world of threads 1

Isichol by Lerato Motau  South Africa detail

SOUTH AFRICA

wool hand embroidery

Techtonic 30 by Lindy Fyfe, Toronto Canada

TORONTO CANADA

recycled knit clothing, sewn and stretched over canvas

Chronicling of Self by Maureen Ballagh, Canada

ORLEANS CANADA

nettle yarn,with grass, clover and beesax, knit and dipped in wax

Indigo by Catherine Heard Toronto Canada

TORONTO CANADA

Seer by Catherine Heard  antique fabric, embroider

Redwork by Catherine Heard, Toronto CanadaAdd caption

Fragment by Naha Puri Dhir, Gujarat India

 INDIA

tussah silk, hand woven, stitch resist indigo dye

Intersect by Neha puri Dhir Gujarat India, stitch resist indigo dye, tussah silk

 INDIA

ripple by Neha Puri Dhir, Gujarat India, stitch resist, indigo dye, tussah silk

INDIA 

Homage to Mary Safianoff by Honey Mitchell, Toronto Ontario

TORONTO ONTARIO CANADA

dupioni silk, cotton floss, photo, hand stitch

WORLD OF THREADS in OAKVILLE ONTARIO CANADA

This is the first of three blog posts about the world of threads exhibitions.  I was only able to stay a brief time and there was so much to see.   315 artworks by 134 artists from around the world.  For more information and more art by these artists, click on their name to go to website.  I hope that you will look at all three of the posts about the festival.  x

I feel as if I know her

 This embroidery is from South Africa.

It was stitched by an artist named Leah.  Leah wrote a note and tacked it to the back of the piece ( about 14 x 20 inches).  The note said that she liked lions because they are strong animals.
Because of her hand work, I feel as if I know her.

The above embroidery is also from South Africa.  The initials of the artist are prominently marked on the left.  The size of this piece is also about 14 x 20 inches.  There is a wide variety of stitches.  Look at the seeds and chicken foot prints on the ground, the cloud in the sky, the comb and energy feathers over the larger hen.  The border.

The reverse of the embroidery is also powerful.  Seeing work like this I wonder if I am correct to advise others to try to make the back as neat as the front.  Why?

Valerie Hearder shared these (and other beautiful pieces) with us last week at Penny Beren's home in Nova Scotia.  I went there for four days to enjoy a most nourishing retreat with these old friends.

Valerie Hearder, Penny Berens, Margi Hennen, the two dogs are Kayla and Shandy

I'll never forget that we watched the Justin Trudeau majority results together.

Q:  Why do I like these embroideries so much?
A:  They have integrity.
      The marks are varied.  They are bold.
      The artist spent time and thought on her work.
      I feel as if I know her.  I feel her hands.  
      I understand that she observes her world and that it is urgent for her that she communicates about those observations.

golden notebook two

 I am working at being an artist.

 I have a lot of projects on the go.

 I make things for no reason and then exhibit them if they turn out.

This is the only way I can do good work.

The text in this post is from my 1999 journal.
Golden notebook one  is still in progress.   Shown here.

Matisse

kuba velvet, shibori and mirror embroidered wool, bogolanfini mud cloth

When Henri Matisse was in his last decades, he hung Kuba fabrics from the Congo on his walls.  He did this to inspire him.  "I can't wait to see what they will reveal to me"  he said.

"I'm astonished to realize that, although I've seen them often enough, they've never interested me before as they do today"  Matisse wrote about his African velvets.

"I never tire of looking at them for long periods of time, even the simplest of them, and waiting for something to come to me from the mystery of their instinctive geometry."  H Matisse

Matisse used textiles to liberate his painting from the classicism of his day.
Dotted.  Striped.  Billowing.  Flat.
Another reality.
His paintings placed figures in front of his fabric collection, wearing his collection.  The flattened decorative motifs animate the backgrounds, suggesting a "new" reality - neither 2 dimensional or 3 dimensional.

He grew up in Northern France.  His ancestors and neighbours were renowned weavers.  "the weavers of his home town prided themselves on outstripping all rivals at modernity's cutting edge."  (the photos of Matisse and all quotes are from the book, Matisse: His Art and His Textiles.

Matisse 'restarted' his engine as a painter by setting out a still life on a length of fabric.

My own collection of African textiles is pictured above.  Inspired by Matisse, I hung it up in our living room in October - and have enjoyed looking at them for two months.  The white dots in the left weaving are little mirrors that reflect the light.  The central strongly rhythmic black and white fabric in the middle is bogolanfini mud cloth - and the three brownish ones are kuba cloths. 

memory cloth

Last November I visited Canada's textile museum in Toronto and saw this raffia skirt from Cote d'Ivoire, Africa.

Made by Dida women, the fabric is raffia woven without a loom, dyed with plants and marked very beautifully with tied resist.

posted here so that I don't forget this very real object