Julia Caprara School of Textile Arts

I just got word the Julia Caprara School of Textile Arts has started to set up their web site, http://www.jctextilearts.com/ This will be a very interesting site to watch because of the innovative contemporary work the students are producing.
Presently I am working my way through the 10th of 18 modules towards a BA(Hons) in Embroidered Textiles. I am working on Fine Art Embroidery and I am fortunate to have Ruth Issett, the queen of colour, as my tutor. I have weekly phone tutorials with her where we discuss what I have done during the past week while looking at my Picasa Web album where I have added images of my work. It is a very effective way to learn independently knowing you have support and guidance along the way.

The Fine Art Embroidery module is about working out gender specifics on garments then developing your ideas from this study. Here I looked at females when they are covered.

This is a page of images of cross gender garments for protection.
Now I have to take one of the many ideas I have come up with and take it further: drawing, sampling and finally producing a finished work. It's all very interesting in the way it raises lots of social issues for me. .

Inspiration & Work

Summer is a time to travel and visit. I took our recent visitors/company to one of my favourite places in Alberta - Dinosaur Provincial Park. It didn't fail to inspire me again and got me thinking that maybe there is more work here for me to do.

When Articulation (the group I study & exhibit with) came to together, the first place we studied was Dinosaur Provincial Park. We each produced a series of Badlands work and exhibited it. I thought I had completed my Badlands series but every time I go back to this park I find it still full of ideas.
Every year since, Articulation has come together in a special place in Canada to do a study. We then return to our individual studios across the country to turn the inspiration and research into a personal response. These individual series of works are then exhibited, usually back near where they originated from.
As an artist co-operative, this combination of sharing, support and individuality is one of the things that makes Articulation unique.
An exciting new aspect for the group is the development of a presence on the web. After exhibiting in galleries on the Pacific coast, the Atlantic coast and places in between, a website is needed to keep us connected with those who are getting to know our work.
So that's where the work part of this post's title comes in as any one who has had a hand in developing a web presence knows. It is a lot of work.
If you visit our website regularly you will see the cyber growth of another articulated arm of Articulation.
http://www.articulationtextilegroup.com/

Saying Goodbye Again

I had a lovely day sitting outside hand stitching 'Walls Talk'. It is so calming to be hand stitching again after doing only drawing & research for the last 3 BA (Hons) modules I have completed. But I have to admit I have been putting off doing doing this hand stitching because it is remedial work to solve the hanging problem the work was having.
I had already said my goodbyes to this work thinking I had sent it off to Korea for the Craft Biennale in October. Now here it is back again. It is like sending your child out into the world where you are excited they are healthy, happy & strong, ready to make it on their own. Then they appear on your doorstep again.
Like a child, 'Walls Talk' just needed a little more loving care before it was sent out into the world again.

Articulation Exhibition at Whyte Museum

Catherine Whyte

An exciting event that has come out of Articulation's Women Rock project is an invitation to exhibit at the Whyte Museum in September 2011. Michale Lang, the Director and Chief Curator of the Whyte, saw some of our work while it was hanging in the Other Gallery in the Banff Centre last March. On the spot she booked us for an exhibition.

Eleanor Luxton

It will be Articulation's first curated exhibition. Michale will select work to go with artifacts and archives from the Whyte collections. For the past 2 years Articulation members have been researching women and mountain culture in the Rockies, much of the work being inspired by what was found in the museum and their archives.

Georgina McDougall Luxton

A number of Articulation members have been inspired by particular women who have lived in the Banff area over the years. These are images of some of the 'Luxton Ladies'. While other members are working with the concept of women and mountain culture and issues that are relevant today.

Annie McKenzie McDougall

It is an exciting and unique project where planning has started in earnest. We are presently divvying up all of the jobs involved in making this project happen. I'll keep you posted as things develop.

Walls Talk at the Alberta Craft Council Gallery

Here is my entry to the Korean Craft Biennale having its first public showing. Joanne from Alberta Craft Council had driven down from Edmonton to pick up all of the Calgary entries and taken back them to hang in the lower craft council gallery for the month.
When Donna and I went up to Edmonton last Monday to take down Articulation's exhibit in the McMullen, we checked on my 'Walls Talk' work. And just as well we did. It wasn't doing too well. With a combination of spot light heat and gravity it was sagging after a month. Joanne kindly let me take it down and bring it home so I can work on modifying the hanging mechanism. I am so pleased to have the opportunity to do this before it is crated up and heads off to Korea where it needs to look its best. It also needs to be robust enough to survive 3 years of touring Alberta once it returns from Korea.
Apart from a short time at the photographers, this was the 1st time it had been on a wall. It reminded me, yet again, I need a large enough design wall in my studio to put up my work so I can see it as it is meant to be and so prevent this kind of issue from happening. Thanks to Joanne I'm getting a 2nd chance with this one.

Take Down at the McMullen

This week Donna Clement & I travelled to Edmonton to take down Articulation's exhibit of Winnipeg inspired work that has hung in the University of Alberta Hospital McMullen Gallery for the past couple of months.

This a bag made by Miriam Levi Birkenthal that was a late entry to the exhibition because the courier person couldn't find the gallery so sent the package with the bag in it back to Winnipeg where Miriam lives. Miriam had to send it to Vickie in Calgary who took it up to the gallery when she next did a workshop there. Everyone was very pleased when this well travelled bag made it to its plinth in the gallery.

The works have now been packaged up and will be sent on to Winnipeg where they will be exhibited in the Mennonite Heritage Centre Gallery from September this year. This space is twice as big as the McMullen so Articulation members, as I post, are making more Winnipeg works as a 2nd installment. It is a valuable opportunity to have the time to develop initial ideas further. I suspect the new work will have a different feel to it, especially after the progress each of us made over the month as artists-in-residence in the Banff Centre.

BA (Hons) Embroidered Textiles & 'Friends' Shawl

I've been very busy this past week working at finishing off this semester's module for my BA(Hons) studies. This semester I did Professional Practice, a practical module that sets me up to run the business side of my art practice so I will hit the ground running straight after I graduate.
This year there has been a change in the school that runs the programme. Julia and Alex Caprara set the school up and ran it as co-principals - Opus School of Stitched Textiles. After Julia died last year, Alex decided to close the school. That's when Winy Smit-Vuijk and Sandra Flower picked up the BA(Hons) part and formed the Julia Caprara School of Textile Arts. Thanks to them our studies weren't interrupted.


I found this lovely woven shawl in a thrift store. I Googled the words on the label but haven't been able to find out anything about the company.

If you recognise this label or know anything about the company, could you please contact me, ravenmade@gmail.com

McMullen Gallery, Articulation's Urban Textures

This is Articulation member Wendy Klotz's work in the Urban Textures exhibition in the University of Alberta Hospital McMullen Gallery.

'Winterized Winnipeg, Saint Boniface, Confederation Life, and The Kelly Building'

'The Gates' Puzzle'
This work really suffers from my photography because it is made from silk that shimmers and looks so alive with lots of optical movement.

'The Kelly Building'

This is another interpretation of this building that Wendy did. This one is appliqued & quilted while the other one is silk screened and hand stitched to give a very different effect.

More McMullen Gallery Work

These are the 3 works Leann Clifford put into Articulation's 'Urban Textures' exhibition currently hanging in the McMullen Gallery, University of Alberta Hospital, Edmonton.

McMullen Gallery Workshops

Donna and I drove up to Edmonton yesterday for our 2nd workshop in the McMullen Gallery. We encouraged those who came into the gallery to sit down for a while to play with some design methods: doodling within a divided basic shape & notan (dark & light) - a Japanese based exercise where one uses the negative as well as the positive space in a design.

Donna is showing a simple but effective Notan design. Jane Dunnewold, a well known US textile surface designer, shared this exercise on her website, calling it 'The Expansion of the Square'.

This is ReBecca Paterson's 'Illusion of...' work in Articulation's Urban Textures body of work.

Vickie & I hung it in the gallery facing the busy walkway inside the hospital because it is such an eye-catcher to people on the move past the glass walls of the gallery.

After a 6:30 a.m. start to the day it turned out to be a long one because we had a tire blow out on the way back to Calgary so we didn't get home until 1:00 am!

Urban Textures McMullen Gallery

Gloria's 'Ashlar' is a response to the first Ford garage in Winnipeg. This image doesn't show the detail but there is a lot of hand stitching in the Kantha style.

There are 3 very different textile techniques in these works by Gloria. Just click on her name to the right to go to her website for more details about these works.

Walls Talk Goes to Korea

I posted updates about this work, Walls Talk, during its creation. When it was complete I entered it in the 2009 Cheongju International Craft Biennale in Korea. This event is the Cannes Film Festival of Fine Craft - the work of over 1000 artists from more than 40 countries is exhibitied . Canada is the guest country this time (Italy was last time), so the Koreans have built the Canada Pavilion, a 10,000 sq ft gallery space. So Canadian Crafts Federation ran a competition called 'Unity and Diversity' to get work to fill the space. When I read the theme of the juried competition I knew they were thinking of my Tyndall stone wall. So I entered it. And it was accepted!

Yesterday, as I wrote out the 4 pages of instructions on how to install it and while I packaged it up, I said goodbye to it just as Martha Cole has recommended we do to our work. It was the last I will see of it for nearly 4 years. It will hang in the Alberta Craft Council gallery along with 29 other Alberta works, until June. Then it will be crated up and shipped to Korea where it will be on exhibit for the 40 days of the biennale, until November.

After Korea there are a number of opportunities for it, depending on which event it is picked for. There is going to be a book published on the 120 pieces being sent from Canada. Dr Sandra Alfoldy is writing an essay for the book about the state of craft in Canada based on the work and there will be bios on all of the artists. All great stuff.
I'll give you reports on Walls Talk's journeying whenever I hear anything.

McMullen Urban Textures

More close-up views of works in Articulation's Urban Textures exhibition in the McMullen Gallery, Edmonton.
This is work by Linda Mackay.

Linda Mackay focused on telling narratives with the facades of Winnipeg's historic buildings. She dyed, screen printed and quilted.