Focus: Fiber is a biennial national juried exhibition of contemporary fiber art. This exhibition is co-sponsored by the Textile Art Alliance of the Cleveland Museum of Art (TAA), and Kent State University Museum. The mission of TAA is to increase appreciation of the textile arts through lectures, workshops, and exhibitions, and to support the textile collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Juror: Nami Yamamoto (b. Nagoya, Japan) is an interdisciplinary artist working in Philadelphia, PA. Yamamoto received an MFA from Maryland Institute, College of Art (Baltimore, MD) and BFA from Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts (Aichi, Japan). She is the recipient of several grants including a Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant Award and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, and has exhibited nationally and internationally, including at Vox Populi, Philadelphia, PA; University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley; Shelburne Museum, Vermont; and Siegen Museum of Contemporary Art, Germany. Additionally, Yamamoto is the Director of Studio Operations at The Fabric Workshop and Museum (Philadelphia, PA), and is an adjunct faculty in the graduate program in Textile Design at Jefferson (formerly Philadelphia University).

What can you do with an entire harvest of flax or 1,000 wool sweaters? The possibilities are endless and entwined.

Since graduating from the Eindhoven Design Academy, Christien Meindertsma has become known for her research-oriented work that explores the potential of raw materials and reveals processes that have become obsolete due to industrialization. Her prototypes, documentary videos, and finished objects highlight our relationship to the materials and products in the world around us and address concerns of environmental sustainability.

This exhibition showcases two of Meindertsma’s recent projects. For Flax Project (2012–present), she purchased a harvest of flax from a farmer in order to study methods of production from unprocessed material to final products. On display in this exhibition is each step involved in transforming raw flax into an entirely biodegradable chair, one that won Meindertsma the Dutch Design Award in 2016. The designer shifted her focus to a different production process for Fibre Market (2016–present), using fiber-sorting machines to scan and sort 1,000 wool sweaters based on their material content. The scanned results revealed frequent inaccuracies in the information provided on the sweaters’ labels, making evident the fact that common clothing is often made from a wider range of materials than indicated. After sorting, the sweaters were shredded and made into fibers that Meindertsma developed into a yarn and then a bespoke Donegal tweed. This recycled fabric can be used in many ways, including as an upholstery fabric for one of her biodegradable Flax Chairs—bringing Meindertsma’s design process full circle.

By exploring the often hidden lives of products within their social, political, and material contexts, Meindertsma invites us to reconsider the value of objects, especially the potential of undervalued resources such as flax and recycled wool. Her projects suggest that intelligent processes and design can play an important role in addressing the overconsumption of resources and prompting positive change.

Guided tour with artist: August 7, 2019 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. More info

SPONSORS
Christien Meindertsma: Everything Connects is the second exhibition in the Franke/Herro Design Series, which highlights the work of important design talent. This exhibition is made possible by Jay Franke and David Herro.

© The Art Institute of Chicago

FASHION REDEFINED: MIYAKE, KAWAKUBO, YAMAMOTO

In the 1980s Japanese designers challenged the principles of Western fashion by introducing clothing that draped and wrapped the body, concealing its contours and silhouette. Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garcons, Yohji Yamamoto and other avant-garde Japanese fashion designers rejected the idea that women’s clothing had to fit an idealized hourglass-shaped female body. Their innovative designs set new standards for shape and proportion and coined a contemporary definition of “universal beauty.”

Image courtesy of Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields.

Greta Mikkelsen: Tobacco Silks Reimagined on Exhibit 

(Minneapolis, MN) — Explore Minnesota’s little-known historic couture fashion industry and learn about the female artisans who led it. Minneapolis and St. Paul designers had strong ties with metropolitan Europe, particularly Paris and London, with respect to training, design trends, and fashion fabrics. Minnesota’s couturières satisfied more than just vanity; they offered proof that a refined lifestyle was possible in a young, developing state. Featured in this installation will be historic dress from the Minnesota Historical Society collection—most never displayed before—set in context with paintings and works on paper from Mia’s collection.

Cargill Gallery
Free Exhibit

Third Thursday: Fashion Night Thursday, May 16, 2019

Celebrate the opening of Mia’s latest exhibition, “The Art of High Style: Minnesota Couture 1880–1914,” with a free night of fashionable fun! Enjoy a “Then & Now Fashion Show,” live DJ set, and cash bar. Take a fashion-themed tour of Mia’s collection, illustrate your own style-inspired design, make a fashion mood board, and strike a pose.

This exhibition showcases Minnesota’s little-known historic couture fashion industry and highlights the female artisans who led it. It features never before displayed historic dress from the Minnesota Historical Society.

The “Then & Now Fashion Show” is inspired by styles and trends spanning across the century, showcasing how Minnesota fashion designers continue to reinvent and redefine the art of making clothes. This live fashion show with local boutique The Fitting Room, highlights the looks of creative and inspiring designers who are leading Minnesota’s fashion of today. Enjoy spotlights from Alma Mia, Joeleen Torvick, Karen Morris Millinery, Strey Design Handbags, Tessa Louise and Vikse Designs and more.

(Minneapolis, MN) – Orient, Disorient, Repeat

Showcasing work by the 2018/2019 Jerome Fiber Artist Project Grantees
Janet Dixon, Heather MacKenzie, Mary Pow
Joan Mondale Gallery

Artist Reception: Thursday, May 23, 2019 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.

This culminating exhibition showcases the accomplishments of the 2018/2019 Jerome Project Grant
artists working in textile traditions, materials, and techniques. In the work of this year’s grantees,
Dixon uses memory and imagination as a basis for autobiographical abstract maps that use
breakdown screen-printing and low immersion dyeing; MacKenzie uses contributed text coded in
textile structures to create a series of queer encrypted weavings-as-heirloom; and Pow investigates a
creative process through methodical cut-and-sewn color block work to explore multiple viewpoints
contained within humanity.

Through the Jerome Fiber Artists Project Grants program, Textile Center supports and celebrates the
creative spirit of emerging fiber artists by helping them develop professionally and thrive in their
studios. Generously funded by and in partnership with the Jerome Foundation, these grants provide
funding for individual artist projects that inform and advance the development and creation of new
artistic work.

Voyages – the art of Laura Weber and Deb Mortl is the story to two local artists and how their medium is used to tell their stories of family voyages. The Pink Llama Gallery will hold a reception on Saturday, June 1st from 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. for the opening of the art exhibit Voyages- the art of Laura Weber & Deb Mortl. The public is invited to see the artworks created by the local artists.

Mixed media fiber artist Laura Weber of Grafton, Wisconsin works primarily in creating sculptural and functional baskets. Weber uses natural and artificial found objects to add artistic touches to traditional basket forms. For this exhibit Weber sculpts abstract boat forms, seeking to tell a portion of her family story of migration and immigration.

Deb Mortl is an artist and art educator from Mequon, Wisconsin. Using oil paint, Mortl builds many transparent layers until she fills the surfaces with color and texture, creating a transcendental feel. Deb translates her keen eye for reflections into vignettes of time spent on water.

Voyages will be on display at The Pink Llama Gallery, W62 N580 Washington Ave., Cedarburg, WI 53012, from June 1 – July 28, 2019 during regular business hours (Monday-Saturday 10am to 5pm and Sunday 11am to 4 pm). Email info@thepinkllama.com, visit www.thepinkllama.com, or call 262-402-3098 for more information.

(Minneapolis, MN) — Women have long been the creative force behind Native art. Presented in close cooperation with top Native women artists and scholars, this first major exhibition of artwork by Native women honors the achievements of over 115 artists from the United States and Canada spanning over 1,000 years. Their triumphs—from pottery, textiles, and painting, to photographic portraits, to a gleaming El Camino—show astonishing innovation and technical mastery.

The above art is by Christi Belcourt, (Metis), born 1966. The Wisdom of the Universe (detail), 2014, acrylic on canvas: Art Gallery Ontario, Toronto.

Link to exhibit video trailer: https://vimeo.com/333167554

Call for tickets: 612.870.3000
www.artsmia.org
General Admission $20
My Mia Member $16
Investor+ Free
Youth 17 and Under Free

About the Native Exhibition Advisory Board

In 2015, Jill Ahlberg Yohe and Teri Greeves, curators of Hearts of Our People: Native American Women Artists, formed the Native Exhibition Advisory Board—a panel of 21 Native artists and Native and non-Native scholars from across North America—to provide insights from a wide range of nations at every step in the curatorial process.

Exhibition Advisory Board members include:

Heather Ahtone, Choctaw/Chickasaw, senior curator, American Indian Cultural Center and Museum, Oklahoma City; DY Begay, Navajo artist, Santa Fe; Janet Berlo, professor of Art History and Visual and Cultural Studies, University of Rochester; Susan Billy, Pomo artist, Ukiah, California; Katie Bunn-Marcuse, Director and Managing Editor, Bill Holm Center for the Study of Northwest Coast Art, Burke Museum, Seattle; Christina Burke, Curator, Native American and Non-Western Art, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa; Kelly Church, Anishinaabe artist and educator, Michigan; Nadia Jackinsky, Alutiiq art historian, Anchorage; Heid Erdrich, Ojibwe writer and curator, Minneapolis; Anita Fields, Osage artist, Tulsa; Adriana Greci Green, curator, Indigenous Arts of the Americas, The Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia; Carla Hemlock, Mohawk artist, Kahnewake; America Meredith, Cherokee, publishing editor of First American Art Magazine, Oklahoma City; Nora Naranjo Morse, Santa Clara artist; Cherish Parrish, Anishinaabe artist and educator, University of Michigan; Ruth Phillips, Canada Research Professor and Professor of Art History, Carleton University; Jolene K. Rickard, Tuscarora, artist and Associate Professor, The Department of the History of Art and Visual Studies, Cornell University; Lisa Telford, Haida artist, Seattle; Graci Horne, Dakhóta, independent curator, Minneapolis; and Dyani White Hawk, Lakȟóta artist and curator, Minneapolis.

This dynamic solo exhibition of works by native Ohio artist Nancy Crow will include a group of machine-pieced & engineered geometric quilts in bold colors along with a group of small mono-prints and larger hand-screened and hand-painted works. All of these works have been created using 100% cotton, either in natural color or hand-dyed. Known both as a colorist and for her intricate machine-piecing, Ms Crow sees her work as drawings to be hung on the wall. She states that ideas flood her—more than she can ever manage—and that they are all rooted in her life experience as an intense observer, traveler and daydreamer.

Trained as a tapestry weaver and ceramist, with both a BFA and a MFA from Ohio State University, she has been creating contemporary quilts for over 40 years and works in a very large 3-story studio on her 100 acre farm east of Columbus, Ohio. She maintains both dry and wet studios (for screen-printing/ mono-printing/ dyeing/painting on fabric) and has hand-dyed nearly all of her 600 plus color palette. She works alone with no assistant.

As regards the machine-pieced quilts in this exhibition, Ms Crow states that: “they represent my intense fascination and observation of our moving 4 distinct 1800’s timber frame barns to our farm and their subsequent renovation into working studios. As the barns were taken down, I became mesmerized by the “boards” which in my mind reduced to visual slats of colors. As boards fell, they criss-crossed into piles where they waited to be stacked coherently. To me, the piles of criss-crossed boards formed fabulous compositions and I mimicked them in my series titled CONSTRUCTIONS”.

As regards her mono-prints, Ms Crow states that: “In my life as an artist and contemporary quilt maker, I have had many goals. As I grew older, one goal became the most persistent which was to learn how to mono-print—not on paper—but on 100% cotton fabric with thickened Procion dyes. I had taken various surface design workshops in the past where mono-printing had been touched on fleetingly. My goal was to become reacquainted with the processes and then explore them in depth myself. For this I had 4 distinct printing sessions, three of these on my farm in my own wet studios and one in England.” Over two years she produced more than 200 mono-prints, most never shown before. The mono-print drawings on exhibit include very small pieces. Currently she is working once again on machine-piecing for a major solo show at The University of Nebraska’s International Quilt Study Center & Museum, August 2, 2019 – through January 9, 2020.

The River Arts Center in Clinton will host a quilt exhibit by 19 members of the Mississippi Valley Quilters Guild, headquartered in Davenport.

This exhibit will show through Aug. 4, with a reception for the quilters from 1:30 to 4 p.m. June 30. All are welcome and there is no charge to view the exhibit.

The River Arts Center is located at 229 Fifth Ave. South in downtown Clinton. It is operated by the Clinton Art Association, and open Wednesdays through Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m.

The guild was organized in 1983 to educate its members in the quilting arts, encourage high standards in color, design, and construction of the quilted medium, and to stimulate an interest in quilting in the community. The Guild hosts classes for various skill levels, invites local, regional, and national speakers to their monthly meetings, has quilt challenges, and enters quilt exhibits in many locations.

This exhibit displays traditional to modern patterns, wall hangings to bed-sized quilts, and fabric baskets, with many for sale and some for display only.

© Clinton Herald More info

If you drool over beautiful threads and lovely intricate patterns, this workshop is for you! We will warp the looms for a lovely scarf or runner using luxurious rayon, Tencel and bamboo yarns.

You will be amazed at the intricate cloth you can weave with a fairly simple weave and one shuttle.

This workshop is appropriate for beginning and intermediate level weavers.

• Friday  6:30 – 9:00 p.m.
• Saturday  9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
• Sunday  10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Class fee $150/Class fee with Guild member discount $140

Jennie Hawkey, Hopewell Weaving, is the instructor.

The opening reception for Ohio Quilts  is Thursday, July 18, 2019, 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. Remarks at 6:00 p.m.

The history of quilts in Ohio is in many ways a reflection of the history of Ohio itself since the early nineteenth century. Just as early settlers boasted a variety of origins ranging from migrants from New England to Germans who arrived either directly from Europe or from earlier settlements in Pennsylvania, their quilt traditions reflected their diverse origins. Quilt making took off around the middle of the nineteenth century owing to improvements in textile and thread production which made materials accessible and increasingly affordable. Inventions such as the power loom then cylinder printing ultimately led to the production of large quantities of printed cottons. Changes in women’s fashion also favored a growth in the creation of decorative quilts. By the 1860s women’s clothing was increasingly shaped from pieces of cloth rather than utilizing the entire width of the fabric. This created fabric scraps which could be pieced into quilts. More affordable textiles mean that rather than completely wearing out clothing, new dresses could be purchased, thus freeing up the old clothes to be repurposed into quilts. The widespread adoption of sewing machines by the end of the century also made the creation of clothing less time consuming and freed up women’s time for making quilts.

With two layers of fabric and a layer of batting in between, quilts served a critical function of providing warmth. Quilts could be quite utilitarian with little decorative stitching or at the opposite extreme they could be highly ornamental, created out of lightweight silk with little batting. Difficult to clean with their delicate fabric and embroidery, crazy quilts represented a luxury that was widely embraced across the United States in the 1880s. They reflected their era not just in their embodiment of Victorian taste with an exuberant combination of colors and textures but in their very impracticality. At the other extreme Amish quilts reflected their makers’ adherence to strict rules and rejection of the whims of fashion.

One of the most extraordinary quilts in the KSU Museum’s collection is attributed to Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley. Born a slave, Keckley learned dressmaking then bought freedom for herself and her son. She lived many years in Washington, DC where she worked for the wives of many prominent politicians including Mary Todd Lincoln. The quilt is pieced together from pieces of dress fabric which appear to be from the 1860s. Keckley lived in Ohio when she served on the faculty of Wilberforce University.

This exhibition assembles quilts which reflect a variety of techniques including appliqué, piecework, crazy quilts, whitework, and embroidery. These different styles represent evolving taste. The quilts also reflect changes in technology, women’s lives, and forms of expression.

The exhibit is located in the Higbee Gallery at Rockwell Hall on campus.

(Cedarburg, WI) — “Felt… An Ancient Material For Modern Creations” With Dawn Edwards

Join fiber artist Dawn Edwards in this exciting lecture on the history of felt, her travels and artistic inspirations.

About the Artist:

Dawn Edwards is a felt artist and tutor based in Plainwell, Michigan USA. She sells her work under the label ‘Felt So Right’ and teaches extensively within the USA and internationally. Her felt art has appeared in numerous exhibitions, shows, magazines and books, most recently Australian ‘Felt’ Magazine, the International Feltmakers Association journal, ‘Felt Matters’, and essay and images in the book, ‘Worldwide Colours of Felt’ by Ellen Bakker.

Dawn also is the co-coordinator of the not-for-profit Felt United with over 6,000 members worldwide.

For more information, see www.feltsoright.com.

Lecture: $20.00

(Cedarburg, WI) – Nuno Felt Wave Scarf Workshop With Dawn Edwards

“Nuno” (which means “fabric” in Japanese) is a term now used to describe the felting of natural fibers (we’ll be using Merino wool) into a sheer woven fabric base (in our case, silk) to create a unique, light-weight fabric. Dawn will share with you a fun resist technique which creates a wave-like design element in your one of a kind scarf. Come explore the ancient art of felt-making with a modern twist. Your finished piece will be highly textured, flexible, and very beautiful.

• July 20th 2019 8 am – 3:00 pm
• Price: $190
• Kit Fee: $40 (included in the price)