Urban Textiles: From Yarn Bombing to Crochet Ivy Chains

Small hand-knitted little cozies appear in my local neighborhood; overgrown weeds in an urban community garden become a source for materials and inspiration. These new approaches to textiles by emerging artists explore new aesthetics and explode relationships between process and material and ideas about the use for handmade objects. These artists question the use of galleries as exhibition venues, curators, and juries as judges, and commerce/consumerism around finished objects. Instead they use the street as exhibition space and blogs or flickr sites as venues to create local and global communities. KnitGirl’s work consists of knitted patches attached to telephone poles, on fences and as a cover of my car antenna. She is part of an international yarn bombing movement where traditional knitting meets graffiti culture. She records all her actions and also the neighborhood on her flickr site. Sharon Kallis works in an artist’s community garden collective, which is also outdoor gallery space, celebration, and play. She bridges on old sustainable practices of growing her own materials, but also uses weeds that overgrow things to build anything from fences to dresses. I will look at work by these two young Vancouver artists: Robin aka. KnitGirl and Sharon Kallis, and describe their ideas and philosophies. Then I will present my own ideas about how this work fits into contemporary textile art practices and emerging ideas of ‘craftivism’. How do they develop or question certain textile traditions, other art practices and philosophies

Walking a Line: GPS and Satellite Technologies as Narratives

Introduction Over the last year I have been using a GPS (Global Positioning System) device to track my trips as drawings and a personal narrative. These lines form patterns with many variations. My recent Jacquard weavings were records of satellite images of the earth, received through the process of ‘remote sensing’, performed by a machine, instructed in this task. This presentation will briefly describe GPS and satellite technologies and discuss how these different ideas link up with my earlier work as an artist. Walking as a conceptual practice has an interesting history. It deals with a process rather than a product, and it can be interpreted as ‘narrative’. Walking as an idea also has complex relationships with nature, the focus of my Jacquard weaving for a long time. Creating drawings and patterns out of everyday activities connects me to the useful, or functional aspects of textiles and crafts. Where my GPS drawings deal with personal and localized narratives, the woven satellite images provide a global context. Finally my work draws equally from science and art making, often confusing the boundaries of these seemingly distinct fields. Thus I follow in Ada Lovelace’s footsteps; she also shifted the separation between these categories in the 19th century. The GPS drawings take place in real life and real ‘nature’. The resulting lines have an interesting graphic quality and they are both a narrative and a scientific and accurate recording of an event. Finally, since my early weaving days, the idea of pattern as language has intrigued me

Nature as Code

In order to explore \u27nature as code\u27, I will look first at the complexities involved in naming and defining nature and the assumptions that have historically associated women with nature. I will focus on historical gardens and floral patterns in textiles as cultural constructs of nature. Specifically I will focus on the differences between French formal gardens of the seventeenth century and the picturesque and naturalist English gardens of the eighteenth century. I will examine how these gardens are reflected in textile designs that use floral motifs. Finally, I hope to provide some explanation of the influences of industrial and technological innovations. Much has been written about women painting flowers, as well as the representation of flowers and their symbolism, so I will not reiterate it here. My interest is to explore representations and codes of meaning, as a language of interpretation, to be examined, in order to uncover that which is hidden in cultural forms and images. I work in textiles with a specific interest in how textiles function as objects through their historical, social and cultural associations. To this effect, I have altered or deconstructed men\u27s suits by removing threads selectively. I have also constructed women\u27s dresses that are based on nineteenth century dress patterns by using aluminum flashing. Floral designs used in women\u27s dresses and in fabrics for the home such as upholstery and curtains are my most recent area of research. The images will show how the more ordinary and innocuous aspects of textiles influence my approach to textiles

Ruth Scheuing : 13 Men or Penelope

Scheuing writes short notes on the meanings of men suits and (un)weaving. Biographical notes

The Signed Image

Referring to language, history and intention, Landon and Scheuing discuss 35 artists working at the Banff Centre. Roche provides a fictional text of a visit to the caves at Lascaux. 5 bibl. ref

Afterimages : Representing the Absent Body

Arguing that "the elimination of the human, of the very body, is the elimination of content in the name of pure form", McElroy studies the work of six American and Canadian artists and architects. Artist's statements. Biographical notes on artists and curator. 9 bibl.ref

Digital Identity : Transforming Communities / Reinventing Ourselves

Publication produced for a virtual exhibition of works using digital media (CD-ROMs, Websites, videos, installations) produced mainly by Vancouver-based artists. Kidd explains that digital technology and digital art aid in rethinking personal identity and community, while Davison gives an overview of the exhibition, briefly describing each work. Includes visual documentation of each piece, with artists’ statements. List of related Websites. Biographical notes

Craft Perception and Practice : A Canadian Discourse, Volume III

This third and final volume in the series Craft Perception and Practice features 20 essays and critical commentaries by acclaimed Canadian practitioners, educators and curators, demonstrating the range of critical thought about craft as presented in symposiums, exhibition catalogues and art journals." -- p. [2] of cover

Material Matters : The Art and Culture of Contemporary Textiles

This anthology presents critical and theoretical texts by sixteen writers concerned with the presence of textile materials, practices and metaphors within contemporary art and discourse. The following issues are considered within the frameworks of feminism, structuralism and postmodernism: material and process; gender and identity; cloth, colonialism and resistance; history and tradition. Biographical notes on contributors. Circa 310 bibl. ref