Thursday, November 21, 2013

Pulling Strings Profile: Shannon Gerard


Shannon's Plants You Can't Kill

Our talk and workshop with Shannon Gerard is only a few sleeps away!  To tide you over until then, we've asked Shannon to respond to a few questions about her work.  Read on to get a window onto Shannon's practice, which meaningfully connects crochet to drawing, research, math and history (among other things!).

How do you position textiles within the context of your greater art practice?

I was starting to type something here about what percentage of my time and studio practice is devoted to crochet, but I'd like to resist that compartmentalization of crochet from the rest of what I do. I do it A LOT, but at this point it is not distinct in its intention or outcome that any other media I work with. It's a form of drawing, writing, research, and play in the same way that making books, or writing every day, or animating, or taking on huge social-political performances are part of the daily work of building an art practice.

You have long-standing interests in both textiles and printed matter.  Do you see a connection between these two (seemingly) disparate media?

Yes, for sure. Crochet is a form of drawing for me, as well as a form of research and a way of being in the world. In the book work that I do, I draw a lot of portraits and I find that the act of drawing faces changes my relationship to the world. I see a face I have drawn and I can then never extrapolate the lived face from the drawn face. I am now seeing the world through the lens of having drawn it. Writing is the same-- you replace your lived experience with a poetic description of that life and you have only the description and not the thing itself. Crochet is the same. I use it to pacify anxiety, to create forms, to research mathematical patterns, or to play-- and suddenly crochet is a way of thinking and knowing the world. I am surprised by the number of things I read or hear people talking about and I'm thinking, "yes, that is just like hyperbolic crochet."

How do you think textile work/processes lend themselves to collaboration, education and social change?

Textiles, and in my case yarn and wool specifically, are very mediating materials. We recognize them from living (wearing clothes, setting tables, doing laundry, sitting on furniture), not from art. So we know how to approach these materials. To work on textile-based works together is very natural-- it opens up conversations because our hands are busy. Our minds can run. And textiles have a physicality that gives them a history beyond art-- a history that is often very political, which complicates those collaborations and conversations quite dynamically.

Share three textile/fibre (re)sources you can't live without.

The Textile Museum's annual More Than Just a Yardage Sale (which I call Tits & Elbows because of the sheer VOLUME of women in the tents), Romni Wools on Queen Street in Toronto, and ANYTHING that Kirsty Robertson is involved in. (http://twodriftersofftosee.wordpress.com/)

*****

For more on Shannon and her work, check out the following links:
http://shannongerard.org/index.html
http://shannongerard.tumblr.com/


Crocheted tree stump in Shannon's studio

Friday, November 15, 2013

Pulling Strings 1.1: Shannon Gerard Conceptual Crochet Talk & Workshop (Nov 23, 2013)



After months of coffee shop scheming and logo napkin doodles, we are pretty dang excited to be getting Pulling Strings off the ground with a talk and workshop led by Shannon Gerard! Shannon was a natural choice for a first speaker in the series – her playful approach to her practice is never stuffy or alienating but always makes you think about things not previously considered – exactly what we are trying to achieve with Pulling Strings.

Next Saturday (November 23) Shannon will give a talk and Q&A at the Hamilton Artists Inc, followed by a hands-on workshop at Needlework. We are super grateful to both spots for giving Pulling Strings, a roving series, its first home.

Recognized for her engaging teaching and speaking style, Shannon will share the evolution of her crochet practice from recognizable objects with a decorative or educational function to forms that graph concepts of hyperbolic space or chart biographical and emotional journeys.  Following the talk, anyone is invited to push the boundaries typically associated with crochet as a functional pastime in a conceptual crochet workshop - no crochet experience necessary! As spaces are limited, we'll need you to register beforehand by emailing us at pullingstringshamilton@gmail.com.

Here are the details:
Who: Shannon Gerard (http://shannongerard.tumblr.com)
When: Saturday November 23, 2013; Talk and Q&A (2:00-3:30pm); Workshop (4:00-5:30pm)
Where: Talk and Q&A – Hamilton Artists Inc. 155 James N Hamilton, ON (@ Cannon); Workshop – Needlework, 174 James St N Hamilton, ON
Cost: Talk - FREE; Workshop - $10
Registration: Talk – all are welcome, no RSVP required; Workshop – contact pullingstringshamilton@gmail.com to register.

A bit about Shannon: In addition to teaching courses in print media and nano-publishing at OCAD University in Toronto, Shannon Gerard makes artist's books about magic, hope, faith and human frailty and produces large-scale installations that incorporate stop-motion animations and digital print. Shannon spends at least 50% of her waking life crocheting soft sculptures, which include Boobs and Dinks, Plants You Can’t Kill, and contributions to the Toronto Hyperbolic Coral Reef.


Toronto Hyperbolic Coral Reef (by Shannon & Others) 


Saturday, November 9, 2013

An Introduction



Introducing: Pulling Strings!  A textile-focused event series that presents hot topics and odd topics in craft.

A concept unique to Hamilton, Pulling Strings is a quarterly event series that investigates contemporary cultural themes through textile-linked lectures, panel discussions, exhibitions, workshops, and fieldtrips.  The Pulling Strings project is the brainchild of craft thinkers and doers Thea Haines, Jen Anisef and Tara Bursey. Motivated by a belief that textiles tell us a lot about our culture, and inspired by Hamilton’s creative community’s contribution to downtown renewal and civic engagement, Pulling Strings aims to create an accessible and dynamic space for people of various stripes to come together and engage in the exchange of ideas.

Pulling Strings is a sister project of the Beehive Craft Collective.

About the Pulling Strings Collective:

 
Jen Anisef is a craft community organizer, having developed grassroots projects that include the Montreal Church of Craft, City of Craft, and the Toronto Craft Alert.  She is currently a proud member of the Beehive Craft collective in Hamilton.  As a research consultant she has produced sectoral analysis on contemporary craft practices for the Ontario Craft Council and the Ontario Arts Council.  Jen's day job is Cultural Projects Specialist with the City of Hamilton, Tourism and Culture Division.  She loves to bust a move when and wherever possible, and her ultimate crafty dream is to make a full sized quilt and not give it away.


Thea Haines is a textile designer, artist and educator, currently an instructor in Textile Design at Sheridan College, Oakville. Her research and design practice is focused on natural colorants as an aspect of sustainable textile craft production. Previously an artist-in-residence of the Craft Studio at Harbourfront Centre, and a member of the Contemporary Textile Studio Co-operative, Toronto, she is a founding member of the Beehive Craft Collective, and a recent graduate of MA Textiles at Chelsea College of Art and Design, in London, UK.  She likes to drink copious amounts of strong tea while drawing or sewing, and listening to the radio. 



Tara Bursey is an interdisciplinary artist and emerging curator whose interests include installation, performance, textile art and culture, food, collaboration and publishing.  Formerly a Curatorial Assistant at the Textile Museum of Canada, she has been a contributing curator for Gallery 1313 (Toronto), the Ontario Crafts Council and City of Craft and is currently working on curatorial projects for Toronto Artscape and the City of Hamilton.  She loves learning about textiles from around the world, particularly from Mexico, Central America, Syria and the Balkans.  She unites her loves of textiles and rock'n'roll by wearing as much vintage clothing from the psychedelic era as possible.

Our inaugural event is coming up on Saturday November 23rd, presented with the help of Hamilton Artists Inc. and Needlework.  Stay tuned for more details!  To keep up to date on our quarterly event series, get on our mailing list by dropping us a line at pullingstringshamilton@gmail.com or following us on our Facebook page.