Tag: textiles

  • Fire-fighting in Japan

    During the Edo Period (1600s to the mid-19th Century) Japan enjoyed peace and prosperity. This was reflected in fire-fighters’ protective clothing. Utilitarian clothes that protected the wearer while they were putting out the fires that could easily spread across the tightly-packed wooden buildings of towns and cities were an important part of a fire fighter’s…

  • All about skirts

    An exhibition in New York is all about skirts. The show,  “Wool Skirts,” is just about to finish on March 15 at Sudestada in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, and it is a display of 130 skirts and 29 new pieces by artists and designers. These were made using 47 skirts from the collection, which…

  • Jean-Claude Bissery

    A new window display for autumn features a printed hanging by the French artist, Jean-Claude Bissery. Known for his use of vibrant colour and design, the piece hanging in the studio is entitled “Boucheron”, which translates as “woodcutter”. In the image a man strides through a forest filled with autumnal leaves, carrying a cut tree…

  • The first cloth

    The first cloth ever for the West Coast Cloth Company is nearly ready to come off the loom. The warp and weft in this cloth is Jamieson’s yarn from Shetland, the last of the cones that I brought over when we moved to the West Coast. I was inspired by the colours of the Coast,…

  • Review: Nature’s Symphony

    A current exhibition, Nature’s Symphony, by Marilyn Rea-Menzies at the Left Bank Art Gallery in Māwhera/ Greymouth features tapestries, drawings and paintings, each one an exploration of the colours and textures of the forests of the Coast. Rea-Menzies works diligently and with intelligence, both emotional and cerebral, a discipline that began in childhood in the…

  • Fighting gender imbalance… with knitting?

    In Denmark knitting is making a political statement. Huzzah!

  • New books in the library

    A lovely donation from a reader of the blog has given the library four books. Traditional and Modern Batik is the 1982 English translation of a Dutch book from 1977 by Miep Spee. As the textile collection features cloths from Asia and Africa that reflect the Javanese traditions of wax batik this is a very…

  • Philippine woven textiles

    This week a Canadian visitor to the studio mentioned the intriguing banana fibre textiles from the Philippine Islands. The oldest known of these pieces in the world dates back to the 13th or 14th Century. It is an ikat cloth (as you can see on this link) and was found on Banton Island in 1936.…

  • Threads of Belonging

    A new temporary public art show is about to be installed in South Sacramento’s Valley Hi-North Laguna Library. The textiles mural is an homage to the immigrant communities of the area, HMong, Filipinx/a/o, and Palestinians, who have contributed to the living history of the Californian capital city. The art work is combined with workshops and…

  • The Long White Cloud

    In 1980 Douglas Chowns, a Northland artist, was commissioned to create a mural for the New Zealand Council for Educational Research for their 50th anniversary. A unique hand-printed mixed media piece was the result: The Long White Cloud. This kinetic sculptural piece was inspired by the artist’s life in Northland since 1972 with stars, bones…