Marta Santos lived in Madrid until the early 1990s and then in Paris, New York and Toulouse before settling in Marseille in the South of France.
If you are in the area in late September take a visit to her inspiring workshop which is open on September 28,29,30 as part of the OAA 20th edition in Marseille.
For more information visit www.marta-santos.com
Credits from top left: Ripples and Ribes by Jennie Moncur; New World by Jilly Edwards; Kim by Pat Taylor; The Challenge by Caron Penney; Reflections On the Other Side by Miyuki Tatsumi; Brittle, Little and The Brutal Truth by Tonje Hoydahl Sorli; Regeneration by Barbara Heller.
I’ve wanted to visit the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow London since it opened in 2012 and it exceeded expectations. Housed in the beautiful Georgian house that William lived in from 1834 – 1896 it features a comprehensive history of his stunning work that covered everything from wallpaper, tiles, stained glass and embroidery. The collection shows how influential he still is today and his adage “have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or be beautiful,” is particularly relevant and still regularly quoted.
Another reason to visit is the ‘Weaving New Worlds,’ exhibition which is on display until 23rd September. Curated by Lesley Millar 16 tapestries by different women artists cover themes such as urban decay, the New York grid system and drunk driving. My only slight criticism is I don’t really see why the artists have to be women, it could have been non gender specific. Apart from that to see so many high quality pieces in one room is such a rarity and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Weaving New Worlds is on until 23rd September and is open Wed – Friday 10am – 5pm and is free.
Above: Anne Stabell and her tapestry Symbiosis (Lichen)
Anyone who reads this blog regularly will know I’m particularly passionate about tapestry weaving so I’m thrilled to feature Anne Stabell. So much tapestry weaving is done in wool it is brilliant to see an artist who uses another medium too. Anne uses nylon as well as wool so her tapestries are partly transparent. This contrast between the solid wool and the fine nylon gives her art a delicate quality that is also strong, a bit like the nature that inspires it. See her page on this site for more of her beautiful work, or visit www.annestabell.no
Left: Safety Net by Madeleine Wright. Right: Uncanny by Shuying Wang
I’ve often said that the beauty of textiles as a medium is the sheer diversity of what can be created. The final two artists chosen for our graduate showcase illustrate this perfectly. Madeleine Wright explores social issues through her work and Safety Net aims to raise awareness of Charles Thompson’s mission which was founded in 1892 and still helps people today offering them a ‘safety net’.
Shuying Wang uses colour, tension and different yarns to embody the creativity of knit, while exploring the concept of human environmental connections.
Visit our graduate showcase to see more.
Kate Whitehead is the second artist to feature in our Graduate Showcase. This collection is from ‘Not From The Stork’ which challenges the traditional view of what family is. Her Family pieces are handwoven from silk and Back Cloth is printed fabric with embroidery. Kate will be exhibiting at New Designers in London from Wednesday 27th June – Saturday 30th June www.newdesigners.com
Find out more on our Graduate Showcase or visit www.kate-whitehead.co.uk.
Winnie Yeung has just completed her MA in Knitted Textiles from the Royal College of Art and is our first student in our Graduate Showcase. Find out more here
(Knitwear by Winnie Yeung. Photographs by Valerie Yuwen Hsieh, Styling by Alex Po)
We have featured quite a few textile artists who discover their passion for the medium after another career and Kenris MacCloud is one of them. It was while studying at Edinburgh College of Art after a 15 year career with the BBC that she found her talent for machine embroidery.
“I knew I wanted to create but didn’t know what my medium was. I found myself having to do a module on stitched textiles, the idea of which appalled me due to enforced sewing lessons at school and many struggles with recalcitrant sewing machines! However, I quickly got over my previously ingrained fear and realised that I could use the sewing machine needle as a pencil and draw freehand with thread instead of lead. It felt like a revelation and I was hooked.”
Twenty One Trees is exhibiting at Art and Vintage in Abbeyhill, Edinburgh until June 24th www.artandvintage-edinburgh.co.uk
Above from left: Work from Tea Flora Tales recently exhibited in Nadelwelt, Germany. The cover of the upcoming book Textile Landscape: Painting with Cloth in Mixed Media (Batsford)
Cas Holmes has been a textile artist for over thirty years and her work continues to be exhibited and enjoyed around the world. Her pieces grow organically from her sketchbooks where she records things that interest her, such as her local landscape. “I gather cloth, paste, colours, papers and other found materials together and build layers as I would a painting. I then cut and tear into the layers to see what’s underneath. This is then worked with further paint and machine stitching,” she explains.
This inspiring process is detailed in her new book, Textile Landscape: Painting with Cloth, which is her fourth book for Batsford. A series of linked exhibitions are taking place including a one person show at Rochester Art Gallery in 2019. The natural landscape has always been important to Cas and she started Tea Flora Tales, an ongoing community project to support native habitats and wild flowers at the Knitting and Stitching Show in 2012. Supported by the Embroider’s Guild it is now in its sixth year and returns to the Knitting and Stitching Shows in the UK during Autumn.
Cas is also exhibiting at the Festival of Quilts at the NEC Birmingham in August as part of the textile group Art Textiles Made in Britain. Busy times ahead for this inspiring artist.
To find out more about Cas, read her profile page here or visit www.casholmestextiles.co.uk. Textile Landscape: Painting with Cloth in Mixed Media (Batsford) is released in September 2018.
Images above: Class Two and Class One, Hand Sewn Archival Ink Jet Prints 2018 by Diane Meyer
We are all to familiar with posing for the camera but there was a time pre-digital photography where being photographed was a more formal event. This is what has interested Diane Meyer and her she talks about the concept behind her latest series of old elementary school class photographs from the 1970s.
” This project will continue my interest in the relationship between photography and memory and is an extension of an earlier project,’ Time Spent That Might Otherwise Be Forgotten’. In the class photographs, the faces of the students, or what would normally be the main focal points of the image, are obscured with cross-stitch embroidery made to resemble the digital pixel structure of the image. By obscuring what would typically be the most important parts of the image, otherwise overlooked details are brought into focus such as body language and the embodiments of social convention. I am interested exploring these details to reveal not only the relationships between the various figures, but also how, even at a very young age, children were taught and instructed to pose in particular ways based on gender. Drawing on the ideas of Roland Barthes in his book Camera Lucida, the project will also explore the ways in which clothing items were carefully chosen by parents to convey a particular impression for peers and future generations. I am interested in this time period not only because it is my own generation, but because it is the last generation to have a childhood unclouded by digital technology. These class pictures were taken before camera phones and digital cameras and at a time when having one’s class picture taken was still a serious and important occasion- something that has been lost on today’s children who are accustomed to their parents photographing them with camera phones repeatedly throughout the day- and thus more susceptible to the impulses of impressions management through pose, body language, dress and other details in the image.”
Find out more at dianemeyer213@gmail.com or to read her profile page click on here
From left: One Hand In My Pocket and Flay details and full image by Kristina D. Aas and Karina N. Presttun both digital jacquard weave.
2018 has already been a busy year for textile artist Kristina D. Aas whom we featured in 2016 (click here to read her interview). Firstly she won first prize at the 8th Annual Juried Exhibition at Gallery 110 in Seattle. And now she has a joint show ‘Garment Exchange.’ with Karina N. Presttun. The artists met when they were studying at Bergen Academy of Art and Design and they both use textiles in their work. ‘Garment Exchange,’ explores the stories that clothes can have. The pair spent three months on the project which started by exchanging a garment that had significance to each artist. They then wrote a story about the garment and this became the basis for new art works. The results also include videos and textile collages.
Garment Exchange is open Saturday – Sunday 12 – 4pm until 29th April at Galleri Christinegaard in Bergen, Norway www.enterwine.no