A Collaboration through Academia into Industry

This presentation is about two collaborative projects, Lees Carpets Funded Studio and Ameleon, of which I have had the honour to be a part. My involvement in these projects is a result of being on faculty in the Department of Art and Design at North Carolina State University. I joined this University for several reasons. An important one among them was research. When I was hired, I understood this to mean the continuation of work on my artistic textile production. While I have in fact continued on this research line as well, in this paper I will discuss two collaborative projects I have also undertaken. I will also note the changes of terminology and definition that I have encountered and continue to encounter as research at the University redefines itself! North Carolina State University is a Land Grant University. For those unfamiliar with this term, it denotes that this University began its involvement with education primarily as a technical school to train the people of North Carolina for jobs in agriculture, engineering, textiles, the food sciences, etc. Core funding, and hence accountability, are thus linked primarily to the State Legislature. A land grant university, responsible to the State and its citizens, carries with it a social responsibility with a strong commitment to community. While this commitment might be thought to be satisfied through the educational component itself, in the time since I have joined the faculty, five years ago, a significant shift has occurred. Last week in the University newsletter, there were four articles prominently displayed on the front page. One was about a new building opening on campus and the second was about a new basketball event, no surprise there! What was of note was that the other two articles were about entrepreneurship and economic development. One covered the success of the Entrepreneurship Education Initiative (EEI). The mandate for this initiative is, “promoting the entrepreneurial atmosphere…” and the belief that, “… If you build entrepreneurially minded students, the investors will come…” The other article covered the fact that NCSU was ranked as 20th out of 200 US universities on its record of technology transfer.What is technology transfer? Chancellor James Oblinger states that it is, “How the knowledge created by university researchers is transferred out for early stage commercialization”…he … “wants the University to know how to take the products of our research and get them into the hands of the people who can best put them to use”. He sees the University as an engine for economic development of the state, the nation and the world

Fallen Soldiers

My work confronts the aftermath of war. In my woven and dyed pieces, I reflect upon the impact of war on my ÈmigrÈ Latvian household imbued with the memories of the refugee survivors. My work addresses the reality of living in Canada, within a family and a culture divided by the Iron Curtain. My use of visual icons to investigate the dislocation, historical context, personal fear, and cultural mythology reveals that the perception of my family was as much a product of the immigrant imagination as it was the experience of the Cold War. I moved to the United States in the weeks before Sept. 11, 2001. Now living in a country fighting two wars, both in the name of democracy (Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom), the psychological legacy of my own family\u27s experience produced discomfort and anxiety. My examination and reflections on these wars led me to produce a textile installation displaying woven portraits of the eyes of the fallen soldiers. To date I have woven all 157 Canadian solders who have died in Afghanistan and 160 US soldiers, just 2.7% of the over 6,000 who have died in both wars. The installation serves as a space of reflection, provoking a confrontation of the incongruities between the messianic mythology of war and its devastating personal repercussions

Memoranda : Jewellery by Martha Glenny

Presentation of Glenny's jewellery, made from ephemeral materials collected on her travels in Europe and Canada and playing on the notion of the commercial souvenir. Statement by Glenny. Biographical notes

Textiles sismographes : Symposium fibres et textiles 1995, actes du colloque = Textiles sismographes : Texts from the Colloquium

A collection of texts presented at a colloquium on fibres and textiles by 11 artists, 12 critics and teachers, and students. The authors puzzle over the notion of a "textile identity" and the problem of successfully integrating theory and practice in textile work. Essays are printed in original language with corresponding brief French or English abstracts. Biographical notes. 39 bibl. ref

Textiles sismographes : Symposium fibres et textiles 1995

Produced for a symposium with 59 participating Québec and Canadian artists, statements recount the fascination for fabric and texture. Plume analyses the shifting role of textile in its relationship to fine arts. The long history of textiles across many lands, the Peruvian use of cloth, and the narrative approach to fabrics are also discussed. 8 bibl. ref