In Process: Randy Walker

September 7, 2009 0 Comment

To accommodate the tensile nature of fiber, Randy Walker seeks out frameworks that can act as looms, or creates his own, like this corncrib in Kalamazoo. “I scour my environment for suitable materials, like a spider trying to locate a site to build its web,” he explains. “These frameworks can be found objects like saw blades or window screens, or they can be architectural spaces, but they must be satisfactory structurally and sculpturally. I am, therefore, intensely engaged with the materials I use, studying them for cues as to how I might handle them. These armatures eventually define a working method for a particular piece.”

This installation, Woven Corncrib, is part of the Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo) Sculpture Tour. National and international artists are commissioned to create and install work on the campus for two years. It was originally installed in Falcon Heights, Minnesota from 2004-9, using remnants of marine rope of various types. At WMU it was completely rewoven with a flat braid of 100% solution-dyed acrylic. The weaving process took two weeks of solid work. Although the installation will be up for two years, the braid material is expected to last much longer in terms of both color-fastness and material degradation.

“For quite some time I have been interested in how fiber might be used in public artwork on large scales in a world where public art is predominantly seen by commissioning agencies as ‘permanent,’ ‘no-maintenance,’ etc. In other words: concrete, stone, steel,” Randy says. “While these more traditional materials are more permanent, even they need maintenance. Because there is often no funding or planning associated with maintenance of these “permanent” pieces, there are many around the country in states of decay. With the technological advances being made in fiber, and a fundamental shift in thought of what a work of public art could, I believe that it is possible to create art that has a planned maintenance, or regenerative potential. The Woven Corncrib is an example. It is re-woven, and a new piece is born from the old.”

Woven Corncrib, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, photos courtesy of Randy Walker.

Check It Out: Helena Hernmarck and Norma Minkowitz at MAD

September 5, 2009 0 Comment

The Museum of Arts and Design in New York has rotated new works into Permanently MAD: Revealing the Collection, which traces the phenomenal rise of the studio craft tradition in America following World War II. The new additions include Floater IV, by Norma Minkowitz and Front Pages by Helena Hernmarck. Go see the new work. Here are images other works by Norma and Helena to whet your appetite.

Norma Minkowitz “WILD IN THE WOODS” Helena Hernmarck “OK”

 

 

Newsfeed: Innovation’s Downside

September 3, 2009 0 Comment

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 28 (From Bernama) – International cocaine trafficking syndicates have found a clever way to venture into textiles. Police nabbed a 42-year-old woman flying from Peru to Kuala Lumpur airport last week, carrying two bags. A check on the suspect’s luggage revealed 23 shirts of similar colour and design. Police grew suspicious when they noticed the shirts were heavy – weighing 10 kg – and rough to the touch. Apparently, she was one of a group of fashionable drug mules recruited to carry more than just a copious amount of clothes in their luggage when heading overseas. The dealers liquify the cocaine, then dip the clothes in the solution. Once dried it’s ready to smuggle into another country. Upon arrival at their destination, the clothes are soaked in water and wrung dry. The cocaine liquid that results is crystallised for sale to ready buyers.

 

Image is from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum.

 

 

 

Stitch n’ B&#@%

August 30, 2009 0 Comment

Sometimes you just want to be mean. Resist the urge and stitch something sassy instead. Subversive Cross Stitch has lots of choices. From “whatever” to “Thanks for Sharing” and lots of “F”bombs in between.

The Street/Sky Continuum

August 30, 2009 0 Comment

Manifesti dArtista Umetniski plakati Brez naslova 22jun09 433
If you find yourself in Trieste, Italy in the next month, don’t miss Slovenian artist Anda Klancic’s poster installed at via Monte Cengio. From the Gruppo78 press release: The coupling between man and nature is the basis of her thought. The materials that Anda uses in the implementation of her forms – natural fibers, palm bark, in a work of straw that leads to the dictates fiber-art — are as the old folk traditions. But the look against the sky, underlying thoughts and emotions aroused by the wonder of the universe, space / time without dimensions, by which man, reported to the finiteness of our planet, seems overwhelmed. The vortex of the sky, clearly obtained with the aid of computers, also alludes to the frenzy of contemporary life, as a projection on top of our daily convulsion. So in the work of Anda, converges a tumult of feelings, strong feelings, and passions that animate and through her thinking. broadcast in each case a positive impulse for life, love for life, despite its difficulties and contradictions.

Willow Talk

August 29, 2009 0 Comment

photo by Shannon Tofts

We visited London in May for the Collect show at the Saatchi Gallery. While there, we had a chance to speak with journalist Emma Crichton-Miller about the fiber art field for an article on the state of contemporary basket weaving – not just in the U.K., but also in Europe, the US and elsewhere. The article, Willow Talk, appeared in the July-August 2009 issue of Crafts magazine. and in it, Crichton-Miller offers a positive prognosis for the art of basketry in the U.K. In the article, Crichton-Miller tracks the growing appreciation in the U.K. for basketry as an art form, comparing artists like Ed Rossbach and John McQueen in the U.S., Markku Kosonen in Finland and Shouchiko Tanabe of Japan, with artists like Lizzie Farey of the U.K., Joe Hogan of Ireland and Dail Behennah, Lois Walpole, Shuna Rendel and Mary Butcher of the U.K., for whom recognition has been more recently won. “Basketry, in an artist’s hands, becomes as richly metaphorical as any craft,” Crichton-Miller observes. Listing a series of solo and group exhibits, including East Meets West: Basketry from Japan & Britain and European Baskets, Crichton-Miller predicts that basket-weaving in the U.K., as in America, Europe and Japan, seems ready to leave behind “its hobby status, its nostalgia for the past, to join the contemporary conversation.”