August 2024

New class! Studio views, and things for reading and watching

In this newsletter you’ll find:

• Studio views

• Stripe Lab at the AGB

• Things to Read Etc.

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Studio Views

August has been my last month of holiday before the school year begins. I say holiday, but really there’s been a lot happening, just not much that looks great as a photograph (yet).

I wove a scarf for a film! If it gets used I’ll share more about the project, but the mineral blues/earth tones requested was very sympathetic to my go-to palette. I made the biggest mess in the studio; I pulled out everything I have.

A quiet and small piece for the second of my seasonally-themed exhibitions with ceramicist Helen Kong (see Spring Colours from March/April 2024 for the first iteration.) I’ll have more information and the opening dates come September’s newsletter. On the right, some twined dandelion cordage.

A picnic in the willows at my friend Johnny’s farm. He grows willow and teaches basketry — if you are at all interested in learning how to weave with sticks, he’s always offering new classes and workshops across south-eastern Ontario. You can see more of what’s coming up here or find him on Instagram as @thevillagemaker.

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Stripe Lab at the Art Gallery of Burlington

I’m excited to share that I’ll be teaching a weaving class this fall at the Art Gallery of Burlington called Stripe Lab.

This five week long class has been developed for weavers who wish to learn more about design, colour, and proportion by exploring and designing their own stripe sequences. It’s less about weaving and more about creative process, curiosity, colour, and developing the skills to make you more confident and creative at the loom.

I think it’s ideal for the beginner weaver who knows the basics but wants to be able to do more than just follow a pattern, as well as learning more about the principles of art and design. We’ll be using rigid heddle looms to test out our ideas in real time, but since this workshop isn’t about skills development, I think (I hope!) that makes it interesting to weavers of all ability and experience.

As a byproduct of teaching art and design at the university level, I’ve been thinking a lot about creative process and my own experience during my BFA. What is creativity and how do we learn to apply colour, shape, form, texture, etc? I’ve realized that much of what I do is fairly disorganized and intuitive — or at least, I can’t tell you why I do something, just that I do it. In an effort to figure out how to articulate elements of this, I’ve been working on Stripe Lab all summer, and not just as this single class.

For those of you who live too far away to attend the workshop, Stripe Lab will be coming out as an eBook sometime this fall — as soon as I put the finishing touches on the text and do all the photography, that is… I’ll of course share more about the project in my newsletter when it’s completed and ready to go, but I hope this is something you’ll find exciting and useful.

Until then — if you’re interested in joining me for Stripe Lab at the AGB, it takes place on Wednesday evenings from October 2-30, 2024, from 6-9pm. There are a limited number of spaces available (only 8!) so if you’re keen, please visit the Art Gallery of Burlington’s website here to reserve yours. Do please send me an email if you have any questions about the class by hitting reply or using my contact page.

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Things to Read Etc.

• My friend Cathy sent me a wonderful article from the NY Times about the importance of weaving, place, tradition and land in Hawaii. Titled In Hawaii, Weaving New Life Into a Nearly Vanished Art Form, the article tells the story of moena, traditional woven floor mats made from the pū hala tree. The article speaks with Emma Broderick, the executive director of the Pu’uhonua Society, about maintaining and sharing traditional skills across the islands. The society, which is “active at the intersections of contemporary art, traditional cultural practices, environmental stewardship, and transformational education, [creates] opportunities for Native Hawaiian and Hawaiʻi-based creatives to express themselves and engage with diverse audiences.” What a group!! It was a great article! Alas, it’s hidden behind a paywall, but if you can read it, the link is here.

• An exhibition I wish I could see (that closes August 31st): Thread Count at The Art Station in Saxmundham, Suffolk, England. It’s curated by an artist I like, Freddie Robins, who makes humorous, often irreverent, textile works based in knit and crochet.

  

  Image of Freddie Robins’ work from https://www.freddierobins.com/work.php

• To watch: the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s series Immaterial: 5,000 Years of Art, One Material at a Time. I have Blankets and Quilts: Threads of Identity from season 2 in the queue — that link takes you to the YouTube audio (there are limited visuals).

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Best wishes from my (still) sunny garden studio,

Amanda