Category: Craft
-
A working loom
This week the loom in the studio is finally weaving! Over the past few months we (a friend who is an expert in all things to do with looms and me) have been working to get this loom running. It was used by a designer from Gisborne who kindly donated it to the studio and,…
-
Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa
Zeitz MoCAA is carved out of old grain silos on the quayside of Cape Town’s docks and features the contemporary art of Africa. One Must Be Seated is a multi-disciplinary show by Ghanaian-American artist Rita Mawuena Benissan of her Ghanaian culture. Reimagining the royal umbrella and stool that represent Akan chieftaincy through tapestry, video, photography…
-
Bulawayo
A trip to Bulawayo in September 2025
-
Sónia Aniceto
The work of Sónia Aniceto, a Portuguese artist who trained in painting and tapestry, took a turn when she worked in an opera house on sets. The experience of working on a large scale with textiles at La Monnaie in Belgium encouraged the artist to explore mixing thread and paint. The result… delicate, beautiful, unsettling…
-
Textile Curator
The world of contemporary textile art practice is the subject of the Textile Curator website. Helen Adams has set out to teach the world about textile art and artists in blog posts, an artist directory and resources through the site. It is a British-based website with an international outlook and it may be useful to…
-
Textile Talk
Every Wednesday a presentation or panel discussion is held by SAQA, Studio Art Quilt Associates in the USA. If you have an hour to spare and want to get a fix, head on over to the website and browse more than 250 Textile Talks using the online index. Fascinating and intriguing, not to mention lots…
-
Glass… as a textile?
Glass, that most contradictory of materials, has been used as a textile. Mid-century design in Europe and America took advantage of glass fibre and its unique qualities. The fabrics made from glass fibres are shiny and slippery, echoing the trend then for clean lines and crisp looks in fashion and interiors. A pair of fibreglass…
-
A surprise from the collection
This week conserving and cataloguing the textile collection started in the studio. Over the past few months a friend has been working to research the collection items and that has been a Very Useful Thing. That research has been added to the website under the “Textile collection” link and it is filling up nicely. Now…
-
Origami Ballet
Origami Ballet is just that: a dance piece inspired by the art of folding paper. The project, created by Agnes Obel who wrote the music, and choreographed by Makiko Aoyama, Robert Howat, and Takeshi Matsumoto, was premiered in Scotland in 2024. The video below is, according to the source of it, generated by AI from…
-
Lucca Biennale Cartasia
The town of Lucca in Italy is home to a unique art biennale that focuses on paper. In the 14th Century Lucca started to produce parchment paper and in the 16th Century the first mill was founded there to produce paper at scale. After the Second World War the town prospered and it is still…