Fiber Fusion Travelling Exhibition

Deborah Taylor: I Like The Way You Dance

The Surface Design Association of Washington State announces the Opening of Fiber Fusion, a year-long juried exhibition and celebration of textiles and surface design techniques, at the VALA Art Center in Redmond. The exhibition opened at Redmond Town Center’s VALA Art Center on November 10 and runs through January 15, 2017.

Axford: Counterpoint 1

A public Opening Reception at VALA was held on Saturday, November 19. Rock Hushka, lead curator at Tacoma Art Museum and one of the Fiber Fusion jurors, were giving a talk at the Opening.

Arisa Brown: Trepa

Additional locations include: Northwind Arts Center in Port Townsend (February 2-26) and Schack Arts Center in Everett. (March 10 - April 3). The debut location was the Gallery at the Park in Richland, WA.

Claire Jones: Whole Surface Vitality 2

Fifty-four artists were selected for the four-city exhibition. Fiber Fusion jurors were Layne Goldsmith, University of Washington Professor of Art and past chair of the Fibers Program, Young Chang, MFA in Fiber and Owner­­–– Gallery IMA, Seattle and Rock Hushka, MA Art History and Director of Curatorial Administration, Tacoma Art Museum.

Nancy Loorem-Adams: Birth Of The Grid

Local Members Selected

Local Eastside chapter members whose work has been accepted include: Christina Fairley Erickson, Bellevue; Gale Whitney, Bellevue; Crystal A Edwards, Redmond; Maura Donegan, Issaquah; and Rebecca Wachtman, Renton.

Gwen Lowery: Wheels

Additionally, GJ Gillespie, Kirkland and Erika Carter, Renton will display work at the Schack Arts Center location. In conjunction with the exhibition, several of the Eastside members will have additional pieces on display at VALA.

Jeannie McMacken: Dinner At La Belle Equipe Smoke Dress

Eighty-eight artists representing 39 Washington cities and towns entered the competition with 246 entries. Artist techniques include fabric manipulation, hand and machine embroidery, painting, wet felting, shibori, bojagi, and botanical dyeing. Some of the unusual materials used include stainless steel, sock monkeys, gunpowder, vintage kimono, acrylic, newspapers, sand, wood, gut and hair.

Seiko Purdue: Bullet Cloth

Workshops Scheduled

Concurrent with Redmond’s Surface Design celebration, VALA will host a mini-workshop on dyeing and embroidery at the Redmond Senior Center. The instructor, Christina Fairley Erickson, also serves as the Executive Director of the Fiber Fusion exhibition. For information and registration contact the Redmond Sr. Center: https://apm.activecommunities.com/redmondparksandrec/Activity_Search/rsc-dye-and-embroider-mini-workshop/7107 or call 425-556-2314

Geraldine Warner: Cryoscape

Surface Design

Surface design art uses elements of surface design—which includes dyeing, painting, printing, stitching, embellishing, quilting, weaving, knitting, beading, felting, and paper making— or that in some way manipulates or alters the surface of a “textile.” A textile is defined as any material that takes on the properties of cloth. Work can be functional or non-functional, and can be for the wall, the body or as decoration.

Joyce Wilkerson: Cloth Shadow Line

The Fiber Fusion exhibition is underwritten by the Surface Design Association and sponsored by Blick Art Materials.

The Surface Design Association is a non-profit arts organization founded in 1977 and is comprised of artists, students, educators, gallery owners and curators. It has 215 members in Washington, and over 3,000 internationally.

VALA:- VALA (Venues for Artists in the Local Area) Eastside, was founded in 2010 by Jessica Kravitz and John Lambert based in Redmond, Washington. VALA’s mission to connect artists to artists, artists to the community, and the community to art is achieved by featuring local artists who are particularly interested in connecting to the community in meaningful ways.

For more information about Fiber Fusion visit: www.surfacedesignwa.com
www.sdafiberfusionshow.org,
www.facebook.com/surfacedesignwa/

No Serial Number - Eco Print

No Serial Number - A new magazine to me, and probably a new magazine to others. No Serial Number is on its seventh issue with a theme that is probably going to appeal to a lot of those who visit this site.

Dyes, fabrics, fibres are a central focus of this magazine, their central core in fact. It is interesting to have an arts magazine that embraces tradition and innovation within textiles, a number have tried before and never quite got the balance right, but No Serial Number seem to have got it right, even to the point of printing on recycled paper, something that is sure to appeal to many of you out there.

This new winter issue of No Serial Number focuses on eco printing, something that is gaining in popularity, gaining momentum within textile art and textile craft, and gaining space within the textile industry. The subtleties of the visual effects of natural dyeing and printing are also beginning to be appreciated. High, dense colour has its place, but so too does textured low-keyed colour. The complexity of natural dyeing is a near art form in its own right.

This issue of No Serial Number has reports on dye workshops, foraging for plants to use in printing, eco felt, practical dyeing details, recipes, experimenting, weaving, sustainability, traditions, All subjects connected to eco dyeing and printing, all subjects with long traditions, but also subjects with a very healthy contemporary feel and understanding to them.

I must admit, this is a great magazine for anyone interested in taking an holistic approach to textiles. It definitely has a feel of being connected to both past and present, to both textile art and textile craft, of being both global and regional, individual and tribe. Excellent!

For more information about No Serial Number, which is a pretty cool name by the way, check their website: http://noserialnumber.org/

Also check their social media: 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/noserialnumbermagazine

Twitter: https://twitter.com/N0serialnumberM

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/noserialnumber.com_magazine/

Rita Summers - The Making of Mary Mordaunt

Trapped, constricted, tied down by societies rules of norm. It is a shared history for many, and depressingly a largely female one. Whilst many men had at least some room for manoeuvre within their lot, some could work their way into different fields, different positions, some could emigrate, start afresh, anew, women could only really change their circumstances under the shadow of another. 

The men in their life, whether father, brother, husband, son, often set the parameters of a womans life, and the opportunities, or lack of them. Women had few if any outlets for growth, and were expected to support and compliment the world of the men in their life, that role was rarely reciprocal.

I know from the stories in my own family history, as well as that of others, the staggering amount of women, generation after generation after generation, who lived in frustration, angry at the tiny world they were deemed to need. Many of them more sharply aware that they were more talented, more energetic, more dynamic than many of the men that surrounded them, yet, powerless to make a significant mark of their lives, to drive it in a direction that suited them, to have a purpose that didn't involve household and family.

Which inevitably leads us to Rita Summers and The Making of Mary Mordaunt. Rita Summers is a mixed media artist who produces work in a range of mediums from textiles to books, from fashion to art prints, and assemblages. She uses eco printing and dyeing, as well as mixed media techniques, and stitching and drawing.

The Making of Mary Mordaunt project was an important one for Rita, as a woman, and perhaps more specifically as a contemporary woman. Rita is fully aware that the contemporary world is in many ways a different place than it has been for so many countless generations of women, but she is also aware that in many ways it is still exactly the same. So in some respects, the Mary Mordant project reflects the past constriction in the role of a woman as individual, but can equally reflect the present constriction that many women still find themselves in within own present world.

I am going to allow Rita to give the detailed description and purpose of The Making of Mary Mordaunt, in her own words. There is little I would want to change or add, so it seems fitting.

Mary Mordaunt was a young woman in the early 1900's who, like everyone, had hopes and dreams that she put on hold for family and financial reasons.  She deeply wanted purpose in her life, beyond the usual daily routine activities.  Sometimes the frustration became almost more than she could bear, and she would feel herself unravelling.  Her dilemma is an age-old one, especially for women, even today.  The vintage clothing I've repurposed, the torn silk, the rust - all these express in visual form who she was and how she felt.  The vintage suitcase represents both her desire to travel and see the world, and her willingness to drop everything to be with those she loved, even if it meant putting her own wishes on hold.  The shredded paper symbolizes how she felt when she was torn between her responsibilities and her dreams.  Mary Mordaunt's story could be anyone's, including mine!

Just like to say a big thankyou to Rita for the opportunity to feature Mary Mordant, it was both a pleasure an an honour, and also to give credit where credit is due, Mary Mordant being a finalist in the national Bibliography Art Award 2016, in Port Fairie, Victoria, Australia. 

Rita has a website: www.gonerustic.com. She can also be found on social media sites: twitter, facebook

One final note, the imagery for this article was supplied by the artist, and you really do need to ask her permission before sharing any of the imagery. Thanks

I leave you with the final few words Rita penned regarding Mary Mordaunt:

a ticking clock

shreds time

my secret dreams

exposed

my patience ripped

away

can hope emerge

unfrayed

or is this all there is

The Fibre Fables Exhibition at The Stainless, New Delhi

The Fibre Fables exhibition, which is running at the The Stainless gallery, in New Delhi, India, is a collaborative effort between contemporary artists/film makers/ photographers/sculptors

​/

installation artists and weavers in Raj Group's factory at Panipat

​, India.​

The eleven participating artists are: Abeer Gupta, Brahm Maira, Dhvani Behl, Durga Kainthola, Nidhi Khurana, Nikheel Apahle, Puneet Kaushik, Sahaya Sharma, Sandeep Biswas, Shivani Aggarwal, Vibhu Galhotra.

This looks to be a fascinating collaborative effort between so many unique and individual artists, that it would be well worth visiting the gallery if you are in the New Delhi area throughout December 2015.

The curator of the exhibition is Shailin Smith, and it seems only right that, after so much effort put into the exhibition, they explain the reasoning behind Fibre Fables.

​The Raj Group was established in 1939, a

midst a growing industry of carpet weaving. They gradually evolved to establish high profile clients and today are one of the leading exporters and manufacturers of home décor in Panipat. Yet at the same time, somehow The Raj Group is in a paradoxical situation, where the glory of progress is dampened with the ever dwindling state of the weaving industry.  As machine made products take over the significance of fine hand crafted pieces, it is increasingly essential that the focus lies on salvaging the craft of an industry that has thrived for almost a century.

The idea for the exhibition emerged as a project that involved the collaboration of artists and weavers coming together to create works of art. 

​

This collaboration between art, design and craft, is a result of the relationship shared between the artists and weavers for almost a year.  Weaving in the collective aesthetic of knowing each other and responding to the marked journey full of experimental concepts. 

The artworks in this exhibition are not art itself; they are also a voice that echoes technique and craftsmanship. The works ubiquitously weave a visual fabric to communicate the many possibilities of liberal creative endeavour. They carry within, embedded memories that resonate an exchange of different disciplines and backgrounds. 

As the artists have learnt about various material forms and weaving techniques, the weavers have learnt to view their craft through the fresh perspective of art. Moving beyond boundaries, both have embraced a greater potential. And so the artist-weaver collaboration comes through in this exhibition, that aims to reflect what two creative souls can achieve, when they drop all inhibitions and dissolve in the purity of art. 

The Fibre Fables exhibition runs at The Stainless gallery, Old Ishwar Nagha, New Delhi, from November 21 to December 31. More information can also be found about the exhibition, and the work of the Raj group in general at the Raj Groups website, facebook, and instagram pages.