Repair Centre review

There's a really lovely review by Terence Dick on the Akimblog about the exhibition I was just in called Repair Centre.

If you're interested, you can read it here.

The mending workshop went wonderfully too - thank you to the six eager folks keen on learning to mend who attended. I made a little mending book to go along with the workshop which I am pretty proud of:

Repair Centre

I'm in an exhibition opening up tomorrow night at the Peter MacKendrick Community Gallery at the Wychwood Barns here in Toronto.

I'm exhibiting the work Barbara's Socks, a pair of darned socks that my partner's mother knit for him long ago.

I'll be teaching a workshop on mending in conjunction with the exhibition on August 1st from 2-3pm in the gallery space.

If you're local, please come and say hello! There's more information available here, including sign up for the free workshop.

(and the show made it into Canadian Art's Must Sees This Week too!)

Iceland

A selection from my Instagram feed of my month in Iceland. I kept busy weaving, spinning, and walking and swimming. I wove two small blankets inspired in part by the motifs and shapes you find in lopapeysa, Icelandic yoked sweaters.

More soon!

Iceland

Tonight I head to Iceland for a month's artist residency in Blönduós at Textílsetur Íslands. I'm a bit dismayed to find that I'm heading backwards in terms of weather (+10 here, -2 there...)- but I have no worries that the rest of the trip will be beyond wonderful. 

If you want to follow my trip, it's best to check out my instagram account. 

Below: I just bought woven labels for my tea towels - I'm pretty excited by how they look!

Warping

I'm really enjoying these works by Debbie Lyddon "Blue Salt Pots" - cloth, and yet pots, with a visceral experience of the sea.

I'm thinking about the ocean a lot, while looking at the melting lake.

Image from Debbie Lyddon's website.

Cottolin

The February blues have gotten to me this year, and everything has all but stalled.

One sunny afternoon has to be taken advantage of however, so I photographed the things that have been lying about - some thin cotton and linen tea towels meant to be given away as gifts.

News

Lots of snow has been great for finishing some woven gifts that have been hanging around my work table, unhemmed. It's nice to have the pleasure of finishing things and clearing the slate. On my only day off this week I dressed the loom with a sample, the beginnings of an idea. If only I had another snow-day...

Last week I got some great news: I was accepted into an artist residency called Textílsetur Íslands, which is located in a northwestern town called Blönduós in Iceland. I'm very excited to be spending the month of May there!!

I have been thinking a lot lately about weaving and making and the twin questions, or words really, of unique and inspiration. They're very difficult questions to answer - I think my problem is that these days they're used so often to describe all sorts of things that they've both become a bit trite.What is unique anyway?

I've seen the work of Catarina Riccabona over the internet before, but I came across this short interview with her a few months ago and I particularly liked her answer to "What is unique about what you make?"

"I don’t try to make my work very unique. That’s not super important to me. I think what’s typical for my work is that I have a strict eco-concept behind my work. I take care in what materials I use and what I don’t use. I think because of that very strict set of rules I’ve created for myself, a sort of style, or aesthetic evolves as well. I use a lot of undyed linen, and that’s a “color” or a non-color, but that comes through a lot and that’s just a given. There are certain factors in place, and then I have to work around them. 

...

I think my way of working is not something I set out and said, “Oh, I’m going to work like that.” It’s something that evolved as a result of certain thoughts or principles that I wanted to apply for my practice, for my business. Then I think it’s a lot of trying and seeing, okay, this works or this doesn’t work. For two years now I have been weaving a lot. I have just been making, making making and if you do a certain activity a lot, you have the ideas ready at hand... I don’t have a sketchbook for instance. It’s very spontaneous work. It works for me because I’m sort of in this rhythm of working very regularly. "

Or this answer to "What inspires you?"

"I’m interested in practically everything and then not for very long. It’s very eclectic. What I always enjoy looking at is African textiles or textiles from other parts of the world that were handmade and you can see that they were not a standardized product. Or, just going to a museum. It can be art, it can be a painting."

Right on!

(image from Catarina Riccabona's website)