Weaving, Making, and Material Culture in Letty Esherick’s Legacy. The exhibition, on view in our Visitor Center through December 28th, highlights Cobb’s ongoing research and creative work at WEM. Unlike previous artists-in-residence, Kelly Cobb has focused her research not on Wharton himself but on Leticia (Letty) Nofer Esherick, the dynamic artist, dancer, educator, and creative powerhouse who married Wharton in 1912. The installation includes handwoven textiles by Letty and new works by Kelly, as well as artworks across disciplines by a group of skilled collaborators that range from handmade garments to sound art to embroidery.   

  One such collaborator is Sophia Gupman, a third-year fashion design and product innovation student at the University of Delaware (where Cobb teaches) who had the rare opportunity to analyze Letty’s garments – with particular focus paid to a handwoven vest – and offer a creative response of her own. Sophia’s piece in Working at a Joyous Creative Thing is a vest, constructed from compound ikat woven fabric, which harkens to Letty’s original vest while pushing the boundaries of what plaid can be. Sophia first met Kelly when she replied to a call to spin yarn, a skill that Sophia had acquired over years of exploring her love of textiles. 

When Kelly began her residency at WEM in early 2025, she sought Sophia out to be her summer intern, excited to involve her in the ongoing project of researching and responding to Letty Esherick’s creative legacy. Sophia’s internship was funded through a UD Summer Scholars Material Culture scholarship. Kelly and Sophia’s work began with the delivery of Letty’s handwoven, embroidered and printed textiles and garments to the University of Delaware textiles lab last summer. These materials remained largely unstudied until WEM staff uncovered them in 2022. Kelly and Sophia are among the first scholars to work with these materials, along with Jena Gilbert Merrill, WEM’s Curatorial & Interpretation Intern, in 2022.  Together, Kelly and Sophia reviewed publications relevant to Letty’s day, such as Handweaver & Craftsman magazine, and began to carefully analyze each textile using methodologies like those found in The Dress Detective. The approach laid out in this practical guide to analyzing fashion objects builds understanding of a garment through patient and thorough investigation. Seemingly minor details reveal the history of a textile, from creation to wearing and usage. Thanks to Kelly and Sophia’s work, the details of Letty’s pieces – measurements, drawings, descriptions, material patterns and processes – are now captured and recorded for future scholarship.  

  Letty’s handwoven vest was of particular interest to Sophia. To her eye, the style, silhouette and colors of the garment felt very contemporary. As Sophia put it, “there’s so much to it that you never get tired of it. It’s a plain weave but how [Letty] uses color is odd – it works but it doesn’t make sense.” Among Letty’s more delightfully baffling choices – yes, the fabric is a plaid, but it has no repeats! One gets the sense that Letty changed her yarn freely when she sat down at the loom, taking an intentional but intuitive and even painterly approach to making this garment. The wide array of colors are able to harmonize, demonstrating Letty’s impressive sense of color.   

  Sophia knew that she wanted to create a piece in response to Letty’s vest before the summer concluded. To better understand the fabric she analyzed the vest using a grid, plotting out each yarn of the weave across a paper measuring over six feet. Sophia wanted to push what a plaid could be, disrupting it with an unexpected woven texture, as well as to explore how such an approach might change artistically over time. She also wanted to tap into Letty’s interests and emotions – from her love of dance and movement to the joy and frustration held within her creative output.      For the final piece, Sophia decided to paint a plaid pattern rather than using yarns. After painting she then disassembled the woven fabric before reweaving it in a different pattern. This process, known as ikat, is a technique used by many different cultures worldwide. Particularly inspiring to Sophia is the Uzbek version, known as Abrabandi or “bound cloud.” The final fabric of Sophia’s vest is woven in an undulating twill. Together these methods depart from the traditional structures of weaving patterns, creating a captivating atmospheric quality and a sense of movement to the finished piece that both echoes Letty’s original and departs for new horizons.    

    Working at a Joyous Creative Thing: Weaving, Making, and Material Culture in Letty Esherick’s Legacy is on view in the WEM Visitor Center through December 28, 2025. » Please note, guests wishing to enter the Studio must make advance reservations for a tour. Details about visiting can be found here.   

Upcoming Programs:

» 9/27 Artist-in-Residence Research Talk: Kelly Cobb

» 11/15 Weaving Workshop with Kelly Cobb

 

» Learn more about the exhibition

» Learn more about Kelly Cobb’s residency research

  Post written by Katie Wynne, Deputy Director of Operations & Public Engagement September 2025