October 2024
In this newsletter you’ll find:
Studio Views
秋豐，冬眠 Autumn Abundance, Winter Rest
Forest in the Village
October
Studio Views
Same desk, different days.
Similar process, different execution. Sometimes I scribble just to distract myself from other projects.
A new exhibition at the AGO - a retrospective of Pacita Abad. I wasn’t sure I understood why everyone kept telling me about her work and speaking about it with such excitement until I walked in and saw these large textile-based works! Photography does nothing for these incredible pieces, and I highly suggest you plan to go and see if if you’re in Toronto. I took these two pictures on a quick visit and I’m really looking forward to going back.
A view from the fourth of five Stripe Lab sessions — it’s been fun to work through the exercises and see what sort of stripes this group sees! In case you want to see some SERIOUS stripes and yarn wraps, check out this video from Margot Selby’s studio.
秋豐，冬眠 Autumn Abundance, Winter Rest
My exhibition with Helen Kong has been on display at Icha Tea this month, closing on November 5th. As always, it’s a great pleasure to continue our conversation about craft, mud, tea, and textiles. Below are some of the pieces I created for this exhibition and some quick shots of the pieces in situ!
Considering the first half of the theme, Autumn Abundance, I wove four tea mats using a palette of naturally dyed colours in thin, delicate cotton and linen. I had in mind crispy brown leaves and the fading black-eyed susans — the abundance of one season’s colour fading into the next.
Natural dyes create a beautiful warm, vegetal palette that speaks to the browns, golds, orange and rust of autumn. I used flowers such as marigolds, food waste like onion skins, and “weeds” like dandelions to dye the yarn for these mats. As they are used in a tea practice, the colours may shift, fade, or change slightly, another gentle reminder to enjoy autumn’s abundance while it lasts.
For Winter Rest, I created ten tea cloths using a lace weaving technique, thinking of the furrows and drifts of snow that will form in a few short months. There are many types of snow, but I tried to mimic my favourite type with these cloths: thin, slightly transparent, with marks from wind and plants. Just as snow looks white from a distance but contains many colours up close, I used a palette of natural and bleached “white” yarns for the tea cloths.
Forest in the Village
I am eagerly anticipating the opportunity to see my friend Deborah Dewbury’s work in the exhibition Forest in the Village at the Westland Gallery in London, Ontario. Deborah taught me how to weave baskets and her friendship and support is greatly appreciated.
This group exhibition features seven other artists all exploring the theme of trees and will be open from October 29, 2024 - November 23, 2024.
October
My weeks have been packed this month — all of a sudden I realized I hadn’t done more than make cursory notes for this newsletter, when I usually have it sent by now!
Last week I attended the World Hope Forum Portugal - I was particularly keen to hear Rosa Pomar speak about her work with native Portuguese sheep, craft, and culture. Her work is deeply inspiring to me and her yarn is incredible! I used it once on the loom, in the ‘Cushion in Crackle Weave’ pattern published in VÄV Magasinet in 2021, but I live in hope that eventually I will make a sweater in it (there’s a lot of yarn and sweaters in the queue…). You can access the recording of the WHF Portugal here.
I also recently learned of the Toronto-based collective habi habi po, which “is a non-profit collective of Toronto-based Filipino/a/x artists focusing on building community through traditional textile art practices to preserve Philippine cultural heritage
and revive ancestral connections.” I’m very sorry to have missed out on a physical copy of their zine maghabi magkatabi (which I’ve heard is now sold out), but it’s also available to view online at the link above. I love zines and I’m looking forward to seeing what else this collective gets up to! Visit them on IG here.
Wishing you an excellent end to your October,
Amanda