Tag: art

  • Open Studio weekend

    The first Open Studio event is happening at the end of this month in Grey District. Over the weekend of March 29th and 30th, studios across the area will be open from 10am until 4pm. Maps of the artist studio locations will be available from the Left Bank Art Gallery, Greymouth I-Sight, Nimmo Gallery and…

  • Maoriland

    In the early years of the twentieth century New Zealand was marketed as a tourist destination as “Maoriland”. Maoriland… the term suggested travel and the romance of distance. It was used on postcards, and posters, and books. All proffered a view of the country as a place where the people and their traditions and culture…

  • The Victorian Tapestry Workshop

    The Victorian Tapestry Workshop is based in Melbourne and is one of the world’s centres for the art form. The Australian Tapestry Workshop, as it is now known, was established in 1976 to produce innovative, exciting and rich artworks in collaboration with artists who work in many mediums, the weavers of their designs and the…

  • Preparing wool

    A few years ago a friend gave me a set of rather splendid books; The Textile Industries is a comprehensive yet easily-read catalogue of all the information that anyone could want about textiles. In these volumes – 8 in total – the ways in which “Fibres, Yarns and Fabrics in every branch of Textile Manufacture”…

  • Black History Month

    February is Black History Month, a celebration that is marked by the birthdays of famous abolitionist Americans: Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Black History Month is recognised in the North America, Europe and Africa, and in the USA the annual event has a theme. This year it is “African Americans and Labor“ The music, fashion…

  • The Way We Wore

    An insightful and fascinating series on Netflix at the moment explores the evolution and history of fashion in Australia. Presented by Celeste Barber and made in 2023, The Way We Wore is a three-part series that takes a chronological look at how fashion has influenced history Down Under and has helped to create the modern…

  • Like the Turf

    Caroline McQuarrie’s Like the Turf has just opened at the Left Bank Art Gallery in Greymouth Māwhera. Caroline is an artist from the Coast who now lives in Wellington Pōneke. She was interviewed in 2023 as part of the Conversation and Cloth series and has returned to Māwhera to open this show, previously at the…

  • Fashion in the Louvre

    The first ever fashion exhibition at Le Louvre, the Paris museum, recently opened. Louvre Couture matches the museum’s extensive collections of decorative art with pieces from some of the world’s greatest fashion design houses and emerging talents – Chanel, Gaultier, Givenchy, Prada, Balenciaga… in a nod to not only inspiration but also an acknowledgement of…

  • The Art of Knitting – a book

    “The Art of Knitting”, published in 1977 in the UK, has just been added to the studio library. This book is filled with examples of antique knitting, mainly from Europe but also from Asia and Middle East. The third section – The patterns – is a veritable feast of contemporary-for-then versions of knitted garments inspired…

  • Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee

    A recent addition to the textile collection shares a great link between textiles and music. Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee are two small characters from the “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” books by Lewis Carroll. The twins were made by artist Sharon Mitchell from Oamaru as part of an exhibition in her hometown of various characters…