Red Thread Studio

On the First Day of Spring

I want to paint a picture

Botticelli style

Instead of Venus on a clam

I'd paint this flower child

"You are the air my flowers breathe,"

He calls, and the ladies turn around

On the first day of Spring

I'm looking at the only joy around

--- Joni Mitchell, The Only Joy in Town

Well, we made it through. The season changes at 11:32 this morning, my time, and it feels like we've been through a major challenge. I always have a hard time with winter, and this one was long and trying. I hope spring arrives for you with whatever joy happens to be around. 

I'll be overjoyed if any kind of health care reform passes tomorrow. I'm on pins and needles. And I think people who oppose health care reform -- and indeed, oppose a public option -- are domestic terrorists. There. I said it. And ignorant: see The Tea Party & The Circus: Final Healthcare Reform Protest. You will laugh and cry for America.

edited to add: I also think it's obscene and sad that our only hope for any kind of reform will probably come at the expense of women's right to choose and right to privacy.

A few lovely textile links for you:

• I love Christine Mauersberger's blog. She seeks out interesting and beautiful art and craft of all kinds, and is a wonderful textile artist herself.
• There is an absolutely spectacular gallery of traditional and contemporary Japanese sashiko textiles here. Download the excellent backgrounder PDF also.
• Maryam at My Marrakesh has beautiful images of traditional crewel stitching in Kashmir.

And, oh yes, I have my new camera (except I bought local and, hmm, paid a lot more). Here are some random samples, mostly shot on the automatic function. The color tilts slightly warm, and I haven't yet figured out how to correct that in the shot.

Here is a photograph of the floor of a Japanese restaurant I was in last week:

And books on the shelf:

 

Fabrics on the floor:

And the peace mandala, almost complete:

 

Back at the book shop, I'm finally seeing completion of some of the books I began to work on as an editor when I started the job last June. I especially love Ann Budd's Knitting Green, available soon (Ann does her own excellent editing but I was able to offer some assistance on the essays), and Jane Dunnewold's Art Cloth, which is just going to press and will be available in a few months.

That's all for now. Enjoy the first day of spring!

Material World

A big thank-you to indigo goddess and shibori girl Glennis for the post and link. I'm a huge fan of Glennis's work and have been following her deep indigo journey with amazement and delight--on top of her glorious hand-dyed shibori ribbons. I'm honored that more people are discovering--and liking--my way of depicting the Slow Cloth concept. And there's a voice in my head that says: Update it already!

In particular, I think there's more to say about materials. I've been meaning to share a link found via the wonderful Fibercopia for Barbara Wisnoski, a textile artist based in Montreal. Wisnoski makes very beautiful, large pieces from recycled fabrics. I made a kind of clumsy remark about repurposed fabrics recently, and the response forced me to think about my position more. It really needs a whole post devoted to it. Then along comes an artist like Wisnoski who takes away all my reservations about recycled fabric and then some, and reminds me, as other artists also periodically have, that my resistance is futile nonsense. Her Web site is lovely, showing the work installed (in situ) and at a couple of levels of detail. This is a detail of One Circle:

One Circle, Barbara Wisnoski, 152 x 152 cm

And this piece is called evening, 145 x 165 cm:

Aren't they something? I love the impressionistic, painterly quality that the pieces have, yet there's a drape and texture that can only be fabric.

Okay, now I really am procrastinating. Keep calm and carry on through this new moon eclipse, and be both creative and receptive, yin and yang, sun and moon . . . you know the drill.

Jackson, Japan, and MissElaineous Things

Okay . . . another week has gone by without a new post. I am really trying not to say "I'm overwhelmed," and instead say, "I'm managing everything in my wonderful life with ease and joy," but I'm still in a quandary over which activities and commitments to release and which to keep. This blog, as much as I love it and want to make much MORE of it, not less, is on the bubble, as those Hollywood types say.

Back at the ranch, a lot happened this week. Days ago, I bookmarked this great interview at All The Rage with Deborah Landis, the new holder of the David C. Copley chair for the study of costume design at UCLA. She has very interesting things to say about the difference between costume design and fashion design, and the presence of narrative and stories in what we wear. Landis's chair is being endowed with a $6 million grant to develop costume design studies at the university.

Tangential but interesting, at the time that I read it: Landis designed Michael Jackson's iconic red Thriller jacket. A week ago I would have written, "remember that jacket?" and now, of course, we've all been reminded of it.

So the week was an interesting example of how the media oversaturate us at times like this (you could almost hear them say, great, we don't have to do any hard analysis to unanswerable questions about things like Iran and health care reform for at least three days). Still, this blog is about art, craft, cloth and culture, and all of these are referenced in Jackson's story. This, by fashion writer Guy Trebay, is a fascinating look at his ability to create an image and the ways that image intersected with pop culture.

Elsewhere -- for those who think about selling or monetizing a sewing or craft business, Kathleen Fasanella of Fashion Incubator has a very interesting series of posts on this, including definitions of handmade and manufactured as they apply to a commercial enterprise. There are telling comments as well; some people actually daring to call attention to the poor quality of some of the "handmade nation/DIY" frenzy. Yay.

Finally, links for the artists and lovers of Japanese textiles,. First, and I think Jude has mentioned this as well, Sri Threads has an amazing series on botanical dyer Sometsukasa Yoshioka. Stephen is up to Post #9, on the color red. These are a must-read if you love color and the Japanese aesthetic. Most people probably think of indigo when word-associating color and Japan, but there's much more to it -- a masterful legacy of natural dyeing and fluency in the language of color. This is from Post #8, on the color pink:

Yoshioka talks about the importance of color in the Heian Period, and here is why:  courtly dress at this time was codified and was tied to the seasons: as the seasons changed, so must one’s costume, and a lady at court was meant to dress to reflect the season, and her reflection of the season had to be both personal and poetic.  She did this using layers of colored robes, from 12 to 20 of them: the way she layered the colored robes and they way the layers were displayed at her costume’s sleeves told a color story and showed how the lady was interpreting the season.

Here’s the thing: in Heian Japan, there were four seasons, then there were 24 sub-seasons, then there were 72 sub-sub seasons, so every five days the courtly lady needed to change her costume so she embodied the natural changes around her!

I also discovered The Ardent Thread, a new-to-me blog by an expert on Japanese textiles, surface design and stitching techniques. Author Carol also sells vintage Japanese fabrics at KimonoMomo.com (sales are made through an Etsy shop). Here's one of her vintage fabric packages:

As for me, I'm working on some machine sewing, still painting my Persian floral designs, and still working on handstitching a big shisha/beads/stitching piece, which does have some vintage kimono fabric in it, shown below. This is proving to be a very slow cloth - but it's always good to have some handstitching available -- for example, for times when you're mesmerized by CNN's wall-to-wall coverage of a celebrity death, and thinking about the time you turned on the TV and saw that electrifying moonwalk for the first time, and all the years that have gone by since then.

Here's more of the piece, which has grown and taken on a life of its own that I no longer seem to be in control of (much like my own life; let's conclude that control is overrated):

That's all for now. See you soon.

Summer Solstice, and Mind Like a Sieve

My mind feels a bit sieve-like these days. A huge amount of interesting stuff flows through it every day but I don't seem to be capturing much, let alone getting it down on blog. Everything is okay, but the adjustment to out-of-house gainful employment is taking most of the energy I have right now; I don't know what to let go of or where all of my other projects and ideas and plans are going now.

But links, I've got links!

• The cool people at Contemporary Cloth have launched a new shop and blog called Modern Marks. The new site sells original works on paper and fabric, including original textiles by Jane Dunnewold. 
• I came across Elin Noble's beautiful work and Web site last week. It looks as if there will be threads and fabric for sale soon, and more gallery images. 
• Garment sewers will appreciate The Luxurious Vagabond's blog.
• And you'll also like the online collection at the Fashion Institute of Technology Museum.
• Do you live in a city or town that could use some revitalization and more space for artists? Artspace USA is a real estate developer for artists' spaces. They can do site assessments for communities interested in renovating or developing buildings as studios, and they have a downloadable report on the ways that art and culture can stimulate state economic development. 
• Beautiful handprinted fabrics at Publisher Textiles:

The news from Iran has been intense. I have an old Dover book of Persian designs and motifs that I've just rediscovered; I don't know why I bought it, or where, but it's been on my shelf a long time. Persia/Iran is an ancient and beautiful culture, and the people there deserve freedom and safety, especially the women. I've heard wonderful reviews of Reading Lolita in Tehran, so I'm going to read it soon. Here's a little watercolor I painted this afternoon from a Persian floral pattern from the Safavid era, 1502-1736. I used the paints I had on hand, but I'm dying to buy a whole new set of acrylic inks  . . . see? My mind is all over the place.

This week we've got a new moon, summer solstice, venus and mars in a beautiful tango in the skies . . . let's see what the week brings. Onward we go.

SDA Conference: Speaker Highlights

Well, so much for posting updates from the road. Now I'm sitting in the airport, homeward bound.

This was my first Surface Design Association conference, though I've been a member for many years. It's been both helpful and challenging, giving me information, exposing me to some wonderful art (including, in addition to all the amazing textile work, a fantastic photography show at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) and connecting me to people whose names I've known for years but never met until now. It's also pushed me up against all my own internal issues about art and craft and textiles, where I fit in, the level of work and commitment that I've had or have not had, and where I'm going from here. Some highlights.

• Harmony Susalla was the opening keynote speaker, and she gave a fluent and entertaining talk about her own history as a textile designer and her path of creating the first viable all-organic print fabric company. I didn't know that Harmony had designed a fabric that is to this day the best-selling Wal-Mart bedding line. If the crowd of people who sought her out to talk more with her was an indication, organic cotton has a bright future yet -- and it couldn't have a more sincere and shining spokesperson.
• Gerhardt Knodel gave a rollicking, practiced speech on identifying your own neighborhood of concepts, motivations and connections through a treehouse metaphor. I'll write more on this. Opinions were divided on this talk, but I liked it. As I was looking online for more information about him for you, I came across Worn Through, a blog/journal that looks well worth exploring if you're interested in a scholarly approach to apparel and dress (probably due its own post in the near future). It's published and edited by Monika Sklar. 
• Victoria K. Rivers gave an awesome overview of her life (so far) as a textilian, a word I wish I'd invented. She's a global textile explorer of the first order, an artist, a professor, and a warm, generous spirit. While her accomplishments are dazzling, she's not even a little bit intimidating. I've written a few times about Victoria's work with mirrors, metal and beads and her book The Shining Cloth, and it was really a delight to finally hear her speak and get to talk with her for a moment. I'm always struggling with the current pressure to clear all clutter, when what I really want is an environment rich and dense with beautiful, satisfying and meaningful objects, so I liked that Victoria declared that it's okay to be accumulative; you don't have to live in a space of Zen emptiness.
• Jane Dunnewold's talk was inspiring in every way. She said: Stop taking workshops and get to work; keep working through times when inspiration seems out of reach; and take the time to do things well. Art or craft? Don't worry about it; call yourself a mixed-media artist and let the details of that be somebody else's problem to figure out -- just do your work. She wove beautiful poems through her talk, showed a visual feast of her work and process, and was so accessible yet clearly setting a high standard. I bought her book Finding Your Own Visual Language and I'll report on my experience with the exercises in the book. She also has a DVD on edging and finishing for textile pieces that's on my wish list. After meeting her it's even more clear why she's one of the most sought-after teacher/speaker/authors in the textile art world.

There you have a few speaker highlights. I'll talk more about the people, the textile art and some of the things that the conference stirred up for me later this week. Tomorrow my new job starts, so onward we go.

A Weaver and a Gardener

Aimee Fitpatrick Martin is the author of "At Home with Jack Lenor Larsen," a story in the Southampton Press about LongHouse Reserve, the sanctuary Larsen founded "to exemplify living with art in all forms." Larsen is one of the best-known and most revered textile designers and craft advocates of the 20th century, now in his eighties and continuing to influence the 21st century. From the LongHouse site:

Through its arboretum, sculpture gardens, and educational programs, LongHouse brings together art and nature, aesthetics and spirit, with a strong conviction that the arts are central to living wholly and creatively. Dedicated to quality and integrity, LongHouse programs encourage a broad concept of learning. The art focus at LongHouse is ethnographic and handcrafts -- both areas of collecting with aspects for every purse. Some of these functions, at least on occasion; most merely lift the heart and expand the imagination.

Martin's article describes the residence at LongHouse and many of the artifacts, textiles and furnishings that Larsen selected. It's a fascinating look into the workings of a brilliant designer's process of creating a vision in the material world, in partnership with nature and in celebration of the handmade.

Larsen, with an astonishing list of international accomplishments and awards, says, “I am a weaver and a gardener. Both are slow and require much patience.” This struck me as remarkable; we're all trying to inflate our resumes and our titles, and he's opted for the most reductive description possible. Of course, that's easier when the world has already recognized that you matter, but it's so damn refreshing.

I was also taken by the article's opening quote, from Larsen's memoir: “I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t seeking identity through a sense of place.” In that sentence I feel like he articulated something I've been trying to do for 50 years and have never expressed so succintly -- seeking identity through a sense of place. It explains a lot. I need to ponder that for a while.

I went looking for an image of a Larsen textile to share and, as is the Way of the Web, came across another intriguing site. Craft in America is a nonprofit with a mission "to document and advance original handcrafted work through programs in all media, accessible to all. We are dedicated to the exploration, preservation and celebration of craft, the work of the hand, and their impact on our nation’s cultural heritage." Check it out -- there are about 300 pages of content at the site. Here is their page on Larsen.

And here is a living archive of Jack Lenor Larsen fabrics at the Minneapolis Institute for the Arts. From the archive:

Larsen Design Studio
Conquistador, 1966
Collection: Andean
Materials: Cotton
Classification: Surface Ornamentation- Dyed

99.1.188

Conquistador, introduced as part of the 1967 Andean Collection, was particularly successful and soon became one of the signature cloths of the company. In a note in the company archive Larsen writes that “Conquistador is my concept of how an Inca might handle a baroque motif. That is, flatly and without the robust movement typical in Europe. More like the stone walls of Peru.” For some of the colorways the cloth was dyed twice for a contrapuntal vibration of close value colors such as bronze and amethyst, or amber and brown to suggest a tortoise shell. The Spanish Colonial motif was scaled to fit upholstery cushioning and the total impact is one of great antiquitiy.



In addition to the initial four colorways (wild honey, tortoise, crimson and bronzed amethyst) Topaz, Blue Blood and Pigeon Blood were added at a later date. In 1977 Wild Honey was discontinued, but Tortoise and Pigeon Blood remained in production until 1985 when the company ceased batik production.
(Minneapolis Institute of the Arts, Larsen archive)

Feeling the Felt

As I visit the Smithsonian museums, I'm wishing I could get to the coolest of them all, the 

Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York. I've mentioned the Fashioning Felt exhibition; definitely go and visit the exhibition Web site and the Museum blog.

Artist Janice Arnold made and installed a yurt at the exhibition. From the Museum blog:   

The traditional yurt is a trellis-frame tent covered with thick, humble felts made from raw sheep’s wool. The largest, most elaborately decorated tent is the place of celebration, songs and epic poems. Arnold’s design is a fantasia on the yurt form, which is still the preferred environment for events of spiritual significance, even as nomadic peoples become more urbanized. 

Arnold will create a total environment from her luxurious handmade felts, which combine Merino wool with silk and metallic fibers and sheer fabrics. Her technique allows for the creation of richly textured areas in combination with gossamer sheer ones. The wall panels will use that sheerness to maintain the light-filled feeling of the Conservatory, while the leaded glass pattern of the ceiling inspired a mosaic of sheer and opaque areas. The window seat will be covered with a thick, dense, hand-beveled felt, to enable visitors to experience felt’s tactility and contemplate both its history and versatility. 

The fabric panels composing the walls and ceiling are so large that they have to be felted outdoors at Arnold’s studio in Centralia, Washington. Nomads felt in the spring and fall, but Arnold’s team has been working through the winter to complete the installation. Unseasonably cold temperatures coupled with record snowfall have made it challenging work indeed. But the Palace Yurt, both traditionally and in this contemporary interpretation, is the place to gather for celebration when the felting is done.

This sounds amazing, doesn't it? The sketches and samples from Arnold's sketchbook, at the yurt link above, are -- my favorite word -- fascinating, and very beautiful. Here's one:

 

sketch by Janice Arnold, Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum

I found a photograph taken inside the finished yurt here, on a lovely writing and poetry blog by Patricia Markert. 

Thinking about the yurt, I couldn't help but think about the stories in the news last week of tent cities around the country, growing alarmingly fast. Nomads living in fabric houses aren't new to the world, but we've lost the skills to make and use these beautiful, safe and portable homes. It takes skill to fabricate them, imagination to beautify them, and a highly developed sense of community and mobility, I'm sure, to survive in them. 

I like the roundness of the yurt; like belly dance, it's all about powerful feminine shapes, where most of our housing and much of our movement in the West is angles and planes. 

Here's another photograph from the exhibition, with more curvaceousness. As I've mentioned before, I haven't succumbed to the felt craze, but as I see these images I think I could. I like it best when color is added, I admit, since one of felt's most appealing qualities is the ability to hold saturated, gorgeous color. 

Discoveries and Distractions

Jane Dunnewold, textile artist and author of Complex Cloth and other books, has launched a new blog called Daily Visuals. Each day, Jane posts a photograph and analyzes its color, composition and content. It's a lovely site and a fantastic opportunity to learn from a teacher and master of visual complexity in fabric. 

I've also been wandering around the tutorials, articles and techniques on the Golden Paints site. Though I did a lot of painting quite a few years ago, I got rusty. Last year, I began to paint again, and I was mystified  -- also very intrigued -- by the vast array of new mediums, new kinds of acrylic paint, and new surfaces. Golden has very helpful information on fine art techniques, and a section of decorative technique instructions that give you step-by-step information on how to create textures like this  (link here):

For those who work in watercolor, Daniel Smith also has a great articles library on its site. 

That's all I've got today. Truth is, I've spent too much time this week distracting myself in the online candy store of fabric, paint, art, color, beauty and interesting words -- surfing, but not creating. All is well, and I'm especially grateful for my spacious and well-heated apartment, but I'm not in a holiday mood -- I have the frequent flyer miles to go to Hawaii, but no money for expenses! It's just been a long year, and vitality and magic seem far away tonight, as does any light at the end of the job-search tunnel and all that goes with it. No need to worry, I'll be back this weekend with a lighter heart, I'm sure. 

 

Ways of Chronicling the Journey

I apologize if you've been seeing text over images in recent posts. It doesn't appear that way when I preview the post, but I just learned that it shows up that way on the site. I've fixed several but let me know if it happens again.

I'm fascinated by the work Dijanne is doing with her traveller's blanket and traveller's medallions. Imagine the experience of being a traveler before there were cameras, or guidebooks, or postcards; how inventive to build the story of the journey in cloth and stitches. Dijanne's versions are, of course, modern and personal and imaginative, yet always conjuring an echo of ancient travellers whose work has informed her.

In the same vein -- (and stay with me here, I realize that sometimes my connecting of dots comes out like mental hairpin turns to those who aren't in my brain, and actually sometimes it feels that way to me too) -- Sharon B. on Pintangle linked to the newest issue of Bonefolder, a gorgeous free-to-download e-zine on book arts. In this newest volume (Vol. 5 No. 1), book artist Susan Allix has written Colours of Persia: The Making of a Book (page 19 in the magazine). It's a beautiful account of her decision to make a limited-edition book of prints that tells the story of her travels through color. Allix writes, "Travelling around this country with my bag of crayons, sketchbooks, notebooks and camera, I had been quite overcome by its colour. There were turquoise domes against blue or black skies, sun-baked courtyards containing ever-repeated patterns of yellow and ultramarine tiles, glittering mirror work, piles of rosy pomengranates, eye-stretching fields of acid green rice crops. I could buy woven textiles from nomad people and rescue fragments of old blue and yellow ceramic from the gutter to remind myself of the colours when I returned to London. Travellers in Persia always seemed compelled to write of their experiences. In using accounts which stretched from the 1st century AD until the present day and setting them in the places in which they were written, a mind picture could be built across time showing both the continuity and vicissitudes of life. The intimate and narrative qualities of a book, together with its images, lend themselves to a travelling progress." 

Allix, a master book artist and printmaker, has also made a limited edition travel book on Egypt, on view here. Her prints and books and words are all magical. 

If you like printmaking, definitely visit Marja-Leena's Web site; Marja-Leena visits and comments here (and thankfully set me straight on my Swedish-Finnish confusion in the Marimekko post) and her site and work are both stunning. 

One more link . . . the movie Australia has just opened here, and All the Rage has a terrific interview with costume designer Catherine Martin, and her creation of "a staggering 2,000 costumes from 1930s-era vintage gowns to traditional aboriginal dress." I love reading the backstory that Martin creates to arrive at a look; it's a reminder of all that clothing communicates if we look carefully.

Om on the Range

oops  - I wrote this last Friday but forgot to take it out of draft mode. Here it is . .

Yes, I'm still basking in the afterglow of last night's phenomenal Obama speech. Today feels like it should be a holiday, but of course the real holiday will be November 5, when we send Bush back to Crawford. By the way, Obama supports this legislation that allows artists to take a tax deduction for the full market value of works they donate to educational institutions and nonprofit organization. 

I've finished the beaded center medallion for the piece for my yoga space -- here it is with some of the fabric I have for the backing, which will be pieced, stitched and shisha-ed:

I wanted those pure, bright colors of India and fortunately have some on hand. The magenta silk was sent to me a few years ago from Malaysia, from the man who introduced me to the power of yoga and gave me the means to do it as a daily, lifelong practice. 

Everybody's talking about The Textile Blog, and for good reason. This blog is a terrific, serious exploration of textile design and history. This is NOT your interchangeable design-craft blog with the latest cute fabric with polka dots or birds and a commentary that goes something like, "Oooooh!! I Love this! Don't you Love Love Love this?!!!!" without any explanation of what it is that they Love! about it. There's nothing wrong with those blogs, but there's no there there -- no opportunity to train the eye to recognize good design, or understand the context of the design or the textile. If you just want to look at cute patterns by the latest Amy Butler wannabe -- and sure, sometimes we all do -- this is not the site you want to bookmark, but if you want to advance your textile vocabulary and challenge your eye for beauty and pattern, then it definitely is. 

I've happily joined Rayela's FiberFocus Ning site, though I have to admit I'm not great with keeping up with the Ning community activity. Despite that, Rayela's Fiber Focus blog is a fantastic resource; we share a lot of the same instincts about textiles, culture and sustainability, and I'd love to write for her blog sometime. 

For some inspirational fine artisan clothing and accessories, visit Asiatica.  These are understated, elegant, gorgeous pieces, many made with vintage Japanese silks. 

Finally, I got a lovely e-mail from Jane Dunnewold, whom you may know as the author of Complex Cloth and other books. If you haven't visited her Web site for ArtCloth Studios, go see. It's full of great writing and fascinating ideas, tutorials, resources . . . Jane is a true Slow Cloth artist with a deep reverence for both textile traditions and modern aesthetics; her success is much deserved, and I'm very glad that she visited this blog and honored that she found interesting ideas here. I've got her Finding Your Own Visual Language on my wish list. 

I know there is a lot in this post (I've been collecting links all week) -- thanks for reading all the way through. Have a great weekend and look to the future.