Exhibition: The Art of Craft – Ayse Simsek
The Art of Craft is a Contemporary Crafts exhibition which celebrates contemporary craft, featuring artistic practices which push the boundaries between craft and fine art.
The show will highlight exceptional artworks crafted in glass, ceramic, thread,wire, and wood. A programme of film, talks and workshops will accompany the exhibition exploring the processes and skills of different makers.
Exhibiting artists include: Max Jacquard, Helaina Sharpley, Lindsay Taylor, Alex Hamill, Ayse Simsek and Amanda Westbury
Exhibition opens from 25th March-19th April. Opening time: 10.00 – 5.30pm
Westgate Gallery, Gatehouse Arts, 19 Westgate, Harlow, Essex CM20 2QQ
W:www.gatehousearts.com E:gatehouse@mail.com
Ayse Simsek woven textile artist and designer is inspired by the natural world and a compulsion to not just re-interpret it but to combine it within woven structure.
Ayse’s work takes two approaches to textiles; firstly using a more traditional method of hand-weaving with a variety of fibres and techniques to recreate the naturally occurring, sometimes surprising, contrasts of textures seen all around us in the world. The second approach is to intricately intertwine and wrap yarn around natural surfaces, bringing woven structure to nature – sometimes in ways that merge with it and sometimes in ways that fight against it.
Exhibition: Rising Stars 2014
Rising Stars 2014 is a touring exhibition of innovative crafts produced by emerging makers in the UK. Thirty-two recent graduates work from applied arts and crafts programmes will be shown at the New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham (8th March-19th April), Milton Keynes Arts Centre (26 April- 31st May) and Smiths Row, Bury St. Edmunds (7th June-12th July).
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Redhanded: Kings Cross
Redhanded is a new temporary art space in King’s Cross, curated by artists Sally Hampson and Esther Caplin in partnership with SVA. They profile work and projects that have been supported by SVA in Stroud and is building connections with artists, artist led projects and communities based in London.
Redhanded runs from February to April 2014, 74-76 Cromer Street, London.
WC1H 8DR and will have a continuous programme of exhibitions, workshops, events with performance, poetry and discussions.
SVA, an artist-led initiative, has established a reputation for injecting energy into run down, redundant and empty properties in Stroud, Gloucestershire.This highly successful approach to local engagement and town centre vitalisation is now being brought to this central, well-established and culturally diverse area of London.
Redhanded is open Tuesday to Thursday 12.00 – 6.00 but, as a working studio, artists are there during other days. You are invited to come in and see us by arrangement. There will be regular updates of the programme, and workshops in weaving, printing and book-making. Email or visit us to join the network
Contact:Â sallyhampson@googlemail.com or esther.caplin@hotmail.co.uk Continue reading →
Exhibition: Stacey Harvey – Brown & Agnes Hauptli
UK weaver, Stacey Harvey-Brown and Agnes Hauptli, from New Zealand are exhibiting their responses to geological forms and natural landscapes in ‘Nature in The Making’. The exhibition of stalactites, canyons and caverns, showcasing some highly unusual three-dimensional weaving and visual images, will be at the Earth House, Peria New Zealand from 8th to 18th March 2014, before moving on to Arts in Oxford, just north of Christchurch, from 12th April to 7th May.
After its New Zealand leg, ‘Nature in the Making’ will go to the USA, to the B2 Fine Art Gallery in Tacoma, Washington before going on to other venues in the USA and Europe.
Since 2010, the two weavers have met in the US every two years to visit some of the geological features surrounding their biennial weaving conference locations. This exhibition was inspired by trips to the Grand Canyon and Antelope Canyons in Arizona, and the cave systems under the Blue Ridge and Shenandoah Mountain ranges in Virginia. Agnes Hauptli uses a computer-assisted jacquard loom to create large visually engaging colour panels and Stacey Harvey-Brown uses a shaft loom to create highly textured three-dimensional Growth Forms installations and large off-the-wall Strata Wall pieces. Continue reading →
Exhibition: Patterns of Magnificance
Patterns of Magnificence is a unique exhibition of local Greek dress at The Hellenic Centre, showing an inspiring and varied approach to fabric selection and origin of materials, woven and embroidery techniques and colour.
The way textiles are combined in the dresses is inspirational for fashion and textile designers. The dresses are shown freely and not behind glass giving a rare opportunity to be able to see the fabrics from close proximity and understand the making processes involved.
The embroidery is often embellished on hand woven ground and covering the sleeves and hem of the garment leaving the main body of the chemises plain. The woven textiles range from shawls woven using different thicknesses of hand spun silk to fine jacquards and wovens using supplementary weft techniques providing a geometric patterns.
The multiform traditions of Greek women’s dress are among the richest and most splendid in the world. This exhibition brings together over forty superb originals from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century, many of which will be on display in London for the first time. They include the monumental dress from the tiny island of Psara, of which very few examples survive and which is very rarely exhibited, the richly embroidered costume from Astypalaia in the Dodecanese, the astonishing assembly of fabrics, colours and jewellery from Stefanoviki in Thessaly and the sumptuously brocaded dress from Janina in Epirus.
The Open West 2014 : Call for entries
The Open West is an annual open competition and exhibition inviting work from national and international artists practising contemporary and conceptual art. Work submitted can include Textile, painting, installation, film and sound, photography, ceramics, print, drawing, performance, sculpture, glass, metal and plastics.
Following the success of the 2013 programme, the open west 2014 will be held in the main galleries of The Wilson, the newly opened contemporary museum and art gallery in Cheltenham.
Up to 40 artists will be included in the exhibition, each with the possibility of showing more than one work. the open west 2014 will offer an opportunity for artists to participate in an education programme; residencies; workshops and a day of artists in conversation. A catalogue is published each year.
Three award winners will each be offered £500
2014 selection panel – curators Lyn Cluer Coleman and Sarah Goodwin, together with Anita Taylor and Virgile Ittah
The Wilson | Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum
Deadline: 10th Feb 2014
Exhibition: 3rd May – 1st June 2014
Artists whose work is selected for exhibition will be notified by Wednesday 19 February 2013
To apply Application Form:
Glithero: Woven Song
Woven Song is a work about making woven textiles from organ music punch cards. Commissioned by the Zuiderzee Museum in the Netherlands, the project bridges the worlds of two craftsmen, a weaver and an organ maker, who in each case use a system of punched cards to inform the behaviour of a machine, a loom or an organ. Glithero worked alongside life-long weaver Wil van den Broek and master organ maker Leon van Leeuwen to understand the techniques of their crafts and learn if it would be possible to translate one coded art form into the other, to in effect, weave music.
The project forms a self-contained exhibition that presents the material outcomes – fabrics and artefacts, and a two screen video projection that documents the story of the project. On one side that of the organ maker and the other the weaver, who’s stories run concurrently. The dancing hands of the craftsmen form a graceful choreography that echo from one screen to the other, focusing on the uncanny resemblances betweens the crafts and the craftsmen’s stories, at times synchronising, overlapping, diverging, and mirroring.
The use of parallel stories draws attention to common themes, traits, challenges about the preservation of wisdom and heritage. By means of collaboration, Glithero encourage the craftsmen to look upon themselves, their working lives and their legacy from a new vantage point, and by leading them both away from the conventions of their crafts they create new outcomes that are challenging and miraculous. The exhibition not only comprises the final products of this quest, but also the very elements of the quest itself.
Glithero are British designer Tim Simpson and Dutch designer Sarah van Gameren, who met and studied at the Royal College of Art. From their studio in London they create product, furniture, and time-based installations that give birth to unique and wonderful products. The work is presented in a broad spectrum of media, but follows a consistent conceptual path; to capture and present the beauty in the moment things are made.
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Texprint weave successes: Elizabeth Ashdown reports
The five Texprint 2013 weavers showcased their diverse collections at the Indigo trade show in Paris in September to great success. Three out of the four Texprint prize winners were weavers and two weavers were selected to take part in a 7-week internship programme in Como, Italy.
Signe Rand Ebbesens’ collection was given the Woolmark Award for her stunning fashion collections which use 60% or more merino wool. Signe’s collections of fabrics focus on hand craftsmanship, intricate structures and textures that change appearance and colour in the light. She sold her innovative designs to Lululemon Athletica and Nike and she in now working at Vanners silk mill as a designer.
Cherica Haye had a stellar few days in Paris – not only did she sell plenty of her designs, she also won the Texprint Pattern Prize and jointly won an internship in Vancouver with Lululemon Athletica, as well as taking part in a 7- week internship at a mill in Como. The judges celebrated Cherica’s collection for its extraordinary designs and attention to detail, which blend traditional weave structures with contemporary performance fabrics.
Elizabeth Ashdowns’ innovative mixed-media designs for Passementerie were shortlisted for the Texprint Pattern Prize. Her designs attracted considerable interest due to the level of exquisite hand craftsmanship, a bold and contemporary colour palette and the use of a wide variety of materials ranging from leather to bullion springs. Elizabeth sold work to Cassamance and has recently undertaken a commission to produce a bracelet.
Taslima Sultana won the Texprint colour prize for her collection of fabrics which have been inspired by how insects use colour, pattern and texture for survival, attraction and protection. Judge Tamsin Blanchard praised Taslima’s fabrics, commenting on her ‘incredibly rich and vibrant designs’ (Texprint 2013).
Ffion Griffith was awarded the Texprint Space prize for her collection of contemporary Welsh blankets and interior fabrics that blend rich colour and innovative pattern placement with traditional methods and techniques. Ffion was selected to take part in the 7-week internship in Como, and on her return to the UK she will be take up a position at Liberty of London’s Fabric Innovation department.
The winners of the prizes also exhibited their work at Intertextile Shanghai in October
New weave company: Chalk
Chalk launched its first range of woven products in July 2013, at Harrogate’s Home and Gift fair and was awarded “Best New Product†at the show.
Chalk’s founders are Kerry Stokes, an experienced freelance woven textile designer in furnishing and fashion fabrics and Richard Bush who previously ran an interior furnishing business.
Kerry Stokes commented that “We’re delighted at the positive response Chalk has received so far. We’ve loved the whole process from the initial inspiration through to the final photo shoots. It’s immensely complicated and fascinatingâ€
Chalk made contact with prospective stockists and buyers at the fair, and is now becoming an established company within the home market in the UK.
Chalk currently offer a range of woven soft furnishing products, including blankets, throws and cushions, all woven and made in the UK. The products are woven in merino lambswool and are partly inspired by the Sussex land, seascapes and architecture, where their business is based. There are six designs in various colourways, squircle outline, full squircle, beacon, prism, fern and reeds.
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