Category: Art

  • How Shetland wool became famous

    How Shetland wool became famous

    For those who have been lucky enough to visit Shetland, the archipelago in the Far North of the UK that has an illustrious and long history of textiles, you will remember the thousands of sheep that litter the hills (and, sometimes, the roads) of the islands. These sheep are the mainstay of an industry that…

  • Bicycles on a tapa

    Bicycles on a tapa

    This amazing piece of tapa is housed in a beautiful building in Hokitika: Renton Hardware Building. The piece features what looks like columns, writing and bicycles. There is little information about it and anyone with any knowledge or ideas about its origin can leave a comment below or send an email. These will be passed…

  • Lindzeanne

    Lindsey “Lindzeanne” Gradolph is a textile artist who uses embroidery to explore and fill spaces. Basing her practice on the Japanese idea of wasting nothing – mottainai – Lindsey uses sashimi threads and hand-sewing to create dense textures and patterns on objects and cloth.

  • Caroline McQuarrie – new date and venue

    This month’s Conversation and Cloth event will be with Caroline McQuarrie, textile artist and photographer. Caroline will be joining me at our home in Cobden – please email for the address – next Saturday, the 9th December at 11am to talk about her practice and our art collection. The event is free and open; please…

  • Wharenui Harikoa

    Wharenui Harikoa

    This week, news came that a Fabulously Exuberant and Rather Wonderful building will open up on December 1st in Waikato Museum in Hamilton. Wharenui Harikoa (House of Joy) is the idea of Lissy Robinson-Cole and husband Rudi Robinson. Together the pair hatched the idea of creating a crocheted meeting house – a wharenui – out…

  • The New York Times series on young Africa

    The New York Times is running a series of articles focusing on the youth of Africa. The “youth boom” of the continent is changing both it and the wider world, altering perceptions and driving change through invention, creativity and energy. There is plenty to read in the articles including pieces about artists, designers and makers…

  • Think macrame was over in the 1970s?

    It is time to think again! Laurentine Périlhou, a French artist who has been working with the craft for almost ten years, is making waves with the reinvention of this ancient and traditional craft from the Arab world.

  • Conversation and Cloth: Caroline McQuarrie

    Conversation and Cloth: Caroline McQuarrie

    The last Conversation and Cloth event for the year will be a chat with artist Caroline McQuarrie. Caroline has roots in the West Coast and explores histories through photography, video and domestic crafts. In this Conversation With we will be talking about her works in woven images. The venue for the event will be the…

  • Of cloth, peacocks and Scandinavia

    Of cloth, peacocks and Scandinavia

    Each month a talk about something in the textile collection in Greymouth Mawhera is held in the Regent Theatre. This month’s event was about art textiles including textiles as artistic mediums, art on textiles, and textiles as art. The subject ranged from the French mid-century printed, woven and needleworks, created by artists and designers as…

  • Lincoln University’s art collection

    This week a visit to Lincoln University library led to the campus collection of art. The University, the oldest agricultural teaching institution in the Southern Hemisphere, was created in 1990 when Lincoln College, Canterbury, was made independent of the University of Canterbury. There was no collecting policy in place but after the sale of cigarettes…