Tag: textiles
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Shetland Tweed talk
I have been selected to present a paper at this year’s symposium of CTANZ, the Costume and Textile Association of New Zealand. The symposium is in Whangārei at the end of August and this year the theme is Social Fabric, Interconnectedness: Patterns and Diversity. The paper I shall present is about the history and heritage…
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Collections/ Connections
The current exhibition at the Left Bank Art Gallery in Māwhera Greymouth has an interesting premise behind it: the connections between collectors and artists. In this show Friends of the Gallery were asked to choose a piece from their collection to share with someone else, who would respond to it with a piece of their…
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Pelicans on the wall
A new piece has just been added to the textile collection: a trio of pelicans. The wall hanging has been made from burlap backing with the pelicans, hand-stitched with twines of various hues and padded, fastened to the burlap. The photographs below show the detail of the padded figures, close-up of the feathers and the…
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A little about American Indian beadwork
Before the arrival of European settlers, the people of what is now the Americas used different materials – shells, bone and porcupine quills, amongst others – to make decorative (and portable) items. The coming of the Europeans brought glass beads to trade for furs, hides and food, and these quickly became a desirable item to…
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This week’s Spotify playlist
In this week’s list of music and sound that accompanies the blog there are references to International Women’s Day, wedding dresses, nursing, weaving and more. The playlist is on Spotify and paid subscribers can listen to all the tracks without interruption while free subscriptions will have advertising breaks. Anyone without a subscription will hear extracts…
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Weaving unearthed
Sculptor-weaver, Sue Hiley Harris, is currently showing work at the Ruthin Craft Centre in Wales. This week, Saturday 9th March, the artist will be giving an illustrated talk about the work in the exhibition and the ideas and concepts that led up to it. Weaving Unearthed shows the sculptor’s interest in experimental woven structures and,…
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International Women’s Day 2024
This coming week, on the 8th March, International Women’s Day (IWD) is celebrated. At the first-ever events marking the day in 1911 more than a million people attended rallies campaigning for women’s rights and today the work continues around the world. This year the theme is “Inspire Inclusion”. As part of the celebrations, a piece…
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The Nurses’ Memorial Chapel
Beside the hospital in Ōtatahi Christchurch in New Zealand is a small chapel with a unique story. Opened in 1927 the building was the first hospital chapel in the country, and the only one to be dedicated to women who perished in war and in the 1918 influenza epidemic. It is also thought to be…
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Update on the studios
The studios in Māwhera Greymouth are fully operational now. Above the Regent Theatre in town the textile collection is now hung up on rails in the storeroom and I have a friend sharing the space in the main room with me. Claire is a textile artist and dressmaker and I have offered some of the…
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Chita!
Brazil boats its own unique textile that symbolises the country’s exuberant personality in print. Cotton has been important in Brazil for centuries but during the period that the country was colonised and governed from Portugal, most cloth was imported. This was expensive and so, threatened by rising cotton agriculture, the government banned its production in…