Stacey Harvey-Brown and Kathy Schicker will be appearing in Shetland to give a talk about their work and experiences on Saturday 13th October 2012.
The talk is at ASF Shetland in Yell, at 6:30 pm and bookings can be made via email – globalyell@btconnect.com.
If anyone is coming up for Shetland Wool Week, 8th – 14th Oct there is a lot to see and do, and there is more information www.shetlandwoolweek.com/
Images: Kathy Schicker
Ismini Samanidou’s solo show Topography: recording place – mapping surface is on at the Crafts Study Center for two more weeks until the 6th of October 2012
Ismini will be at the show this Saturday 29th of September, and on the 6th of September from 12-4 and if you would like to visit the show she will be pleased to show you round the exhibition
The exhibition brings together work that investigates surface, stories and place through woven textiles and ranges handwoven textile studies, jacquard woven wall pieces and a range of collaborative works with Gary Allson and Sharon Blakey.
The show also displays the beginnings of a recent body of work on cloud studies, showing the process and thinking behind the work including photographs and sketches.
The show has had a very good response already, attached you can read a Crafts Magazine feature about the work by Nicole Swengley. The show catelogue is available to buy at the Crafts Study Center.
The show will tour in the US in 2013:
Initially at the Center for Craft Creativity and Design at North Carolina between January and March, and then at the Weber Center at Utah from March to April 2013.
The Crafts Study Center is in Farnham, Surrey, in England, a direct 50 minute train journey from London Waterloo.
Crafts Study Centre
Crafts Study Centre
University for the Creative Arts
Falkner Road
Farnham, Surrey GU9 7DS
T +44 (0)1252 891450
The Field: Oct 2012 edition. The feature is part of a series on traditional crafts and skills. The piece profiles Iain Finlay from Breanish Tweed on Lewis. It explores his background (he is a TV documentary maker but comes from a family of weavers) and how he learnt to weave; the process of weaving; the satisfaction gained from doing it and the skills it requires. The feature also provides a bit of information about the state of the weaving as an industry on Lewis and details of where people can get further information about learning to weave, either as a hobby or a career.
Journalist: Charlotte Mackaness
The Field
“TEXPRINT interviews, mentors and promotes the UK’s most talented textile design graduates with the support of industry professionals worldwide.” (Source Texprint website)
This year 7 weave designers were selected by Texprint and will be showing their work at Indigo trade Fair, Paris 19th – 21st September 2012. Their work was first showcased at Texprint London in July. See all Texprint Designers
Lisa Bloomer
Lisa Bloomers’work focuses on materials and the process of making. Specialising in weave, she also uses dye, print and freehand techniques to create bespoke fabrics for interiors and fashion. Lisa achieved an MA at the Royal College of Art in Woven Textiles.
Sustainable and ethical concerns inform her practice and she sources local fibres, such as European linen and hemp, British wool and alpaca, alongside mohair and silk, to ensure high-quality investment design. lisa.bloomer@network.rca.ac.uk
Dominique Caplan
Dominique Caplan’s work is innovative and engaging, experimenting with different approaches, but always resulting in entertaining intelligently executed textile.  Having recently graduated from Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design with a First Class (Hons) Degree in Textile Design, Dominique thrives on the technicalities of weave and the construction of a fabric utilizing both Arm and Jacquard looms. She enjoys creating concepts and stories to base her fabrics on working with a range of media from film to 3D model making. Extensive drawing and painting coupled with this combination of media allows her research and resulting fabrics more freedom and variation. Her recent collections which have been exhibited at New Designers and now Texprint, London, experiment with unusual contrasting colour ways. Her innovative and unique research procures a strong design signature which is communicated throughout her work. Most recently Dominique’s collection originated from the ‘End Game’ a computer game dual reality created by her to generate fabrics for quirky menswear.  From beginning to end Dominique’s collections are surprising, humorous and energetic. dominiquecaplan999@hotmail.com
Sophia Fenlon
Intrigued by the weird and the wonderful, Sophia’s collections delve into the exploration of extreme textural opposites, intricate extra weft patterning and masses of vibrant colour.  Enhanced by a love of illustration and styling a strong sense of designer identity transcends throughout. Specialising in Woven Textile Design for Fashion, Sophia holds a first class BA (Hons) degree from the University of Brighton with graduate collection sponsorship from luxury Paris fashion house Hermes. s.e.fenlon@hotmail.co.uk
Alix Massieux
Alix graduated with a fashion degree in women’s wear in 2008 from La Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne in Paris. She then decided to broaden her skills and knowledge by attending Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in order to create fabrics with a fashion application.
Her work is vibrant and exciting, exploring the relationship between material and colour and emphasizes attention to detail with hand stitch embroidery and finishing techniques. In her research she utilises similar techniques, experimenting with painting and collage.
Her visualisations often portray simply cut fashion pieces with exquisite and precious fabric.
As a designer with a background in both fashion and textiles, she considers the fabric as important as the garment and she intends to explore this relationship further in her future career. alix.massieux@gmail.com
Sophie Reeves
Sophie Reeves studied at the University of Brighton, graduating with first class honours in 2012. Her collection drew upon the freeform geometry of the Russian Constructivists, finding a parallel with the shapes, colours & textures of crystals in nature. It is this visual chemistry to be found in mechanised structure & natural formation that defines her practice to date. sophieelizabethreeves@gmail.comÂ
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Department of Fiber and Material Studies announces a full-time, tenured or tenure track-position, beginning August 2013. The department seeks candidates with accomplished studio practices who are proficient in both hand and machine, and analog and digital technologies as applied to textiles/fiber and material studies, preferably with experience in Jacquard weaving. S/he will lead the curricular and pedagogical direction of the weaving area. The ideal candidate should be versed in historic and critical dialogue/theory as related to the field within a broader contemporary art and cultural discourse. Rank and salary are competitive with peer institutions, and are commensurate with quality of scholarship or practice, extent of teaching experience, and current professional standing.
The Department of Fiber and Material Studies encourages an interdisciplinary approach to the investigation of relationships among concept, materiality, and process in contemporary art. Students use a broad range of media and methods with emphasis on the integration of textile, fiber and material study traditions, within an expanded contemporary art context. The department currently has five full-time faculty and up to fifteen part-time faculty. It has up to 20 dedicated MFA students, and over 750 undergraduate enrollments in 60 courses each year.
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Warp & Weft by Jessica Hemmings explores the world of woven textiles created for fashion, interiors and art. The experimental practice of some of the most exciting international textile artists and designers today, including Lia Cook, Nuno, Liz Williamson and Maggie Orth, reveals the range of interdisciplinary connections that inspire and inform contemporary woven textiles. A rich overview to contemporary weaving, this book is an excellent resource for everyone with an interest in weaving, fashion, interiors and art. The book will be published in Oct 2012.
Jessica Hemmings writes about textiles. She has taught at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, the Rhode Island School of Design, Winchester School of Art and Edinburgh College of Art. In 2010 she edited a collection of essays entitled In the Loop: Knitting Now published by Black Dog and has recently compiled The Textile Reader for Berg (2012) and written Warp & Weft for Bloomsbury (2012). She is currently Professor of Visual Culture and Head of the Faculty of Visual Culture at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. Continue reading →
The Architecture of Cloth, Colour & Space
Stroud International Textiles will be showcasing new work by international textile artists and designers Ptolemy Mann and Anna Glasbrook in a new exhibition at Gloucester Cathedral. 

Colour saturated lengths of cloth will wrap the magnificent columns in the Nave of Gloucester cathedral.  Ptolemy Mann’s wall based hand dyed and woven textile artworks will also punctuate the cathedral space bringing a colourful softness and geometry to the viewer as they wander through the dramatic cathedral architecture.
Collaborative furniture pieces by Kristian Stringer and Marina Dragomirova will sit on top of the flagstones alongside Mann’s gem-coloured rugs celebrating the longstanding relationship between ecclesiastical architecture and commissioned textiles and objects. 

In the cloisters and hidden parts of the cathedral the architectural textile artist Anna Glasbrook will reveal her textile art pieces in the wintery light. Anna Glasbrook creates dynamic stitched architectural pieces that vibrate with vivid colour and movement. Using brightly coloured threads, she has developed an innovative and contemporary technique to construct vibrant three-dimensional drawings in space.
The gothic splendor of the cathedral will be a dramatic background to the vibrant and colourful textiles of these two inspiring, innovative and successful contemporary artists.
Details
Dates:  27th October – 31st December 2012
Venue: Â Gloucester Cathedral, 12 College Green Gloucester GL1 2LX
Open Times: 9 am – 6 pm
Admission: Free
Contact Phone: 01453 751056
Website:Â www.stroudinternationaltextiles.org.uk
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A One Day Symposium on the theme of The Architecture of Cloth, Colour & Space:
Saturday 27 October 2012
The Chapter House Room, Gloucester Cathedral.
Time: 11 am – 6 pm
Stroud International Textiles are delighted to be present a one day symposium of discovery and debate in the glorious setting of Gloucester Cathedral where the accompanying exhibition The Architecture of Cloth, Colour & Space is to be held.
Now, more than ever, we live in a climate where diversification and the exchange of ideas across several different disciplines is paramount; to survive creatively one has to apply our skills broadly but with finesse and personal signature. In keeping with the exhibition title: The Architecture of Cloth, Colour and Space this symposium aims to engage you in the working practice of exceptional people across the several disciplines the title defines: A colour theorist who engages with computer technology and paint, an artist who wraps facades with colour, an architect who circumnavigates the world through food and innovation, a weaver bridging the commercial craft divide, a textile artist creating installations for outside spaces; they all bring something different to their respective worlds and ours. Join us in the monumental gothic space of Gloucester Cathedral for a day of creative provocation and debate.
Central Saint Martins College of Arts & Design, University of The Arts London, second Year BA (Hons) Textile Design weave students worked on a menswear project set by Dashing Tweeds.
Dashing Tweeds create “a range of tweeds, accessories and clothing for the 21st century. The company was founded by photographer Guy Hills and Woven Textile Designer Kirsty McDougall, who share a dedication to challenging the menswear market with elegance, colour, heritage, technology, innovation and humour, developing fabrics and garments that will last a life time….†Dashing Tweeds website
Guy Hill and Kirsty McDougall briefed the students at the new Central Saint Martins Kings Cross campus, illustrating the companies’ work with images, talked about the history of tweeds and Guy Hill modeled a range of Dashing Tweeds clothing throughout the talk.
Keeping to the Dashing Tweeds urban influences, the students had to develop primary visual research choosing an area of London, being given the options of; exploring where they lived, an area that interested them or they had to find an interesting way of bringing together different aspects of London and capture the ‘flavour’ of the areas. This research was used to develop urban and textured tweed woven samples, which the students wove using 8 shaft looms. The students also had to develop computer aided design simulated weave shirting samples, to co ordinate with their tweeds, using specialist weave software.
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