Red Thread Studio

Textile Society Symposium Recap

edited to add: I think I've fixed all the links. Let me know if any are still not working. Typepad seems to have made some changes - one more reason that I'm moving the blog to Wordpress soon. Sorry about that!

I really enjoyed the Textile Society symposium at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln last week. First, some highlights:

• An excellent keynote by Sheila Kennedy, an MIT professor in the school of architecture and "a pioneer in integrating technology and design." This talk was a reminder that textiles are both art and science, and that we can use them to improve people's lives -- not just by preserving traditional craft but also by innovating and designing new textile technologies, by thinking big, by looking toward "new cloth" and the future. I especially liked Kennedy's description of the Portable Light project. And the moment where she talked about indigenous peoples wanting to create their own handwoven sacred carriers for these 21st-century light sources brought it all together. The message that we need to be skilled both in digital technologies and in making things by hand was timely.
• Another good keynote on natural dyes by Dominique Cardon, who is organizing next year's International Symposium and Exhibition on Natural Dyes, to be held in France. This talk, too, raised questions exploring the science of natural dyeing on a large scale, as well as its history and its appeal and challenges for the small-scale dyer. The event next year sounds pretty great.
• A fantastic session on "Slow Art and Textile Practice" by Rowland Ricketts, artist, teacher, and indigo farmer, Kyoung Ae Cho, who makes beautiful stitched pieces, and Janice Lessman-Moss, a weaver. Each artist brought a story and a sensibility to the presentation that gave a beautiful context to their work. I've written about Rowland Ricketts before but the other artists were new to me. And I got to meet and talk with Rowland, and he has a lot to say about indigo and about the textile art community. It was a great pleasure to talk with him and hear him speak. A few years ago I gave a lot of thought to putting together an exhibition on art and agriculture, integrating my experiences in the organic foods world and in art and textiles. Talking with him re-ignited that idea for me.
• Janice Arnold gave a very beautiful presentation on the nomadic life and her work in felt, some of which was included in the Cooper Union exhibition last year. She was lovely, and seemed to have put a lot of thought into her presentation. The work and the story of her process is astounding and she truly seems to be called to express the idea of being a nomad in modern times.
• There was a good presentation on Shipibo Indian textiles, which I've posted about a few times, and fascinating talks on other cultural and anthropological aspects of textiles. I know not everybody goes for this stuff, but I love it.

In general, I loved the high level of scholarship, cultural context, and international scope of this symposium. If these things appeal to you, I recommend joining The Textile Society and attending the next symposium, scheduled for Washington, D.C., in 2012. By relocating the symposium each time, different locales get to shine, and Lincoln did very well. My Colorado College classmate Wendy Weiss had a lot to do with organizing this symposium (she teaches at the University of Nebraska) and she did an excellent job. There were many exhibitions, from local galleries to the beautiful Sheldon Museum of Art and the International Quilt Study Center; good restaurants nearby; beautiful autumn weather and the friendliness of the Midwest. There was a small but excellent marketplace; I bought Laura Foster Nicholson's ribbons and had the pleasure of talking with her, and I also saw my friends from Goodweave there. I had a very interesting conversation with Leesa Hubbell, the digital news editor for the Surface Design Association. And a big bonus for me: while in Lincoln, I got to see my dear brother, my lovely sister-in-law, and my beloved niece and nephews.

There was some minor room for improvement at the conference, generally speakers who didn't seem well prepared or comfortable presenting to a group, and too many concurrent sessions, forcing difficult choices. Because there are such strong relationships between food and fiber, I'd love to see the presence of good local and organic food at events like this (I know this is a cost issue and a hotel contract issue, but it can be done). But all in all it was a terrific event, and for me there was more substance than at some other textile conferences and trade shows that I've been to.

I left there with a lot to think about for my work as well as my personal direction with textiles and the future of Slow Cloth as an entity and as an idea. One thing that always comes up for me is the lack of diversity -- in age and gender, in particular -- in the textile community. Young people are coming in, but too often as a marketing target, as consumers of craft products. And men are mostly there if they come from other countries, by and large, or in a celebrity role to audiences of women, so it often seems a little out of balance.

The question is, I suppose, do we want it to be different? I think we do, because diversity is a core concept of sustainability. And because any group with 99% one gender or age group all the time tends to magnify  any flaws or weaknesses in communication style and interaction of that gender or age group. Anyway, that's a big topic for another time. I think the energy of the textile community would change if it were more diverse in any number of ways, but maybe I'm just projecting my own discomfort with groups of all kinds.

The image above is Torn Notebook, a Claes Oldenburg sculpture in the sculpture garden at the Sheldon Museum of Art in Lincoln.

Full Flower Moon 2010

Okay, have I bitched enough? Been gone long enough for you to miss me? Thank you so much for all the kind comments on the last post, and please forgive my low moment of feeling territorial and unappreciated. It's been an energetically challenging year.

But now we have the beautiful May full moon on Thursday night, the moon of flowers, and may it heal the wounded Gulf, the people in Tennessee still recovering from floods, people all over the world still rebuilding from earthquakes or suffering from war or just trying to figure out who they are and what they need to do. Including me.

I've mentioned the StyleCourt blog before--it's one of my favorites for art, textiles, and design, and she has a lovely post on vintage editions of Out of Africa with fabric covers or textile-design covers. 

I also recommend Elis Vermeulen's fascinating blog.

As for flowers, I've been thinking a lot about botanical art lately, and wishing I could take some of the cool courses at the Denver Botanic Gardens. Katharine Tyrrell at Making A Mark often writes about botanical illustration, and has good books to recommend. Flickr has many, many beautiful flower photographs. You could take a new look at Georgia O'Keeffe's 100 Flowers. Or just step outside into the intoxicating May moonlight and find some lilacs. I spent last weekend making fabric flower brooches; I can't post pictures just yet, but I will, down the road. And finally, I've had some initial conversations with my friends at Finca Luna Nueva Lodge about the possibility of a group art/textile/slow cloth retreat there. It's just a little seed that's been planted, that may or may not yield, but doesn't it look like an amazing place? 

Those who read the stars and the cosmos say that this is a big, big full moon, an energetic watershed and a border between the past and future. Julie Demboski always has a brilliant and complex analysis, too. But you don't have to believe in astrology even a little bit to feel the power of a bright full moon in the sky, and to appreciate the symbol and sensibility of the Flower Moon.

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.