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May 12, 2025 In Exhibitions, Textile Art

Classics Reimagined Exhibition

            

 

Classics Reimagined Images: Dandelion Grid Quilt, 2021, Lilah Ward ; The Sensuous Magnolia & the Great Sale Lake, 2024, Lorraine Glessner;  Embroidered Scribbles on a Page from My Notebook, 2009, Ayelet Lindenstrauss Larsen

 

Earlier this year I was lucky enough to be asked to juror Classics Reimagined, an exhibition for Surface Design Association. Coming up with a theme gave me the opportunity to explore one of the reasons why textile art interests me so much – namely what keeps such traditional skills current. It was wonderful to look through the entries and choose thirty which I felt represented the many different genres within fiber art. The entire exhibition can be seen on the SDA website or Textile Curator’s social media. In the meantime here is the ethos behind it.

Classics Reimagined explores the endurance of fiber art over centuries and the ways that contemporary artists reimagine, reinvent, or update “classics” for our contemporary moment. It asks: What makes something classic? Is it a pattern, colorway, technique, form, concept, or another aspect of artistic practice?

Thirty artists bring their unique perspectives to this exhibition, with themes including the environment, democracy, and humanity. Some artists reimagine traditional forms like quilts and samplers, while others deconstruct techniques or stitch new life and meaning into found materials. Pattern, fragility, dynamic interplays of positive and negative space, abstraction, and figuration are just some of the elements reimagining classic forms.

Classics Reimagined offers insight into how contemporary artists use age-old techniques and materials mixed with new, creative concepts to look to the past, present, and future of fiber art.

 

Thank you to all of the artists who applied, to Surface Design Association https://www.surfacedesign.org  for inviting me to curate and to Rebecca McNamara who is the Associate Curator at Tang Teaching Museum and Skidmore College. https://tang.skidmore.edu/ for her expertise and insight.

April 14, 2025 In Books, Textile Art

How to Create a Workshop

                      

 

 

 

 

If you have ever considered teaching a creative workshop but don’t know where to start, help is at hand with this new book Teaching Creative Workshops in person and online by Patricia van den Akker from The Design Trust.

Sometimes these books can be more image led than practical, but not this one. It is jam packed with advice from beginning to end. Starting with Why teach? Through to What, How and Where to teach it covers all aspects to planning your own teaching program. It then covers the all important costing, pricing and getting paid. There are 15 case studies as well as tips on a huge range of topics including marketing, intellectual property and equipment required to get you started. Overall this is a valuable handbook for those considering the idea through to those who already teach but may want some handy hints or advice.

Teaching Creative Workshops in Person and Online by Patricia van den Akker from https://www.thedesigntrust.co.uk is published by Herbert Press https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/discover/superpages/non-fiction/herbert-press/

 

March 17, 2025 In Art, Textile Art

Liz Miller exhibition

 

Liz Miller – Portal 03 (Objects of Beauty), Assorted objects/fragments found along roadsides and in ditches, paint, paracord, zip ties

74” x  52” x 16” d, 2024; Portal 01 (Objects of Beauty), Assorted objects/fragments found along roadsides and in ditches, paint, paracord, zip ties, 69” x 57” x 8” d, 2024: Portal 02 (Objects of Beauty), Assorted objects/fragments found along roadsides and in ditches, paint, paracord, zip ties, 70” x 41” x 9” d, 2024; Detail of Portal 2. Photography by Seth Dahlseid.

 

 

Liz Miller is an American textile artist and her colourful and bold art textiles shine like a beacon of optimism. It is almost impossible to view the colour combinations and dynamic shapes and not feel decidedly more cheerful. Based in Southern Minnesota, she scoured ditches and the sides of roads for debris using it as armatures in her latest work entitled Portals. Encoroprating this debris and playground equipment into her work creates “a counter-narrative to contemporary culture. This fantasy-based lens allows for mundane objects to have new significance in an era where it sometimes feels like hope and possibility has been, quite literally, abandoned.” I interviewed Liz a few years ago and you can read her interview here 

 

You can see Portals: New Work by Liz Miller at RACA (Rural America Contemporary Art) Gallery, Mankato, MN USA, March 14-Apr 1, 2025. For more information visit https://www.lizmiller.com/

March 10, 2025 In Exhibitions, Textile Art

Barbara Long exhibition

 

 

 

 

 

Images from Stairway to Heaven exhibition by Barbara Long at Ruup & Form

 

Stairway to Heaven is Barbara Long’s first solo exhibition in the UK. Taking centre stage in the gallery is her immersive installation Stairway to Heaven constructed from repurposed t-shirts and wool which symbolises endurance and continuity. Her more intimate pieces include Kitchen Sink Drama, One Darned Thing which she made after clearing her mother’s home. Taking a format and stitching associated with 18th century embroidered samples and using dishcloths and dusters aged with years of use reflects the ways in which we ‘store, suppress, or reshape memories.’ Barbara is a British artist living in Madrid and the darning, embroidery and installations are both playful and poignant.

 

Stairway to Heaven is on until 29th March at Rupp & Form, 7 Tilney Court, London. For more information visit https://ruupandform.com/ and https://www.barbaralong-art.com/