ArtClothText

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

Allyson Mitchell’s newest installation presents an epic gathering of figures, each one a monumental symbol of female brains, brawn and sexuality-a community of Lady Sasquatchs. The free standing, sculptural works by this Toronto-based artist marry feminist theory with her favourite material, fun fur. This curatorial project presents the artist’s realignment of feminine representation in which she symbolizes the mythical feminine as something not easily captured or domesticated, or harnessed to sell, yet undeniably powerful and attractive. Organized and circulated by the McMaster Museum of Art. Curator: Carla Garnet.

Join the Gallery for an artist talk with Allyson Mitchell on March 6 at 7 pm

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.

Masterworks Southwest is a juried exhibition of contemporary craft that will travel to various locations within southwestern Ontario between March-October, 2010.  The show will include all craft mediums from makers across the region. This call is open to all makers in southwestern Ontario residing in postal codes that begin with N, L0S, L0R including the urban centres of St.Catharines, Niagara, and Welland.  If you have created an outstanding piece of work in any craft media (clay, metal, fibre, glass, wood, stone, etc.) within the last two years, we urge you to apply.  The exhibition will travel to 5 galleries including Tom Thomson Art Gallery (Owen Sound), Art Gallery of Windsor and Jonathon Bancroft-Snell Gallery (London).

Application: http://craft.on.ca/OCC_News/Southwest_Update#Call_for_Entry

Deadline: Friday, January 15 at 5pm

Application Fee: $10 for OCC members, $15 for non-members

Jurors: Lois Betteridge, Christian Bernard Singer and Rhona Wenger

Artists Fees: Each participating artist will receive $200 following the exhibition

Battleground: War Rugs from Afghanistan, curated by Max Allen is currently at the Confederation Centre for the Arts in Prince Edward Island until January 24, 2010. The exhibition is being circulated by the Textile Museum of Canada.

Find more information and read the curatorial essay HERE.

CLICK cover image to read the new issue…

Benson Avenue Collective is delighted to invite you to the opening reception of the OutOffSide group exhibition, curated by Uros Jelic.  A reception will take place at 7pm on Saturday the 7^th of November 2009 at the Artscape Wychwood Barns Gallery, featuring Lynne Heller’s performance “Dancing With Myself”, a mixed reality exploration, attempting to confuse and subvert the boundaries betwee the online virtual world, “Second Life” and reality.

OutOffSide exhibition is showcasing works of 12 artists, each working with different media, highly individual and experimental, escaping contemporary art classification, exploring new ways to use old media or inventing new ways of expression.

For more information contact Uros Jelic at bensonavenuecollective@gmail.com

Participating artists are:

David Brown, Pierre Bouchard, Batya Cavens, David Cumming, Scott Garant, Mahla Ghasempour, Neil Harrison, Lynne Heller, Nancy Price, Sylvia Ptak, Zahide Tulugglu-Ugur, and  Jennifer Wardle

City of Craft Toronto Installation Programming
Call for Proposals
Deadline: August 31, 2009

City of Craft is looking for crafty artists and artsy crafters to create installations for this year’s City of Craft 2009, which will take place both in and around The Theatre Centre during the weekend of December 12-13, 2009. This year’s installation programming will be greatly expanded to include more installation artists and even more fantastic Queen Street West venues. For this year’s installations we hope to include a wide range of crafty approaches, which reflect the diversity and conceptual richness of contemporary craft practices. Several venues will be available to artists for City of Craft installation programming this year, from Queen West galleries, storefront windows and public spaces to the nooks and crannies of City of Craft’s fabulous and historic venue, The Theatre Centre. Some ideas for proposals could include (but are certainly not limited to!) the exploration of:

- crafty public interventions


- ‘digital craft’ (craft + video, craft + kinetics, etc)


- crafty performance


- textile-based installations


- participatory craft-based installations

To propose an installation, go to our online installation application:

http://www.cityofcraft.com/2009/cityofcraft/installations/form.php

For more information, or questions regarding City of Craft installation programming or submissions, contact: cityofcraft@gmail.com

Good luck!

Signed,

The City of Craft Collective

Volume 5 Issue 2/ Spring/ summer 2009 is now on line, with the title Entrepreneurial Textiles this double issue looks at the Inspired Design: Jacquard and Entrepreneurial Textiles conference which took place in Hendersonville, North Carolina this past January. Using the conference as a base we offer profiles of eight Canadian designer makers working with industrial or hand techniques in printing weaving and knitting to produce yardage for garments, fashion accessories and home décor products.

The issue is completed with reviews and previews of exhibitions Textile Arts of Canada at the Montreal Centre for Contemporary Textiles, Biennale Internationale du Lin de Portneuf 2009 in the Portneuf region in Quebec, and Thinking Different: Thinking JacquART in Haslach Austria which has been organized to coincide with the European Textile Networks 15^th annual conference.

www.velvethighway.com

submitted by Joe Lewis