ArtClothText

March 20 – April 18, Trustman Art Gallery at Simmons College
fourth floor, Main College Building, 300 The Fenway, Boston

Opening Reception March 25, 5 to 7 pm (Simmons Choir performs at 6pm)

In this mixed-media installation undertaken in collaboration with the Simmons community, artist Robyn Love seeks answers to the question, “Have you ever made a decision with an unconditional yes?” Combining her knitted and crocheted aphorisms with text, objects, and artwork contributed by faculty, staff, students, and alumnae, the exhibition is both inclusive and provocative. Transforming the gallery’s center into a temporary “living room,” Love will host periodic knit-togethers during the course of the installation. A knitted trail pieced together from communal donations leads visitors to the “living room.”

Love explains, “I am hoping to encourage people to look a little deeper at some of their ideas about themselves. I think if we really consider why we make our choices, we can take responsibility for them and that gives us a lot of freedom. Also I hope that the process of creating this exhibition together will generate a renewed sense of community at Simmons.”

Love will be in the gallery – in the living room – from Monday to Thursday, March 22 – 25th, working and talking with visitors about the idea of unconditional yes.

submitted by Robyn Love

Visit www.mackenziefrere.com to view more…

Reknit was launched on January 4th, 2010 as a small project to share a resourceful family tradition with the world, and to encourage my mom to partake in her hobby more often. The project is based around the idea of reclaiming yarn from old clothes, and reknitting that yarn into something new and useful. … The site will feature a different item each month, which will be decided by user submitted votes.

VIA handmade charlotte

Stockings 2007, copper 2' x 8"

Based in Toronto, Lynn Jackson is an artist whose work explores themes of emotional and physical displacement.

Visit her WEBSITE

Poplar Gallery.Online invites you to view Bridge Work, a recent public art commission conceived and hand-made by artists Marci Simkulet and Stefanie Wong. 150 banners utilizing a variety of textile media including knitting, weaving and felt-making have been created for seven urban bridges spanning the Bow River in Calgary, Alberta. In many of the banners recycled materials (including old bridge banners) are used. These are applied in a site-specific manner, addressing the particular history and context of individual bridges. A massive undertaking, Bridge Work presents a compelling intersection of the hand-made and the architectural. Designed to be viewed by both pedestrians and drivers who use these bridges every day, Wong and Simkulet’s bridge banners are at once a humane and thoughtful presence in an urban landscape.

January 10 to 23, 2010, Marion Nicoll Gallery, Alberta College of Art + Design

Reception January 21, 5 to 6 pm

In Maternal Lineage artist Dana Buzzee stitches together the lives of the women in her genealogy. Using knit medium, Buzzee investigates their identities and histories. For each of the women in this lineage Buzzee designed and knit a baby dress.  The dresses stay true to the eras of the women represented through the selected styles and materials. Maternal Lineage is an installation that surveys Buzzee’s personal history and identity.

Knitting Sprawl is a cross-country art project exploring knitting, suburbia and community in Canada.  It is a large-scale collaboration that includes many components, including knitting, video, photography, and performance.  The work grows out of the series of organized meetings or “knit-togethers” that the artist attended with groups of people who knit in suburban communities across Canada, including Peterborough.  As the participants spend time with the artist and knit they have conversations about what life is like in their community, with a particular focus on the question: What is the center of our community? Through its multi-media approach and broad participation, Knitting Sprawl becomes a metaphor for the boundary-less, sprawling nature of our contemporary suburbs.

Cowichan native knitters were upset when they saw the sweater design worn by the woman in this photo. (CBC)

On a day when Vancouver’s police chief insisted his officers would not act with a heavy hand against Olympic protesters, B.C.’s solicitor general was having to field questions about how heavily Olympic security personnel have dealt with a group of First Nations knitters.

A group of women knitters in the Cowichan First Nation on southern Vancouver Island had announced they planned a protest next week against VANOC for allegedly appropriating their classic native sweater designs. READ MORE

Garland #21 is the latest in a series of interactive installations started in 2006 by artist Shane Waltener, involving members of the public in weaving, knotting and stitching. With his new piece, a series of choreographic sequences have been developed, linking movements associated with stitching and dancing. These are the basis for the performance which stands as an invitation for members of the public to contribute to the piece, and reflect on crafting as a ritualised and communal activity. The piece was devised by the artist in collaboration with dancer and choreographer Cheryl McChesney Jones.

For more information on the exhibition from Craftspace, curated by Helen Carnac, see www.takingtime.org and www.craftspace.co.uk

For opening times at the museum and the events programme see www.bmag.org.uk

submitted by Shane Waltener

Abigail Doan, Knitted Flotsam 01, 2009, Crocheted, twined, handspun and recycled fiber, string, balloon, paper, 12" x 7" x 6", courtesy of the artist

Knitted, Knotted, Netted provides an opportunity to sample some recent art made with knitting, knotting and netting. These techniques with ancient lineages have had a resurgence in the art world through the creativity and ingenuity of contemporary artists. Each of these methods involves the looping of a thread or cord; this differentiates them from braiding and weaving, in which elements may interlace but not necessarily loop through each other.

Two-and three-dimensional artworks use not only plant and animal materials but also industrial and synthetic materials, creating looped structures never envisioned in earlier contexts. Such work is innovative and surprising, inspiring to practitioners of textile and fiber arts and intriguing to a broader audience. Among the artists in this exhibition are several celebrated practitioners whose work explores the fluid boundary between the traditionally defined categories of “art” and “craft.”