Red Thread Studio: Slow Cloth, New Cloth, Art Cloth

In the Meantime

By the end of the week, God willing and the creek don't rise, I should finally have my high-speed Internet issues resolved. Liberation. NOW we'll see some blogging, people. It's not like I live in the backwoods -- hardly -- but there are peculiarities in my little microcosm that have made it a challenge.

Meanwhile, a few links and photos of unexpected pleasures this week. If I were in England this week, I would try to find my way here, to the Stroudwater Textiles Festival and Symposium. For the rest of us, that link will take you to a page that has further links to several very intriguing artist sites. This looks like an extravaganza for those of us with the Slow Cloth orientation.

Maggie Baxter from Australia is an exhibiting artist at Stroudwater whose work looks quite amazing in the multicultural Slow Cloth vein. She doesn't appear to have a Web site of her own, but you can read about her collaborations with textile artisans in India here.

My friend Betsy sent me a link to Digital Threads, a project of the Textile Museum of Canada. This is a rich and beautiful Web site that focuses on some very innovative, forward-thinking textile projects, but also has links to past exhibitions that explore a very full range of textile arts from traditional to contemporary.

Arlee sent a link to Pleasure-Purpose, a Toronto exhibition that is "an attempt to navigate craft and question its contemporary role." It seems like the textile world just continues to explode in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia . . . maybe it takes the past or present influence of a Queen.

But then there's Japan too. My brother and mother went to the new International Quilt Study Center museum and sent me a beautiful package from the gift shop: these Japanese fabrics from Kasuri Dyeworks and Stitch Dissolve Distort by Valerie Campbell-Harding and Maggie Grey. If you love Japanese textile arts -- or stunning displays of skill and beauty -- definitely visit Jane's blog on Japanese embroidery. She left me a lovely comment here -- thank you, Jane, and thank you for your subtle, gorgeous work.

And last of all for today, my dear friend Lisa went to New Orleans for the Jazz and Heritage Festival and brought me a God of Love. I've had a few of those in my life in mortal form, but never one of fabric.

Here he is, very powerful, slightly alarming -- because love should be a little dangerous -- and completely enchanting:

 

The Cloth & Culture NOW Project

Cloth & Culture NOW, an exhibition with accompanying book, has just opened in England. I was so excited to discover this, as the project illustrates all the global principles of what I call Slow Cloth in a major and visionary format. Here is information from the Web site

Cloth & Culture NOW investigates the links between contemporary textile practice, strong traditional practice and overlapping global influences, offering a framework for the study of contemporary textile practice within a cultural specific,  trans-national and cross-cultural context.

Cloth & Culture NOW brings together, for the first time, contemporary textile works from Estonia, Finland, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, and the UK. which most clearly exemplify:   

• Contemporary textile practice as an expression of cultural identity

• Contemporary textile practice that has emerged from traditional practice

• Cross-cultural/trans-national interface in contemporary textile practice that has emerged from traditional practice.

35 artists have been selected as Case Studies for the book and to take part in the exhibition.

Cloth & Culture NOW highlights exciting  and innovative contemporary textile practice from areas where there has been a strong tradition of textile linked to specific cultural identity. The work of these contemporary practitioners reflects that cultural specificity while also responding to cross-cultural and trans-national influences.

Most of the selected artists have made new work for the exhibition, reflecting the social, political and utilitarian history of textile within the context of shifting experiences of culture and tradition. These works include the contemporary use of traditional techniques and materials: knit, tapestry, embroidery, felt making, plus explorations of new materials and technology, large architectural installations, performance work, video, narrative based textiles, decorative textiles.

Cloth & Culture NOW opens at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia,   on 29th January 2008 until 1st June 2008 and then tours to the Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester in the Autumn of 2008, followed by venues in participating countries during 2009.

This is very contemporary and sometimes challenging work from master artists in an international framework, yet they are creating this work stitch by stitch, as we all do. There is an education program as well, and the show will travel. Here is an article from a local UK site with quotes from Lesley Millar, the professor of textile culture who curated the exhibition and leads the project.

Whether we are working in our modest studios at home on some small project or part of this kind of sophisticated forward-thinking exhibition, the Slow Cloth approach can be rich with meaning and possibility as modern expression, rooted in tradition and connected to culture. Stitch on.