Warped Milwaukee Fiber Arts Exhibition Application Form!

It's here!  Finally!  Fill out your application form and pay your $10 fee online!  You have until Oct. 25th.  Need a reminder of the rules and regulations?  Click here!

Sorry for the Delay

A link for the application for the Warped Milwaukee fiberarts exhibition will  be posted over the weekend.  Please keep checking this space. 

The Manly Arts

3 piece wall-hanging by Collingwood Designs

Historically speaking the production of cloth has been the domain of men and in many cultures it still is.  TWEED,  a 2009 BBC documentary,  revealed that all the hand weavers at  Harris Tweed are men and they always have been.  So how come it is so hard to get men into the weaving studio here in America?  The UK boasts some extraordinary male weavers who have become stars in the weaving world.   Tim Parry Williams, Nick Ozanne, and Jason Collingwood for example.  Did their shared "Englishness" make their journey into the world of textile production any easier?  After all, Silas Marner was a weaver. 

Next May, Jason Collingwood will be here in Wisconsin speaking at the Wisconsin Hand Weavers monthly meeting.  This is a great opportunity to talk to a master weaver, learn some of his secrets and perhaps get some clue into how to draw men into the art of weaving.

If it is hard to entice men into the weaving world, how much harder to lure them into the quilting world?  Josh Cacopardo wrote an excellent article in the Curator about his attempts to make quilting manly. "Indeed, every time I use the word “bobbin” I feel like I should take my shirt off and lift something really heavy, making sure that all of the nearby women see it happen"  he writes.  Give it a read!

Weaving Camp

In June, some of us from ABK Studio went over to the WPCA to teach a 4 day weaving camp.  It turned out to be a lot of fun. The kids were absolutely wonderful.  My heartfelt thanks goes out to the volunteers that helped out: Allison Gipp, Carolyn Manning, and Alison Worman, as well as the WPCA staff.  Special thanks to Kate Bradley, the education coordinator at WPCA for the opportunity.  

  

The main project of the week was a woven treasure pouch.  The kids used cardboard looms, a weaving needle and an assortment of yarns.  I can't show their faces for legal reasons but let me tell you, they were cute.  This guy is 6.  

I can show her face because she's mine.  This is my 7 year old who came to the class.  She's the only one who didn't finish a project.  She was too busy talking.  

Works in progress.

This 9 year old was a natural.  She was the first to finish her project and here she is helping one of the  other kids with their projects.  I saw her again this week at another camp and she said she has been busy making the woven bracelets Carolyn taught them how to make for all her family and friends. 

Here one of the students is making either a bracelet or a tie for her treasure pouch.  Making bracelets was one of the favorite activities for the week.  This method is called "fill the gap" and is so easy i wonder how i never heard of it before.

We brought in one of the studio looms and let each of the kids work on it for a little bit.  They loved it.  The littlest ones took great pleasure in showing their parents how the loom worked when they came to pick them up. 

A couple completed and near completed projects.

Warped Milwaukee Fiber Arts Exhibition

 Warped Milwaukee

an ABK Weaving Center juried exhibition, celebrating fiber art and the fiber artist!

Important Dates
.Opening Nov. 13th and ending Dec. 5th, 2010 at Jazz Gallery, 926 E. Center St., Riverwest.
. Artists can submit a completed application form with $10 application fee, along with photos of art work at www.warpedmilwaukee.blogspot.com beginning Sept. 2010.  Alternately, they may print out a copy of the application and send it with a check (made out to ABK Weaving Center)  or money order and photos to Jazz Gallery, 926 E. Center St., Milwaukee, Wi., 53212.
. Application deadline is Oct. 25th

Rules
.This exhibition is open to fiber artists, 18 years or older, residing in the city of Milwaukee, Wi, and also to members of WHI in good standing.
. Acceptable artwork will include art that employs, or is conversant in, any textile, fabric or fiber media.  Artists are  encouraged to explore new boundaries and challenge common categories.
. Each artist is allowed to submit up to three (3)  pieces for consideration. Pieces may be entered into multiple categories.   Pieces must be complete, clean, undamaged, and odor free.  Incomplete entries will not be accepted. All work must have an attached label that includes the following; name of piece, name of artist, phone number and email address. Where applicable, pieces should be prepared for hanging.  
. Selected artists will be asked to bring their artwork to Jazz Gallery on Nov. 6th for display and final judging.  The judges reserve the right to deny entry if artwork was inaccurately represented within photos.                                  
. Work will be judged on visual impact, color and originality.  Judges will focus particularly on innovative designs and craftsmanship. 

categories
. You're Putting Me On: costume, fashion, jewelry, masks etc…..artists must provide their own dress forms where necessary.
. Bend Me, Shape Me, Anyway You Want Me: fabric sculpture, cloth books, fabric bowls, baskets, toys, etc...
 . Monosynth: piece must be made entirely of one color.  shades, tints, and hues within that color are acceptable. 
. It's FUNdamental: create a piece of fiber art based on a work of literature, professionally published and in print.  You may base your art on the theme, setting, a character, or part of the text.

May WHI meeting

The May Wisconsin Handweavers meeting is tomorrow morning, 10 o'clock,  at Gaenslen Elementary school in Riverwest.  The ABK Weaving Center will be continuing to sell their ARTWORX items throughout the meeting.  If you contributed sale items you may pick them up after. 

This months meeting is entitled:

Mathemagical Design: Geometry in Textiles

with Jennifer Moore

Jennifer Moore is widely known for her luminous color gradations and distinctive designs that are at once both balanced and dynamic.  Her weaving has been widely exhibited for the past twenty-five years, and has won awards throughout the United States and abroad. Her work has been published in numerous magazines and in several books in the Fiberarts Design series.

Jennifer holds a Master of Fine Arts in weaving from the University of Oregon, where she specialized in exploring relationships between weaving, music and mathematics in doubleweave wallpieces.

She currently maintains a studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico and travels throughout the world giving lectures and workshops in weaving and design. She is the author of The Weaver’s Studio: Doubleweave published by Interweave Press.

We would love to see you there. 

Wrapped trees on Burleigh

Our thanks goes out to all those who participated in the Great Tree Wrap Experiment of 2010.  We put the wraps up on Wednesday morning and I will be taking them down tomorrow afternoon during the WHI meeting.  Hopefully, we will use them agian for future events.  If you are still interested in creating a tree wrap, please do.  I think we'll have more neighbors signing up after seeing how pretty it looked.