After the loss of physical engagement over the last two years, I am completely excited and delighted the exhibition of Miniature Textiles from all who took part in the research trip to Japan in 2019 will open at The Crafts Study Centre in Farnham on January 8th through to March 25th 2022. It will then transfer to Gallery Gallery in Kyoto in April 2022. The works from Japan have arrived already including that of a National Living Treasure, and we will take delivery of the UK works in the middle of December for a pre-Christmas install. There will be a limited edition of the catalogue available.
Check #clothandmemory or www.csc.uca.ac.uk for announcements of various supporting events. Here is a list of the 27 artists taking part:
Beverly Ayling-Smith - Gail Baxter - Susan Blandford - Linda Brassington - Jennifa Chowdhury - Kendall Clarke - Evie Francis - Yasuko Fujimoto - Janice Gunner - Sian Highwood - Peta Jacobs - Jennifer Jones - Yasumasa Komiya - Loucia Manopoulou - Noriko Matsumoto Annette Mills - Suzumi Noda - Chika Ohgi - Gina Pierce - Carol Quarini - Paula Reason - Hiroyuki Shindo - Reiko Sudo - Chiyoko Tanaka - Hermione Thomson - Dawn Thorne - Jun Tomita
TEXTILE PERSPECTIVES
A new season of online Textile Perspectives began in October with presentation from amazing architect Elena Manferdini who is principal and owner of Atelier Manferdini based in Los Angeles. Those of you who saw Lost in Lace will never have forgotten her breath-taking upside down crystal cathedral made from thousands of Swarovski crystals. Elena is trained in both architecture and engineering and many of her designs have echoes of lace structures. In 2019 she was honoured with the ICON Award as part of the Los Angeles Design Festival - a prize that recognises iconic women who have made an indelible mark of Los Angeles culture and society in general through their work and creative leadership.
This was followed in November by Finnish artist Silja Puranen. Silja has won much acclaim and awards for her textile works printed on old textiles, often rugs, in which she was concerned with challenging pre-conceptions about appearance/body image and difference - almost always using digitally manipulated images of her own body. She is also a circus performer and trapezes and tightropes often figure! Some of you may have seen an example of this work in my 2008 exhibition 'Cloth & Culture Now' (Sainsbury Centre and Whitworth Art Gallery). More recently she has been working with film and animation, so although very different from Elena Manferdini, her work also demonstrates textile thinking and multi-disciplinarity.
Check #clothandmemory for announcements of upcoming Textile Perspective presentations in 2022
COLLABORATION WITH GEORGIA
After so many delays owing to COVID, the British Council Crafting Futures collaboration between UCA and Tbilisi State Academy of Arts finally kicked off over the summer - it had been due to start in 2020. Textile artists Linda Brassington and Tinatin Kliashvili have been working with contemporary responses to the traditional blue cloth tablecloths of Georgia. The results and their Blog can be viewed on www.csc.uca.ac.uk/crafting-futures
Tinatin Kliashvili
Linda Brassington