Tag: travel

  • 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…

  • Fighting gender imbalance… with knitting?

    In Denmark knitting is making a political statement. Huzzah!

  • 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…

  • Cataloguing the textile collection

    As regular readers of the blog will know the textile collection is in the process of being correctly stored and researched, thanks to volunteers. Some real treasures are being unearthed while this work is going on and one of those is a hunger cloth by the charity Misereor. In 1976 Misereor reinvigorated the “Poor Man’s…

  • Around the world in 80 fabrics

    When marine biologist, Tierney Thys, found that her research sites were being contaminated by microplastic she decided to do something about it. The result is “Around the World in 80 Fabrics“, a non-profit initiative that started out with a quilt. The quilt was created with a group of Californian middle-schoolers who responded to a National…

  • Online learning

    There are plenty of online resources that bring together lots of different subjects to learn about. Most of us like to learn something new and sometimes it seems like there isn’t enough time to go to a regular class. This is where websites like Coursera or Domestika can help. You can sign up to lots…

  • Cranbrook Art Museum

    The magic power that art has to bring people together was in evidence this week in the studio in Greymouth. The textile studio in Māwhera Greymouth might seem to be a little incongruous. After all, the West Coast of Aotearoa New Zealand is not particularly noted for its textiles, relying instead on the beautiful scenery…

  • Cary Wolinsky – photographer

    Cary Wolinksy was a photographer, well-known for his images that featured in publications like National Geographic and Smithsonian. In 1972 while in India on assignment, Wolinksy met a man in a hotel bar who persuaded the photographer to accompany him to his town, Bhadohi, where carpets are woven. This fortuitous encounter started him on a…

  • Ancient textiles of Peru

    Peruvian textiles have a long and rich history, one that continues today. This article from 1920 comes from The Museum Journal, a publication that was produced by Penn Museum from 1910 to 1935, and it reveals the understanding of Peruvian textiles in the early Twentieth Century. Anni Albers, the famous Bauhaus weaver and artist, credited…