World of Threads: Sculpture and Assemblage

I may never make a piece of sculpture or assemblage, but I was fascinated to see what others can do in this medium when I visited the World of Threads Festival this week in Oakville and Toronto.

Montrealer Emily Jan constructed "Dürer's Rhinoceros", using resin for the head and repurposed textiles of all kinds for the body. The form was not stuffed, but was made fully dimensional by suspending it at various points from the ceiling. It was shown at the Joshua Creek Heritage Art Centre.




Megan Q. Bostic of Raleigh, North Carolina, had two pieces in the Festival. The piece on the left is titled "The First Year of Grief: Every day never feels like the yesterday I need it to." It took Megan a year to make this, and it is composed of 365 pieces of silk organza, as well as wax, waxed linen thread, powdered drink mix, and tea. Megan made this piece in response to her mother's death. It was part of the Memento Mori exhibit at Sheridan College.









Megan's second piece, "Stale Hope: Too Much Was Never Enough", was displayed at the Quiet Zone show at the Queen Elizabeth Park Community and Cultural Centre.
It is made of dental floss, plastic vinyl, bubble wrap, baby wipes, coffee grounds, twine and aluminum wire.












These haunting sculptures are by Camilla Geary-Martin, "Shroud #12", "Shroud #28", and "Shroud #8". They were shown at the Memento Mori show, and are made using a lost wax technique with woven metal.











Alice Vander Vennen had several beautiful assemblages in three shows. She uses copper, upholstery fabric and found objects in her work, assembled with machine stitching. The piece at left is "Totem 4". These pieces are framed and mounted under glass.

Finally, I was very taken with a work made of stiff white collars. Suspended from the ceiling, they looked like a flock of birds rising from a corn field. Their cast shadows on the white wall added another layer to the experience.

Sharon Moodie's "White Collar Boys" was showing at gallerywest in Toronto.

Many other fascinating sculptural pieces are on view at the show, but at some venues photos were not allowed.

World of Threads Festival

Very excited to travel to Oakville and Toronto this coming week, to attend the World of Threads Festival. With 195 artists from 12 countries and shows in 21 venues, this event has been three years in the making. Featured media include sculpture, installation, earth works, quilting, paper work, felting, mixed media, conceptual work, performance and many others.

For almost two years I have enjoyed my subscription to the World of Threads series of weekly artist interviews. The archive of these 83 interviews is a wonderful resource. For those new to fibre art, it is an intriguing glimpse into the infinite possibilities of fibre as a medium. 

Looking forward to sharing some fabulous finds!

Christmas cards

2012

It's that time of year again, when I sit down and try to come up with a fresh idea for my hand-made Christmas cards. These are little quilts,  measuring 4" x 6", backed with paper, and sent through the mail like post cards, without benefit of protective wrapper or envelope. I like to think of them traveling through the postal system, whether to Tucson or Oxfordshire, bringing a small delight to those handling the mail, and a smile to the recipient.


I use materials that I have on hand, and sometimes I continue with a theme that I'm working on at the time. Because I make two dozen or more, I don't want them to be too complicated.

2011

This year, I began with hand-dyed cotton, and used a stencil with pearlescent acrylic paint for the tree. The cotton was backed with batting before being machine stitched with silver thread to emphasize the lines of the tree. Then I heat-fixed some crystals onto the surface.

I used a heavy watercolour paper for the third layer, and zigzag stitched the perimeter with the silver thread.

2010

They are reasonably stiff, enough to weather their trip, and the paper will easily accept my scribbled greeting and address.

The Tuscan-themed edition of 2011 had no stitching other than the edge finish, but featured image transfer and multiple stamping on hand-painted cotton. I used a heavyweight interfacing for this one: because there was no quilting, there was no advantage to using batting.

The 2010 special was an extension of my Love, Love, Love theme. It had a Victorian feel, complete with antique buttons, pearls and lace and vintage-style photos. This version was a little too thick to pass the test for thinness at the post office, but once it was sheathed in a plastic wrapper, it was a go.

Of course it's too early for seasonal greetings, but it is satisfying to know I have a little stack all made and ready for their journey.

Show at Hudson Community Centre

I promise.... This is the last posting about showing my work for 2012. I have had six shows in five weeks, and frankly it's time for more making and less showing. Certainly less talk about showing. I have even turned down an opportunity for a group show later this month. Enough!







Michele Meredith and I will be exhibiting our fibre and mixed-media work at the Stephen F. Shaar Community Centre, 394 Main Road, Hudson, Quebec, November 2 - 29. The centre is open during regular office hours, and also sometimes evenings and weekends. Please phone 450-458-6699 to confirm if in doubt.

I will be showing recent work from my Tuscany and Cityscapes series. Thank you to all friends and family who have shown their support by coming to the various vernissages and to the Studio Tour. It has meant a lot to me.

Stewart Hall exhibition

I am delighted to have two pieces selected for the Art Rental Collection 2013 at Stewart Hall.


The Stewart Hall Art Gallery, at 176 Bord du Lac in Pointe Claire, is a beautiful exhibition space, with gallery lighting and raw brick walls. When your work is hung there it looks like... well... art.



More than one hundred works from Montreal artists have been chosen for the annual show, which runs from October 27 - November 25.

The vernissage is this Sunday, October 28, at 2 p.m.

Fibre Content show, Burlington ON

Delighted to have two of my pieces juried into Fibre Content, an important show coming up at the end of the month in Burlington, Ontario. The details are available on the poster below. I hope that you will visit the show if you're in the area. The venue is large and brightly-lit, and the organization of the show has been impeccable. Expect to see 128 examples of fibre art by 65 Canadian artists. 

Rooftop Terrasse 24" x 12" (sold)

53rd Street 24" x 18"

 

Hudson Artists Fall Show, Oct 19 - 21

Our local artists' group is over 60 years old, and numbers eighty members. More than thirty of us will be showing our work at the Hudson Community Centre this weekend, mostly paintings of all kinds but also some mixed media and fibre. Please see the poster below for details. I hope to see you there!

And...

...Michele Meredith and I will be holding a joint show of our work in fibre, collage and mixed media in the lobby of the Hudson Community Centre throughout the month of November.

The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield

I read this book twice during my holiday. A slim little volume at 165 pages, but meaty and inspirational.

The author is an accomplished writer of historical fiction, and has also written other books about creativity. To quote Jay McInerney, author of Bright Lights, Big City, "I've never read a self-help book that wasn't fatuous, obvious and unhelpful. Until The War of Art. It's amazingly cogent and smart on the psychology of creation. If I ever teach a writing course this would be one of the first books I'd assign, along with the letters of Flannery O'Connor."

In Book One, Pressfield writes about Resistance in all its forms, that force that gets between you and your accomplishment, whether it's starting an exercise program, a new business or charity, or finishing your paintings, poems or screenplays. Resistance can manifest itself as procrastination, addiction and recovery. It can show its power in ongoing family drama, allowing oneself to be victimized, and psychosomatic illness.

I was briefly a fan of The Artists's Way, by Julia Cameron. Then I decided that rather than journaling daily about my struggles with creativity, it would be better to just get in there and spend that time making my art. "Just do it." This is very much the theme of Book Two. By comparing the amateur to the pro,  Pressfield makes his points about the importance of showing up and doing the work every day. The author speaks from long personal experience that having a professional attitude is a prerequisite to achieving one's goals.

Book Three is a thorough discussion of Inspiration, and all the good things that follow from doing the work. An excellent book that would be helpful to the aspiring artist, the entrepreneur wannabe, and anyone with a dream.

Inspired by Hopper

On a guided walking tour of Montmartre, I couldn't help but take these Hopper-inspired photos. Perhaps they'll find their way into my work.

Preview: Edward Hopper

Balcon, Albert Marquet, 1904

Yesterday we saw an exhibition at the Musée du Luxembourg. It featured a collection of paintings acquired by the Cercle d'Art Moderne. Basically, this was a group of wealthy businessmen centred around Le Havre, France, who bought and promoted modern art in the early years of the 20th century.

Many of their first acquisitions were Impressionist, but as artists moved beyond Impressionism, so did the collections. Even someone like Renoir, an icon of Impressionism, tired of this style in his later years, and reintroduced concerns of "form" in his work, using light, shadow and contour to model his subjects.

Le Haut-de-Forme, Vallotton, 1887

I was struck by two paintings, because they seemed to foreshadow the vision of Edward Hopper. The first, "Balcon, avenue de Versailles" by Albert Marquet, was painted in 1904. The second, "Le Haut-de-forme" or "La Visite", is by Félix Vallotton, dated 1887.


Hopper lived in Paris for two or three years between 1906 and 1910, where he studied art and was no doubt influenced by French painters of the time.

Early Sunday Morning, Edward Hopper, 1930

Sun in an Empty Room, Edward Hopper, 1963

There is a major show on Hopper opening today at the Grand Palais, and when I visit the show tomorrow, I hope to learn more about his early influences.

Fibre Art at Amsterdam's Central Library

This large, colourful piece of fibre art greeted us on the fifth floor of the Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam, Europe's largest public library. It was made of...

...socks. That is, sections cut from never-worn socks, then folded and inserted under flaps of commercial felt. I wasn't able to find any information about the artist or the piece, but it was visually effective, and probably functional too, in that it no doubt absorbs unwanted sound in the library's "quiet" area nearby.

On arrival to the Library, visitors are welcomed by a woven woolen wallhanging that covers an entire wall by the entrance. 

As you can see in the detail shot at right, the horizontal bands are made of highly-textured yarns. I find it interesting to see the warmth and textural qualities of fibre used to enliven large, modern public spaces that might otherwise be cold and forbidding.

Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum

Visited the Modern Art Museum in Amsterdam today, and saw this piece of fibre art. It was made in 1932 by Dutch artist Herman Scholten, and was acquired by the Museum in the early 1970's.

Seeing this today made me think of a remark made at the recent executive meeting of one of my groups. It was noted with some satisfaction that the group, composed almost entirely of painters,  has recently accepted for membership artists who work in "craft-like media": fibre and ceramics. Picasso worked with both!



And here is another piece that I liked very much, "Charlene", by Robert Rauschenberg, 1954. This is one of his "Combines", both painting and sculpture, and certainly collage. He incorporated many found items into the piece: fibre, newspaper, plastic, wood, mirror, metal, an electric light, and a letter from his mother.

I'd like to think that my group would have considered Rauschenberg for membership, should he have applied.