There's So Much Going On!

April and May are going to be busy months - fibre wise - around Vancouver Island and I thought I'd update you with a few events that I'm sure you won't want to miss! Just scroll down and see what is happening!

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Vancouver Island School of Art

This course focuses on creating collage compositions using fabric and stitching. Students will learn some basic skills and how to supplement, subvert or alter these techniques to create expressive and personal projects. Students will have the option of using fabrics of personal significance. Examples of contemporary artists who use fabric in their art practice, the historic use of collage, and its relevance today as a tool to express ideas about place, politics and identity will also be covered. Course format includes slide presentations, hands-on studio time and group critiques. By the end of this course students will develop a strong understanding of composition and design using fabric as the main medium.

Register Here: http://www.vancouverislandschoolart.com/ss_sculpture.html#MMEDs213-18

By Any Other Name....

A few days ago I was asked to write up the description for a new course that I'll be teaching this spring. It began with an email and then a Facebook conversation about some word choices and how we react to using different words. Although there was no final "right" answer, it showed me how each of us define what we do as artists and what we call the materials we use!

The title of the course will be: "Cloth, Collage and Composition" and although the alliteration works well, the word "cloth" seemed not to be a good description of the materials we use.... in the write-up I use the word "fabric" to help clarify how and what we'll be creating.

Then I went to my Facebook friends with the question:  

I'm wondering about the use of "cloth" or "fabric" when describing what we do as artists. Do you use one and not the other, or interchangeably? Does one conjure up different meanings than the other...

....and I was happily chatting with friends over the following few days about the choices we use. 

Here are some of the replies:

• I use "fabric" consistently.

•  I just say I'm a quilter. It's almost like a badge of honor, sometimes I'm almost daring them to say "how quaint" lol.

•  It's a conundrum. My textile instructor used the term Cloth Constructions to describe her work. I tend to use Textile. To me, fabric sounds like something unrelated to art, as in sewing clothing. Each of us has a history of the word I think.

• I think there is a place for each of these words. There are subtle differences in meaning. The best word choice likely depends on your message and your audience. For example, I'll call myself an art quilter when I'm speaking to a guild, but use the term fiber artist or textile artist when I speak to gallerists or museum directors. It's a guessing game to decide which term has the right meaning for the listener.

•  I use cloth when it is exceptional. Fabric when it is merely fabulous.

•  Fiber is so much more chic, you get more people enthused about fiber or textile art than cloth art. Hmmmmmm, something to think about.

•  I think it depends on where you come from also, and your background! Growing up, we called it "material" in the 60's, i didn't hear the word "fabric" until i was in my 20's, and started using "cloth" in the last eight years. All are applicable in my vocabulary, but for whatever reason, "Cloth" sounds more intimate.

•  I don't think I've ever used the word cloth to describe anything I do. When I was growing up, my mother always said material. But now, I use the word fabric mostly.

• Fibre to me is the material from which we construct the threads, yarns, fabrics, whether they be natural or man made etc. textiles always sounds so industrial to me textile mills, schools of textiles etc.

•  I like your use of 'cloth' and don't see it used often enough! I have moved to describing my work as mixed media, a term that seems more widely accepted by the art world and the general public.

•  Here you go: Cloth is a fabric used to make a garment or anything that has a specific purpose. Thus cloth is just a type of woven fabric. All cloths are fabrics, while all fabrics are not cloths.

•  Very interesting question that made me think...I use both fabric and cloth depending on what I'm doing with them...I dye fabric and probably use the word fabric most of the time...I use the word cloth if I'm making what I call complex cloth...to say I dye cloth or that something I layered is complex fabric just feels all wrong to me...

•  Fabric is just more open-ended in terms of meaning. Cloth also carries a religious connotation as in "man of the cloth". I agree that textile is a good word as well.

•  To me, cloth is related to clothing. I refer to what I purchase off the bolt, fat quarters, whatever, as fabric.

•   I don't use the word, textiles, very often. I think of it as referring to museum collections, garments conserved for educational studies and occasionally in reference to the group of items I'm going to need for a mixed media project. I think the word textiles is used more in educational settings.

• I like to use fibre as it is a broader term including paper.

•  I use the word textiles. It incorporates different thicknesses, fibres, vintages. But I like cloth too - a very smooooth word.

So, from this I see a wide range of interpretations - no one word is the "correct" one and each of them have subtle differences. Part of the usage may be personal experience and history, part may be education - and it's a conversation I'll be sure to use in my course.....which BTW is here in Victoria in May-June on Tuesday afternoons, 2-5pm! The registration isn't up yet, but let me know if you're interested and I'll keep you updated.

What do you think? Let me know!

New Work - On a Roll!

When I got home after my travels I was feeling pretty tired. I spent a few days getting myself reorganized, unpacked (repacked too, but that's another story) and and generally re-orienting myself in my studio. Once that was done, I felt a little lost. No projects were burning a hole in me, no absolutely urgent deadlines to be met, so for a couple days I felt at loose ends.
So I took some time to putter about and not worry about working.....
Then early last week I got back into my groove and started working, really hard! Here's some of what I've done:

Friday Traffic and Rush Hour are mounted on frames and will be two of my entries into a show this fall. They measure 12" square and use my soy wax resist fabrics. Lots of heavy quilting!

Flywheel is also 12" square but has been backed and has a facing applied. I'm  beginning to really enjoy lots of dense quilting with heavy threads......

This one has no name, but perhaps you can suggest one? Again, lots of dense quilting. I may even cut it into a different shape......

As they used to say on Monty Python.....and now for something completely different! I finished this top today and have it sandwiched and ready for quilting. I may go and buy some grey threads, I seem to be lacking those in my stash! This is actually a prototype/practice piece for something I plan on later this fall. But I need to spend time with the wax pot and make more fabrics!

What have you been working on?

New Work - Homeward

I've just finished a new piece for the Fibre Art Network http://www.fibreartnetwork.com/ show at Quilt Canada in Halifax, NS this May. The theme of the show is "From Away" a uniquely Maritime term that means a person or people that come to the Maritimes form other places.....as in the phrase " Susan is a quilter that comes from away".
The quilts will all measure 16" x 36', either portrait or landscape and will be part of a travelling exhibit over the next two years.
My quilt is titled "Homeward" which I've interpreted as lines and curves representing the people who have left their homes to work and live in other locations and countries and are now feeling the call of returning to their roots and their beginnings. The piece is discharged and coloured with dense quilting and additional embellishments.

Homeward

Detail

New Show - The Old School House

I'm exhibiting in a new Fibre Show at The Old School House (TOSH) in Qualicum Beach over the coming month. the particiaptns are from all over Vancouver Ilsand and represent a wide variety of skills and techniques.

Remote Viewing will be shown at the Gallery

Plan a visit, the Gallery is full of wonderful art and includes a number of working studios in the lower level. Their website is http://www.theoldschoolhouse.org/

New Show - Blanket Statements

I'm thrilled to tell you about a new fibre show in Duncan, on Vancouver Island by my dear friend, Gloria Daly.

Gloria says: As a surface design fibre artist, my work is about texture and the relationship between yesterday’s discarded blankets and how they can have a new public image in today’s philosophy of “recycling”. The work itself is a unique combination of mending, patching, and darning. Each piece is made up of layers of cloth allowing the worn and weathered fibres to have dignity as they record the changes in temperature, the ravages of rust, tints and tones of tarnish and stain, along with shrinking and warping.

My art challenges the accepted need to find beauty in what is new, it asks the viewer to look for the inner beauty of the old and used. Using line, shape and colour with hand stitches creates a balance between the ripped and the repaired. Proven techniques such as appliqué, sashiko, patchwork, piecing, Victorian crazy quilting, and embroidery (particularly the blanket stitch) will be incorporated.
If you are in the Duncan, BC area, plan to stop and see the show! Call the Cowichan threatre for open times.