keep your own needles threaded and do a few stitches for me.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
keep your own needles threaded and do a few stitches for me.
swing...
If you missed the NYT review of the current Ann Hamilton exhibit in NY go read it, if you are in NY go see it. I wish I could be swinging right now.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
homemade
When I picked up the November/December 2012 artscope magazine, which is a New England Art Journal, I was shocked by the number of reviews of art that featured contemporary textiles, all of which were interesting. Of course, I did not make it to any of the shows as with the holidays and current life it just was not able to happen. But I have spent some tome looking into the venues, exhibits and artists. The centerfold artist was the Somerville based artist Judith Klausner. I swear I wrote about her work before but cannot find the post, so maybe I just wanted too. Who knows?
carved oreo's
Her earlier work was all based on insects and the meticulous recreations of them. But she has recently moved on to food. She explores the time and devotion it takes to make food from scratch to the traditional hand arts and what this means in the lives and roles of contemporary women.
embroidered toast.
She says this in her statement:
The phrase, “like grandma used to make” gets nearly 300,000 results
in a Google search. This nostalgia for the culinary past—before packaged
foods and high-fructose corn syrup—fails to take into consideration
just how much time it takes to make three full meals a day from scratch.
Indeed, what it takes is a person in every household who’s full-time
job it is to cook for the family. We called these people “women”.
Like the production of food, a variety of handicrafts were a mundane
requirement of the female gender...Sewing, embroidery, and knitting have enjoyed
resurgences, sometimes even within the realm of fine art. Home cooking
is once again gaining popularity. Within this atmosphere, the temptation
to romanticize the past is strong. Yet, the availability of packaged
foods is what allows us the time to pursue careers, to develop new
technologies, to create...
My work is about choice. As a woman in the twenty-first century, I
can choose to spend my day baking a loaf of bread, or to grab a package
off a grocery store shelf after a long day at work. I can choose to
spend my evenings embroidering. I can choose to combine these things and
call it art.
embroidered chex
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Motherhood as residency.
Thank you to my dear friend LB for bringing this to my attention. The "motherhood" artist residency of artist Lenka Clayton... Read the manifesto here, READ IT!
Man, baby, boy, man, and so on.
Dangerous objects made safe.
Mothers days- a documentation of the days of mothers.
Things found in babies mouths.
The distance I can be from my son.
All I can say is I am so inspired, so connected and so eager about this work. I find it to be incredibly brave, beautiful and important work. GO see the project and read about each art project at her website dedicated to her residency.
Then may we all go and be brave artists and brave mothers.
Friday, December 7, 2012
Hemmed In
I am so delighted to have my work as part of this wonderful exhibit. I only wish I could see it in person. Maybe if you are a Brit you can and let me know how it is?
Presents:
Hemmed In
Embroidery and Needlework from MK and Beyond
7 December 2012 – 6 January 2013, Admission free
Preview / Christmas Party 14 December 5pm – 10pm
Hemmed In: Embroidery and Needlework from MK and Beyond
presents work from the 1930s to the present by over fifty practitioners,
organised with MK Embroiderers Guild and Jamie Chalmers, otherwise
known as Mr X Stitch. Ranging from the local to the international, the
exhibits include needlework through unusual media, techniques and
unexpected subject matter, including street art, rock music and internet
spam. The exhibition at MK Gallery runs from 7 December 2012 – 6
January 2013, and admission is free.
MK Embroiderers Guild (MKEG) is Milton Keynes’ local branch of the
nation’s leading craft organisation. For the exhibition, the MKEG have
challenged their members to represent ‘Milton Keynes in an eight-inch
square’, to create small, needle and thread portraits of their favourite
places in the city. The results constitute a real celebration of the
city in stitch. In addition to work by the members, the exhibition
includes a number of rare and significant pieces on loan from national
collections, including such luminaries from the embroidery world as
Rebecca Crompton, Rachael Thompson, Julia Caprara and Beryl Dean.
In contrast, the work selected by Jamie Chalmers, an active leader in
the “new embroidery movement” is far from “Hemmed In”, either in scale,
media or content. Chalmers aims to bring the world of cross-stitch and
embroidery to a new audience and to restore embroidery to the heart of
the art world. The works on view at MK Gallery will offer an expanded,
radical and alternative view of contemporary embroidery from stitchers
across the world, and demonstrates the unusual directions it is taking
internationally. It will include an embroidered car door from Severija
Inčirauskaité-Kriaunevičiené from Lithuania, Erin M. Riley’s Shotgun
tapestries and Tilleke Schwartz’s hand embroidered masterpieces.
Although contemporary artists today work across a wide range of
genres from video to textiles and photography to sculpture as
exemplified by artists such as Grayson Perry and Tracey Emin, the
exhibition charts the evolution, throughout the twentieth century, of
embroidery from domestic decoration to high art.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
honest
Awhile back another young artist emailed me. She was newly in NYC and trying to make it happen, she asked me how I did it? How I managed to survive, make my work, have a kiddo do all that is done. Normally I love when people write me and am prompt in responding but this one it made me want to avoid, avoid, avoid, avoid. I thought to myself if only she knew... if only she knew?
I am someone who always wants to inspire others, make them believe in themselves, their art, their path. So I just could not respond. How could I? I felt like nothing was happening and felt stuck, frustrated, alone- and she was asking me for advice? (I sort of still feel that way.)
We all are just trying we all are just attempting to live this life with our hearts. In truth the last year has been the absolute worst of my life, even though my work has been doing great. It is such a struggle right now to make my work, write on this blog, apply for one more freaking job that I almost get but don't. But the way I make it happen is I show up. Even though the last thing I want to do sometimes is pick up my work I know that in those moments it is often the best thing that I can do. Make, create, share. This is who I am, this is what I do- and I am luckier then most because I know that.
I wish I had more energy and time to be here on these pages. I wish I had more time alone in my studio- but that is just not what life is giving me right now. And I was very lucky life gave me a lot of that over the last 5 years.
Sometimes, I get confused about the role of this blog. It started initially as a very diaristic experiment, then it became almost like a research project, then a way to help my career and build community and then I just did not know. I was writing and sharing about artists but was unsure as to why.
But now I remember the point of this blog- i has always been for me as a place to share, a place to have a voice, a place to celebrate the shit, the mess and the beauty of making art and life.
So maybe right now I am being a little bit less of a critical/intellectual voice. Finding less art to write about. But in truth I just don't want to look at art right now. I want to read about it, write about it, think about it. But not search for it. I want it to come find me. That is what I must do.
I hope you will all still come and say hello, stay awhile, share, and comment. But if the point of this blog is to be honest. Well honestly this is what I wanted to say today.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
happening in my inbox...
Submissions are coming in and they are looking good. Make sure to get yours in.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
don't be sad...
because you forgot to submit your work to Down to Sleep. The deadline is getting oh so close.
So submit all things bed inspired. The work can be drawings, photos, videos of bedding/beds (fabric) or fabric based work exploring the bed, elements of the bed or emotions of the bed.
Feel free to submit works in process or proposals. The actual show is not until March- the early deadline is due to a print deadline for their calender and events printing. But I am happy to look at works that are not finished or proposed installations etc.
The space is REALLY nice and totally appropriate for large works, they also have a large nice flat screen for video works.
Submit, submit, so you can miss out on being sad that you did not.
All the details here.
more 3 women sewing.
Here are some more photos from my opening, where you can see the other artists lovely work, the packed gallery, the performance and the general fun of a good art outing.
my work.
Eunkyung Lee's work.
Bai Jung Ja's work.
The crowd.
The performance by Annabelle Cazes:
Thanks to the lovely Eunkyung for inviting me.
and I already sold a piece, yeah!
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