Off the loom: woven explorations and applications in art, science & industry, Stroud International Textile Festival, Sunday 8th May, 2011, 11-4.30pm

I’m delighted to announce that I am hosting a forthcoming day of talks as part of the 2011 Stroud International Textile Festival, that will celebrate some of the innovative applications and aesthetic explorations in contemporary weave practice.

With a respectful nod to tradition, the invited speakers are all forging new ground within the fashion, science, furnishings and art spheres taking weave into dynamic new arenas. From e-textiles to art for architectural spaces, each speaker is a pioneer in their discipline and is taking their expertise into unexpected arenas.


Speakers:

Laura Thomas, artist, curator and design consultant. Well known for her trademark encapsulation of delicate textile structures in acrylic resin, recent significant commissions include a Museumaker project to design a triptych window for The Beaney Museum and Art Gallery in Canterbury and a vessel presented to Cricket Australia from the Welsh Assembly Government to commemorate the Ashes being played in Cardiff in 2009. A recipient of a Creative Wales Ambassador Award from the Arts Council of Wales, Laura is currently developing new bodies of work in residence at the Ruthin Craft Centre.


Asha Peta Thompson, is a founding partner of Intelligent Textiles Ltd (ITL)along with Stan Swallow. Asha is an expert in woven technical textiles, specifically electronically active ‘e-textiles’. The ITL patented processes have been applied to many products and principles from heated bedding to iPod connected garments. Recent press coverage has focused on their partnering with the Ministry of Defence to develop embedded technical functionality into military clothing, predominantly as a replacement for conventional cables in soldier systems.


Kirsty McDougall, is one half of Dashing Tweeds, Britain’s latest tweed textile company. Opening up a contemporary arena for a classic quality fabric, Dashing Tweeds has created a range of tweeds for the 21st century, designed by photographer Guy Hills and weaver Kirsty McDougall. Quirky colour palettes, inventive yarn combinations and sophisticated tactile qualities have taken the traditional tweed into uncharted territory, winning them fans across the fashion world. Of particular note is their LumaTwill™ range which is a fusion of technical sportswear with elegant tweed cloth. Light reflective yarns punctuate the woollen checks, so when worn at night it illuminates as light hits the fabric.

Melissa French, artist, designer and coordinator of the Puff & Flock textile collective. Melissa’s practice sees her span the commercial and conceptual sphere. A graduate of the renowned MA Textile Futures at Central St Martins, Melissa has garnered a reputation for work that questions the expected application of woven textiles. Her Urban Upholstery concept takes textiles beyond decoration. This time-based work integrates various metals in her woven fabrics to enable them to endure time and weather whist evolving through natural rusting or oxidising. Inspired by graffiti, urban guerrilla movements and traditional interior textiles and design, Melissa wants to bring an element of beauty, pattern, design and ultimately surprise to the urban landscape.


Ptolemy Mann, artist and architectural colour consultant. Renowned for her impeccable eye for colour, Ptolemy produces striking ikat dyed woven artworks for corporate, commercial and domestic spaces, which have been exhibited and specified all over the world. Working with a UK manufacturer, she has also recently added limited edition mill woven cloth to her repertoire, suitable for cushions, drapes and other applications. Ptolemy is also in demand as an architectural colour consultant, bringing vibrant palette’s to the usually colour-shy world of external facades, as well as devising internal colour schemes for healthcare environments to aid way finding and psychological well being.


Tickets are available from the Stroud International Textiles website:

Cost: £40/£35 (Students/Friends of SIT)

£5.00 for light lunch


There are limited tickets available particularly at the concessionary rate. The last weave symposium I was involved in (warp+weft at the National Wool Museum) ended up with a waiting list of disappointed people, please do book asap!


I look forward to seeing you there!

Ruth Laskey

Detail of Twill Series (Blue Gray), 2010
Hand-dyed & handwoven linen
21 x 30 inches

Detail of Twill Series (Forest Green/Electric Blue), 2008
Hand-dyed & handwoven linen
23.5 x 14 inches



Detail of Twill Series (Peach) 2010
Hand-dyed & handwoven linen
21 x 30 inches



Detail of Twill Series (Kelly Green/Clear Yellow), 2008
Hand-dyed & handwoven linen
14 x 23.5 inches

Just had another one of those 'wow' moments. I was browsing through my latest copy of FiberArts (which incidentally has lots of inspirational articles about woven textile artists in this issue) and saw an intriguing image on the list of latest awards page: Twill Series (Peach) 2010 by Ruth Laskey who has recently won Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art Award for her hand dyed twill weavings. This led me to her elegant website showcasing her beautiful work that really resonates with me. I love her sparse compositions and refined use of colour exploring simple geometric shapes. The pictures above are all details taken from her website - the actual artworks have much more white space around the shapes.....

Elda Cecchele

There is little more satisfying then to learn something new. For some reason Elda Cecchele had never hit my radar, so I must thank the the  blogger Doni for sharing details of this exhibition on her wonderful blog and flickr photostream. I'm filled with envy that I won't get to see this exhibition, but grateful to have at least seen these photographs. If any of you do find yourself in Italy, the exhibition continues until the 13th of March.

The exhibition poster.
Source: http://www.vogue.it/en/talents/blog-from/2010/12/elda-cecchele



Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/18843761@N03/sets/72157625614428771/with/5320807185/

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/18843761@N03/sets/72157625614428771/with/5320807185/



Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/18843761@N03/sets/72157625614428771/with/5320807185/



Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/18843761@N03/sets/72157625614428771/with/5320807185/

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/18843761@N03/sets/72157625614428771/with/5320807185/

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/18843761@N03/sets/72157625614428771/with/5320807185/

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/18843761@N03/sets/72157625614428771/with/5320807185/

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/18843761@N03/sets/72157625614428771/with/5320807185/

Although I've only done some cursory googling to try and find out more, information about Elda Cecchele seems thin on the ground (well in English at least). Another case of the rather anonymous textile designer in the shadows of the big fashion 'names'. If any of you know more sources of information about her, I'd be really grateful if you could share them.

This is the little bit of info on the Italian Vogue website about the exhibition:

A figure to rediscover. Her work inspired some of the greatest designers between the 50s and 70s in Italy. The Elda Cecchele exhibition is dedicated to this weaver from the Italian region of The Veneto who is a point of reference of fashion of yesteryear.

The exhibition in the form of weavings will be inaugurated December 4 at 5 p.m. at the Lanificio Conte a Schio Exhibition Hall.  It is organised by the City of Schio with the support of the Region of Veneto, and its curator is Marisa Luisa Frisa, director of the Fashion Design degree course at the Venice Faculty of Design and Arts (IUAV University of Venice), along with Gabriele Monte, who teaches Concept Design at the Fashion Design degree course.

The exhibit is an opportunity to discover, for the first time, the extraordinary work of Elda Cecchele (1915-1998) who contributed to the success of great 20th century Italian designers with the fabrics she made in the Galliera Veneta (Padua) workshop.
http://www.vogue.it/en/talents/blog-from/2010/12/elda-cecchele

And here is a biography (translated by google from Italian, so some of the wording is rather clunky)

ELDA Cecchele (1915-1998)

Elda Pavan was born in 1915 in San Martino di Lupari, in the province of Padua. After education, the meeting with Angela, a worker in the mill town of Abbazia Pisani, born in Elda is the desire to learn the technical textiles. So start with a production of underwear for Angela, an activity that continues until 1937, the occasion of the marriage Cecchele Gino, a member of a family owns two mills, determines the end of that year working relationship between the two women.

After the end of World War II, like many other mills, including that of Cecchele cease production. Elda and Gino at the time of settling in an abandoned mills, in San Martino di Lupari, home where she sets up a new weaving workshop. After purchasing a first hand loom and have entered in the register of artisans, the weaver increases the activity of buying four frames provided tiralicci machine and, with the increase of orders, began to make use of two aid workers.

With the support of the Veneto Institute of Labour, an institution dedicated to promoting the craft Veneto in Italy and abroad, Elda Cecchele began to exhibit in international events and to establish contacts with entrepreneurs in the fashion world. Since then renewed opportunities to publicly present the production of the laboratory: in 1950 he exhibited his products in the handicrafts at the exhibition organized at the Bevilacqua La Masa and participate in the Craft Show held dall'Enapi of Monaco of Bavaria. In 1952, again through the National Board of handicrafts and small industries, takes part in an international exhibition in Oslo. At that time also dates back to the beginning of the meeting together with Giuliana Camerino for the production of materials for accessories. In 1953 he exhibited at the Craft Show, at which a diploma of honor and knows Giovan Battista Giorgini, while the following year he was called by Salvatore Ferragamo that calls for new materials for its shoes. At the same time meets Polish Franca, fashion designer to realize that many original materials until the early sixties. In 1956 and in 1960 she was invited to participate in the Decorative Arts section of the Italy pavilion, XXVIII and XXX, respectively, the Venice Biennale. In 1957 in Palazzo Venezia in the presence of Loredan Giorgini and personalities from the worlds of fashion handbags are made of Roberta di Camerino, wrapped with a fabric woven with pearls produced by Elda Cecchele.

Around 1960 the family moved to Cecchele Galliera Veneta, in 'ex-mill belonged to the husband's family, where a new place, in some locals, including the textile laboratory. At that time you start a collection of textiles for the firm Roberta di Camerino and collaboration with designer accessories and Galleani Gino Franco Gregori. In 1978, the weaver represents Italy in the tissues at the Italian Festival in Tokyo.
Elda Cecchele dies Galliera Veneta in 1998 and part of his textile background is still there, the site where he worked until his retirement grant, in 1986.
http://www.comune.schio.vi.it/a_15_IT_37163_2.html 

James Donald, Pick One

Under the brand name of Pick One, James Donald produces very covetable hand woven scarves inspired by the Scottish landscape. He is well known for his use of complex float structures which are woven in various kinds of wool. Once washed, the floats shrink causing interesting surface undulations which spark tactile curiosity. In recent times James has started to explore flatter double and triple cloth constructions, as exemplified by the first images. His blog records his latest interests in colour and mark masking, offering a fascinating insight into what feeds into his woven cloths.

You can buy his scarves from a large number of retailers, but if you find yourself in Edinburgh, you must visit Concrete Wardrobe, the shop/gallery which he co-founded with Fiona Mackintosh, to promote and sell the work of Scottish and Scotland-trained textile makers.

Loom on a roof.....

I don't know about you..... but this was a 'wow' moment for me, when I clicked on a WeaveTech link through to this story on the Architects Newspaper blog.

This is a temporary installation on Richard Neutra’s VDL House in Silver Lake, LA, by Mexico City-based artist Santiago Borja.  A functioning loom has been created using the buildings integral steel beams, upon which a woolen artwork was then woven using Mayan inspired symbols.

Full details of the project can be found on Galley 727 website, from which I quote the following text:

FORT DA // SAMPLER is a site-specific installation by Mexico City-based artist Santiago Borja. The artist and his collaborators have erected a temporary, functioning textile loom transforming the roof of architect Richard Neutra’s family home. Borja’s architectural intervention encourages new readings of this place, and what he sees as the elusive nature of “magical thinking” embedded in Modernism. The project grows from the formal similarities between modern abstract geometry and Mayan patterning used to represent the cosmos.

The installation title comes from Borja’s study of Freud’s “Fort / Da” theory, which says that the symbolic allows us to manage the discrepancies between pleasure and reality. Freud developed his theory while watching a child repeatedly throw a wooden reel attached to a string over a ledge. The child would watch it disappear, retrieve it, and then throw it back again. Freud theorized that this game was how the child managed his anxiety created by the absence of his mother. Borja takes this theory further, envisioning the act of throwing the reel as a way to trace an emotional space that visually and physically connects us to a distant place.

In Chiapas, as in other areas of Mexico, young apprentices establish their identity as textile makers through the creation of several samplers that codify the entire textile language. The process of weaving and embroidering these samplers connect them to past, present, and future textile processes, creating a dialogue with the cosmic and natural world around them.

Mayrose Watson



Circle




Urban Landscape - detail




Urban Landscape series




Urban Landscape detail

 I love it when I'm forwarded links to interesting work! Thank you to my good friend Clare Bastable (weave lecturer at Birmingham City Uni) for sending me a link to Mayrose Watson a 2010 graduate of Chelsea College of Art and Design. She has a fabulous sensitivity to colour and is using structure in a wonderfully atypical way: these works feel really fresh. I'd be really interested to know what she's doing now...... if you're out there Mayrose get in touch!

In her own words from the Chelsea website: 'My current work is a collection of custom-made oak frames wrapped in overlapping and intersecting layers of viscose rayon yarn, chosen for its highly reflective properties.
The effect of light upon the work creates a constantly changing visual experience, encouraging viewers to look at each piece from numerous angles and distances.
The inspiration for this project derives from the observation of crossing, intersecting and layering of lines, colour and form in the urban landscape, and how their visual qualities are affected by the movement of the observer.'

Chloe McCormick

Chloe McCormick is producing the most interesting tapestry work I've seen in a long time. A recent graduate of the inspiring MA Textile Futures course at Central St Martins, her work has rightly been garnering a lot of attention across the mainstream and specialist press. Embracing rapid prototyping technology Chloe has created laser sintered nylon structures which act as warp threads into which she weaves her weft yarns. This is a link to a very informative interview explaining her background and the ideas that feed into her practice: http://www.i-donline.com/i-spy/chloe-mccormick-–-warped-tapestry