ArtClothText

Visit www.mackenziefrere.com to view more…

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.

Anne Wilson, “Rewinds” (detail), 2010 Photo: Surabhi Ghos

January 22 to April 25, 2010

The Knoxville Museum of Art is delighted to present Wind/Rewind/Weave, a major exhibition of work by visual artist Anne Wilson. For three decades, Wilson has been regarded as an innovative and remarkable voice in the visual arts. Her work rests at the forefront of artwork connecting conceptualism and handiwork, activism and aesthetics. Through a diverse range of source materials and production methods, Wilson’s practice extends the relational in terms of labor, collaboration, and identity construction.

Wind/Rewind/Weave investigates the global crisis of production and skill based textile labor through three major works: Rewinds, a new sculpture created entirely in glass; video documentation of Wind-Up: Walking the Warp, a 2008 performance in Chicago; and a large site-specific project, Local Industry, that takes the form of an active weaving/winding factory set up in the museum space.

Exhibition, Members Opening: January 21, 5:30pm

Meet the Artist for a public discussion, January 23, 3:00pm

Scottish textile designer Angharad McLaren recently had a range of work on display at 100% Design London.

Read more at… MocoLoco: The Modern & Contemporary Design Blog

Join Anik See, Aritha, Romy, and Chris Tenz at Cantos Music Foundation for a fun, thought-provoking, interdisciplinary evening. A wine and cheese reception will follow the readings. This is a free event and open to the public.

Wednesday, October 7 at Cantos Music Foundation, 134 11 Ave SE, 2nd Floor Calgary, AB
Exhibition opens at 7:00 p.m.

Anik See is coming to Calgary all the way from Amsterdam to launch her new collection of short fiction, Postcard and Other Stories. To celebrate, Freehand Books has invited a trio of Calgary-based artists to respond to and engage with Anik’s work in various mediums. Aritha van Herk, renowned scholar and author, will be performing a special reading response, textile artist Romy Straafhof will expand on Anik’s interrogation of place in a visual exhibition entitled strata, layers and strands, and electronic musician Chris Tenz will provide a fitting soundtrack to the evening – soundscapes inspired by postcard and other stories.

Untitled, 2008, crocheted hemp and garden trellis - Lisa Cooley Fine Art

I recently discovered the work of Josh Faught reading an articlre by Jen Graves on SLOG. Faught is the latest winner of the Seattle Art Museum’s $15,000 Betty Bowen Award. He is represented by Lisa Cooley Fine Art in New York where he has an upcoming solo exhibition in early 2010. From his bio…

Josh Faught lives and works in Eugene, Oregon. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Fibers at the University of Oregon and has exhibited widely in the United States. His work not only graces the sleeves of the band Grizzly Bear’s recordings Horn of Plenty and Friend but also is included in the permanent collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Untitled, 2008, woven fabric, 4.5 x 8.25 inches - Lisa Cooley Fine Art

Click either image to view more of Faught’s work.

Workshop assistant and centre graduate Dahlia Milon prepares a warp on one of the facility’s two Jacquard looms.

Today I had the opportunity to visit the Montreal Centre for Contemporary Textiles with colleague Nancy Price. We were given a tour of this dynamic center of education and innovation by its director, artist and educator Louise Lemieux Berubé. Berubé and Régine Mainberger a fellow textile artist founded the centre in the early 1990`s. Acquiring its first Jacquard loom in 1996, the MCCT became one of the first North American educational institutions offering access to this technology, earning international attention.

Samples displayed in the Jacquard design classroom

The centre offers a three year college diploma program of textile design centered around Jacquard and multi-harness weaving and knitting for commercial production and personal expression. Remarkably, the studios remain available to graduates for a time after graduation to support the development of their professional work.

Samples displayed in the knitting studio

In addition to the diploma program, the centre also offers courses in Jacquard design to textile artists. The looms (and the hard-working technicians) at the centre are almost perpetually occupied weaving designs sent from artists around the globe.

Luckily our visit coincided with a display of work by graduating students that will be on display until July 2, 2009.

Mélanie Champagne’s machine-knitted, fulled wearables are at once elegant and surprising.

To see more images, or to learn more about The Montreal Centre for Contemporary Textiles, visit their website

This morning I had the pleasure of attending an artist talk at the Alberta College of Art + Design by Lethbridge artist Dagmar Dahle. As a weaver I was particularly engaged by the artist’s Weaving van Gogh series.

Using watercolour or latex paint, Dahle mixes the colours she finds in reproductions of van Gogh’s paintings and “weaves” her work in delicate lines of paint. She writes,

“In Weaving van Gogh, I drew heavily on the work of van Gogh scholars Debora Silverman and Carol Zemel, to explore the influence of weaving on the work of Vincent van Gogh. Countering popular notions of van Gogh as an isolated genius, my work, like the work of these scholars, looks at van Gogh’s life long interest in craft, labor and decoration as vehicles for elaborating socialist ideals and a pantheistic spirituality. My ‘woven’ paintings of his works reposition his work through the filter of feminism’s interrogation of the art/craft hierarchy.”

My woven textile artwork will be exhibited at the Mary E. Black Gallery, Nova Scotia Centre for Craft and Design in Halifax, Nova Scotia from Feb. 26th – April 12th, 2009. Contemporary Fibres is a four person exhibition featuring J. Penney Burton, Joanna Close, Margaret Forsey and myself, Rilla Marshall. The four of us graduated from NSCAD University in 2004 where we all studied textiles together. Five years later, we are all practicing textile artists, each exploring our chosen medium in very diverse ways. The opening for the exhibition takes place on Thursday, Feb. 26th at 6pm

I have also recently started an on-line blog – a great way for me to have a (free) on-line home base for my weaving practice, including both my production scarves and my artwork. Feel free to visit at: http://www.marshallarts79.blogspot.com I am updating it daily with thoughts and images about my work, inspirations, the art/craft community, and the business of craft.

submitted by Rilla Marshall