ARTIST TRADING CARDS ON VIEW
Twenty-five hundred artist trading cards (ATCs) were exhibited from July through December 2005 in House of Cards, an exhibition sponsored by European Papers Ltd. and its education arm, Columbus Center for the Paper and Book Arts, in Columbus, Ohio. ATCs, like fiber postcards, have been growing in popularity, and this was one of the first exhibitions organized in the United States. The cards will be on view April 7–9 at Artiscape—An Artist's Retreat (Cherry Valley Lodge, Newark, Ohio) and September 7–9 at Simply Southern (Nashville, TN).
ATCs are mixed-media artworks that measure 2 1/2" x 3 1/2"; many makers use stitching, embroidery, and fabrics. The back usually includes a signature, date, and edition number. The cards are created with the purpose of trading among artists. A catalog ($10) and poster ($7) from the House of Cards exhibition are available through European Papers' website. About 20 percent of the cards in the show involved fibers/textiles, said curator Lisa Ohmer, including the Best of Show entry from Scotland and the Award for Originality.
A second exhibition, House of Cards II, will open next September; European Papers will post a call for entries in May.
See the April/May 2006 issue of Fiberarts for an article on fiber postcards, mailable 4" x 6" cousins of ATCs.
Sherry Laatsch, Untitled; multilayered sewn collage of paste papers and mesh, with threads. This ATC won the Award for Originality.
Karen Wallach, Untitled; sewn fabric appliqué with beaded detail, cast charms, and silver metal edge.
Frieda Oxenham, Enduring, Unending; quilted fabrics with hand beading, metallic edge detail, transparency inset. This ATC won the Best of Show Award.
ACC REGIONAL CONFERENCE
Textile artist Helena Hernmarck will be the keynote speaker at the American Craft Council Southeast conference, which will be held March 23–25 at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft in Louisville. The conference, hosted by the museum and jointly funded by the Kentucky Craft Marketing Program (KCMP), will also feature workshops. On view at the museum through March 25 is Spotlight 2006, a juried exhibition for craft artists who live in the eleven southeastern states.
INNOVATIONS IN TEXTILES 6
RESEARCH RESOURCE: LIBRARY CATALOGS ONLINE
TextileMuse, a searchable catalog of The Textile Museum’s Arthur D. Jenkins Library, is now online. The holdings of the library encompass the history of textiles, rugs, and costume—with an emphasis on the traditional cultures of the Americas, Africa, and Asia—as well as material on contemporary fiber art, textile structures and techniques, and textile conservation. Monographs, serials, pamphlets, auction catalogs, slides, videotapes, and children’s books are available. The library is the only one in the United States to index journals and periodicals in the field of textiles. Located within the museum at 2320 S Street NW in Washington, D.C., the library is open to the public; for hours, call (202) 667-0441, ext. 31.
Located at 72 Spring Street in New York City’s SoHo district, the American Craft Council Library has a growing collection of literature on the contemporary craft movement in the United States. It is open to members and the public by appointment; a database of its holdings is online. The library’s holdings include 7,000 exhibition catalogs, 6,400 books, 650 bound volumes of the major craft periodicals (including Fiberarts), archival records of the American Craft Council, and records of the Museum of Contemporary Crafts (later, the American Craft Museum) for 1956–1990 (during that period, the museum was a program of the council). The library welcomes donations, particularly of exhibition catalogs and brochures; to find out how to submit materials, contact library@craftcouncil.org.
A SLEEP-INDUCING EXHIBIT
That blessed activity, sleep, and the settings in which it is pursued are the focus of Dream On: Beds from Asia to Europe, now on at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe. Curators Annie Carlano and Bobbie Sumberg have chosen seventy examples of furniture, pillows, and bedding drawn from the Museum of International Folk Art’s collections, as well as loans from private collections and museums. Objects include kimono-shaped quilts, woven rattan mats from Borneo, embroidered silk sleeping cloths from Southeast Asia, nomadic piled bedding from Turkey and Uzbekistan, and beds from various cultures. The interactive exhibition opened in December and runs through September 4. (Note: “interactive” does not mean “lie down and take a nap.”)
Bedcover or rug (ryijy), Finland, mid-nineteenth century; wool with linen weft; knotting-technique (rya) weaving; 82" x 60". Neutrogena Collection, Museum of International Folk Art. Photo: Pat Pollard, © Museum of International Folk Art.
FIBER AT ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH
DAIRY BARN HUB OF FIBER EVENTS
The Dairy Barn Cultural Arts Center in Athens, Ohio, has been on the fiber map since 1979, when Nancy Crow and others organized the first Quilt National exhibition. It's now a hub for several major exhibitions and events of interest to fiber fans.
The biennial Quilt National exhibition, which was the first juried showcase for art quilts, is considered the premier recurring quilt exhibition in the United States. It's held in odd-numbered years from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend; the show is then segmented into smaller collections, which travel for several years. Jurors for QN '07 will be artists Tim Harding and Paula Nadelstern and Robin Treen, exhibits director of the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. Adding to the Quilt National opening weekend in summer 2007, the organization Studio Art Quilt Associates will sponsored a conference in Athens with lectures and seminars.
During the Memorial Day–to–Labor Day period in even-numbered years, the Dairy Barn now hosts Bead International—the fifth of which will be presented in 2006. Robert K. Liu, author of Collectible Beads and coeditor of Ornament magazine, is jurying this year's exhibition. As for Quilt National, selections from this exhibition will travel for the next few years.
This summer, in addition to Bead International, visitors will also be able to see Basketry International, a juried exhibition sponsored by the National Basketry Organization in conjunction with its regional convention (July 20–22, 2006). This show is being juried by two makers, Jerry Bleem and JoAnn Kelly Catsos, who work in contemporary and traditional forms, respectively.
It looks like a summer trip to Ohio should become an annual tradition!
ALLIANCE FOR AMERICAN QUILTS MOVES TO ASHEVILLE
The Alliance for American Quilts will move its offices to Asheville, North Carolina, in summer 2006. The Alliance has been invited by HandMade in America, a nationally recognized craft and economic development organization, to share new offices currently under construction in downtown Asheville. The Alliance's mission is to document, preserve, and share America's quilt heritage; its website is a voluminous resource for data and stories about quilts and quilt makers.
ORLEY & SHABAHANG OPEN NYC GALLERY
Orley & Shabahang, whose carpets were mentioned in our coverage of last fall's SOFA Chicago [January/February 2006], has opened a new gallery at 520 West 23rd Street in New York City. For thirty years, Geoffrey Orley and Bahram Shabahang have collaborated to share their passion for Persian carpets; the New York gallery joins locations in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, and Palm Beach, Florida.
The new gallery's opening show, titled 100 Years of Persian Carpet Masterworks, features contemporary carpets designed by Bahram Shabahang in a wide array of patterns and colors, as well a selection of prized antique carpets. It's up through April 30.
Empire State, a carpet designed by Bahram Shabahang and handmade for Orley & Shabahang in Iran.
UPCOMING TEXTILE TOURS
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