Category: Art

  • CTANZ symposium

    The Costume and Textile Association of New Zealand is fast approaching. Here is the latest newsletter from the organisation about it. I am doing a talk about Shetland Tweed and there are plenty of other informative and useful talks and events to be inspired by. https://mailchi.mp/58d3e2113851/ctanz-social-fabric-symposium-2024-i-speaker-line-up?e=cdce4db450

  • Nastassja Swift

    Virginia-based African-American artist, Nastassja Swift, uses fibres to create sculptures and performances that tell stories about “geographical histories, ancestry, ritual practices and community”. In her work, Nastassja Swift uses details to impart knowledge to her audience that this is about and for them. Whether it be hairstyles or gesture, language or iconography, the needle-felted work…

  • Margery Blackman

    Ōtepoti Dunedin Art Gallery is currently hosting an exhibition of tapestries by Margery Blackman. Margery Blackman, Hon Curator and Dave Rapp, Exhibition Designer with Kahu huruhuru with tāniko border, from Te Ika-a-Māui, given to the museum ca 1930. D32.295, Tūhura Otago Museum Collection. Pictured during the installation of Nga Taonga no nga Wahine – Treasures from Maori Women,…

  • Kimathi Mafafo

    Kimathi Mafafo is an artist from the Northern Cape of South Africa. With National Diplomas in Fine Arts and in Film and Video, the artist uses her work to empower women and to question gender stereotypes and inequality in Africa. This page from the Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery shows some of the embroideries that were on…

  • Edonomy

    During the Edo period in Japan (1603 to 1868) what is probably the world’s first ecological civilisation flourished. Although feudal and run by a military dictatorship, Japan at this time was governed by regulations that allowed little or no waste. When the Tokugawa shoguns took over there was a significant scarcity of wood caused by…

  • This week’s blog

    Without our readers the blog would not exist. This week all the entries are from links that people have sent in to share as well as to a new addition for the collection that came about because of a reader. It is a joy to get messages from across the globe and a delight to…

  • This week’s Spotify playlist

    Each week a playlist is curated to reflect the items on the blog. Some are obviously connected and some are more obscure. To listen, click on the playlist above or search for “Music to read a blog by” on Spotify. Paid Spotify subscribers will be able to hear all the tracks in their entirety, uninterrupted…

  • Karen Lamonte

    Karen LaMonte has been exploring beauty, identity, gender and the natural world since 1990 through glass, ceramic, paper, bronze, iron and marble, sculpture and printmaking. Now based in Prague, in 2007 the American artist travelled to Japan where she studied the design, symbolism, construction and significance of kimono, turning those studies into ceramic, cast glass,…

  • Weaving music

    The Royal Academy of Art Summer Show is currently on in London and among the pieces on display is one that combines music and weaving. Following the death of her mother, Kate Davis began to weave music scores because words could not express her emotions adequately. The slow process of weaving allowed a sense of…

  • Midwinter on the Coast

    This is the first year we have spent almost all of the winter in Aotearoa New Zealand and what an experience! Having moved to Aotearoa from the UK (London and Shetland) two and a bit years ago, and, with the first winter being extremely mild and having been away last year for midwinter, our experience…