Alexandra Brownell at Needlework

Image courtesy of Hamilton Spectator Collection, Local History & Archives, Hamilton Public Library 

Things have been chugging away with Pulling Strings since our library launch event at Needlework in April-- we are already at work on our summer program.  Behind the scenes for the last few months, Thea and I (Tara) have been working with a talented recent grad of Sheridan College's textile program, Alexandra Brownell, on her first exhibition.  This opportunity stemmed from a Sheridan class that Thea teaches where I was invited to give a guest lecture on my practice as an independent curator as well as guest curate an installation of student work based on an assignment that was structured like a call for submissions.  I juried the submissions alongside the wonderful Liz and Kate from Needlework.

It has been a real pleasure working with Alex and getting to know her and her great work.  Don't miss her installation (inspired by cotton and photographs found at the Hamilton Local History Archives!) that officially launches at Art Crawl next Friday! For more info about Alex and the show, see below.

****

Alexandra Brownell

Sweet Fibre

A window installation at

Needlework

174 James Street North, Hamilton

Opens at the James Street North Art Crawl on

Friday, June 13, 2014

Alexandra Brownell is from the rural hamlet of Leskard, Ontario. She grew up catching frogs, exploring the woods, and writing scary stories. This curiosity and creativity stuck with her and eventually she attended Sheridan College for the Craft & Design of Textiles. She continues to practice her craft in the GTA.  www.alexandrabrownell.com

This installation was organized by Thea Haines (Faculty, Department of Crafts and Design, Sheridan College), Tara Bursey (Independent Curator) and Kate Hunter and Elizabeth Simpson of Needlework.

Pulling Strings Reference Library: Jen Anisef

We are continuing to post reviews to celebrate our Pulling Strings Reference Library Launch - taking Place this Sunday!  Here is another review from our Pulling Strings team - this one by Jen Anisef.  

KnitKnit zine

published by Sabrina Gschwandtner

(2002-2007)

Though I only managed to get my hands on a few issues of KnitKnit (there are 7 in total), I would credit this artist zine for planting the seeds for many, many projects, Pulling Strings included.  Creator Sabrina Gschwandtner describes the publication as "dedicated to the intersection of traditional craft and contemporary art", however this slim pub bursts with ideas about gender, performance, collaboration, war, and the power of textiles to express political ideas.  It serves as a chronicle of a very fertile time in art/craft which included the formation of the Church of Craft, the creation of everything cozies, Cat Mazza's microRevolt, Dave Cole's excavator-knit US flag, and even Toronto's Westside Stitches Couture Club (feat. the late great Will Munro among other creative collaborators).

The pieces that have stuck with me most over the years are the ones profiling groups of makers coming together in live installations and craft-based performances. Allison Smith's The Muster (2004 & 2005) sounds like just about the coolest thing ever, a "creative encampment...[that] invokes the aesthetic vernacular of the American Civil War battle reenactment as a stage set for a polyphonic marshalling of voices in her artistic and intellectual communities. " BAM.  KnitKnit profiles the textile-fetishist uniforms created by Muster participants, a giant collaborative knitting machine piece investigating feminized labour during the war, and a neon maypole.  My dream one day is to facilitate (or at lease be involved in) a large scale interactive melding of creative minds similar to the Muster.

KnitKnit 6&7 are available for perusal at the Pulling Strings Reference Library at Needlework. An archive of zine content (including some articles) can be found at www.knitknit.net.

Jen Anisef
Cultural Projects Specialist - City of Hamilton, Pulling Strings Member

Pulling Strings 1.2: Tea, Talk & Tell: Reference Library Launch Event

We've been hyping the Reference Library Launch all month with mini-reviews from our textile heroes.  The launch is coming up this Sunday, and we would love for you to come out to meet some of these folks and get a chance to see some of their favourite textile publications and artifacts from their collection.

Join us at Needlework (174 James St. N, near Cannon) for a cozy Sunday morning event featuring tea, treats and textile pubs.  Textile makers and thinkers Kate Jackson, Grant Heaps, Jennifer Kaye and Anna Zygowski will host a "show and tell" of some of their favourites. You are also encouraged to check out the zines, reference and how-to books, artist monographs, and vintage patterns that make up our growing library at Needlework.

What: Tea, Talk & Tell: a Pulling Strings Reference Libary Launch Event
When: Sunday April 27, 11am-12:30pm
Where: Needlework - 174 James St. N
Cost:  This is a FREE event - all are welcome!
Registration: None required, but if you are Facebook please RSVP (and share away!)

Pulling Strings Reference Library: Tara Bursey

Our Pulling Strings Reference Library event next weekend is fast approaching!  More info to come in a few short days, but until then here's another book review, this one from our very own Tara Bursey!

Young Brides, Old Treasures: Macedonian Embroidered Dress
Bobbie Sumberg, Editor
Santa Fe: Museum of International Folk Art
(2013)

The summer after I left school, I was asked by someone I know at the Canadian Macedonian Historical Society to take a look at their permanent collection as well as consult with them about converting an unit in the building they are housed in into a mini-museum of Macedonian social history.  When I visited the collection, I was wowed by some of their beautiful (as well as some of their more humble) examples of Macedonian textiles even though much of it was in very rough shape.  One of my first little jobs fresh from school and a contract at the Textile Museum, I simmered with excitement thinking that this was the kind of work that I could actually make a life's work doing-- connecting textiles and social history, not to mention working with objects related to my own family's ethnic identity.

As I wandered through the CMHS's archive, I spotted this incredible book-- the massive catalogue of an exhibition that happened last year at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Young Brides, Old Treasures flaunts big, beautiful images of complete folk costumes from across the Republic of Macedonia with a focus on Macedonian embroidery. While embroidery is central, the costumes feature other trademark embellishments such as coin work and lavish red fringes and tassels.  Many thanks to Santa for getting me a copy of this catalogue for Christmas last year!  For those interested, my copy is in the PS Reference Library at Needlework-- hop over and give it a look!

Tara Bursey
Interdisciplinary Artist and Curator, Pulling Strings Member
http://tarabursey.com
http://tarabursey.blogspot.com

Pulling Strings Reference Library: Anna Zygowski and Jennifer Kaye

Both of our latest Pulling Strings Library Project inspired reviews are knitting focused, but quite different in flavour. They are brought to you by Hamilton-based textile heads, Anna Zygowski and Jennifer Kaye. We’ll continue to post these mini reviews from our textile heroes through the month leading up to our “official” library launch event, where Jennifer and Anna will both be showing and telling from their personal collection. Stay tuned!

Knitting Fashion, Industry Craft
Sandy Black
V and A Publishing
(2012)

Sandy Black’s book ‘Knitting Fashion, Industry, Craft’ is a fantastic addition to anyone’s reference collection. By drawing upon the Victoria and Alberts Museum’s collection of knitted fashion and artifacts, the book addresses how knitting practices evolved in the home, on the manufacturing floor and the runway. Blacks’ thorough chapter on cottage and couture hand-knitting in the 20th century explores how producers of knitwear have mediated between age old techniques and modern ideas about fashion. She peppers the book with high fashion images from Chanel, Schiaparelli, and Molyneux against images of fine lace Shetland Island shawls and exquisite 19th century beaded gloves. By doing so she offers an unbiased view of the level of sophistication and technical accomplishment attained by those knitting for income. Finally, a chapter on domestic knitting culture as a historically important and ongoing communal activity rounds out the book. Blacks books is relevant for knitters at any level!

Anna Zygowski, Fashion Knitwear Maker and vintage knitting machine enthusiast
www.annakari.ca 

Icelandic Handknits: 25 Heirloom Techniques and Projects 

Hélène Magnússon
Voyageur Press
(2013)

I happened upon the Icelandic Textile Museum by happy accident three years ago while driving from Akureyri in the north to Reykjavik to catch a plane to Glasgow. It's about a six hour drive - 1/4 of the time it takes to circumnavigate the island. We were half way through and ready for a break, and so we took our guidebook's advice and stopped in Blonduas to check out the Museum. It was really inspiring - beautiful artifacts, well displayed, with that distinctive Icelandic look to them - a great road-trip find. And so I was very happy to come across this book, Icelandic Handknits, back home in Hamilton. All of the patterns are modelled after artifacts from the Museum, which are pictured beside their contemporary replicas. I brought some lopi wool home with me, and so now I have everything I need to create some authentic Icelandic woollens. There's just one problem -- I hate to knit. Why couldn't this book have been called Icelandic Handcrochets instead? Oh well, it's still a great reminder of a wonderful afternoon spent amidst the textile traditions of Iceland.

Jennifer Kaye
Manager Arts, Events & Grants, City of Hamilton
Past Director, Textile Museum of Canada

Pulling Strings Reference Library: Karen Thiessen

Our next Pulling Strings Library Project mini review comes from local textile and mixed media artist Karen Thiessen.  Karen can sometimes be seen at Needlework, the Pulling String Library's home base, stitching something tiny and beautiful, often with a Japanese flavour.  Her choice from her own collection celebrating the fine art of the stitch comes as no surprise.   Keep your eyes on the blog for even more reviews through April as we head toward our library launch!

Nui Project Embroidery Stitches 

Kobo Shobu, Japan, 2003 

Nui Project 2 Embroidery Stitches 

Kobo Shobu, Japan, 2007 

Sandra Brownlee introduced me to the Nui Project 1 and 2 books during a visit to her studio in 2010. The Nui Project is a group of male and female textile artists who have intellectual disabilities and live in a facility called Shobu Gakuen in Kagoshima, Japan. With the assistance of facilitators, Nui Project textile artists embroider ready-made shirts and other textiles to be sold as commercial products and the results are spectacular. The textiles aren't all wearable or functional but serve more as remarkable sculptural objects. Each artist has his or her own distinct style and the textiles are stitched intuitively. A common characteristic of the artworks is the awe-inspiring accumulation of stitches. I purchased the books from Yoshiko I. Wada’s Slow Fiber Studios online shop and they are now sold out. Contact the shop to see if the books will be reordered.

Karen Thiessen, textile and mixed media artist
www.karenthiessen.com http://dayindayout10.blogspot.com

Shirt by Naoki Fujimura and Aki Nozawa, Cotton shirt & Mixed Media, Hand work and sewing machine, page 38 Nui Project 2

Pulling Strings Reference Library: Susan Fohr

At the heart of the Pulling Strings project is a hunger to explore the stories that textiles tell us about our culture and how we relate to each other.  This book shared by Susan Fohr, Education Programs Coordinator at the TMC,  does exactly that.  We'll keep posting more of these mini reviews to mark the launch of our reference library throughout April - stay tuned!

The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
Toronto: Random House Canada
(2001)

My favourite textile book is The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. As a museum educator, I am fascinated by the power of objects to communicate the stories of those once associated with them. Each chapter of The Age of Homespun features an object from a New England museum or historic site – including a native basket, two spinning wheels and a niddy-noddy – and outlines the role textiles played in shaping narratives related to nationhood, industrialization and gender in New England from the late seventeenth century through the early nineteenth century. I was particularly fascinated by the ways in which textiles, and the furniture that housed them, served as a means to build relationships and lineages over time, ensuring the preservation of a female line. Having begun my museum career as an historic interpreter (in fact my “textile education” happened while working at Black Creek Pioneer Village), this book reinforced my belief that we study history to do more than remember the past; we study history to discover how we can live better today and tomorrow.

Susan Fohr

Education Programs Coordinator

Textile Museum of Canada

Pulling Strings Reference Library: Sarah Quinton

Next up in our series of mini "reviews" from the shelves of some of our textile heroes is a celebration of a book that should belong in all textile fans' collections - as reviewed by inspired curator and Curatorial Director of the TMC, Sarah Quinton.  We'll keep posting more of these reviews to mark the launch of our reference library throughout April - stay tuned!

Sheila Hicks: Weaving as Metaphor

New York: Yale University Press for The Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture

Edited by Nina Stritzler-Levine, with texts by Arthur C. Danto and Joan Simon

(2006) 

This book is an object. Its white embossed, textured hard cover is soft to the touch, with 5 cm-thick, 418 rough-sawn page edges that contribute to its sculptural heft. Not particularly large, as books go: 22 cm height x 15.5 cm wide. It’s the juicy ratio of height-times-weight-times-thickness that qualifies it as a full-on object. It can function as a one-hander, but it’s better with two. 

Sheila Hicks, an American icon of contemporary textile practice since the 1950s, has for decades made small weavings and studies made of found objects including natural materials, bits of paper, rubber bands and plastic – notations in miniature of her everyday life – reflections on decades of travel, rich studio experimentation, straight-ahead loom weaving, rambling material studies and design explorations. 

This catalogue of her 2006 exhibition at New York’s Bard Graduate Center visually documents nearly 200 of her miniatures with sensitively scaled photographs and first-person anecdotes surrounding their existence. Of her 2005 Cluster of Sounds, made of fine synthetic threads, she writes “Ninety colors intermingle, fuse into a muted mass, and become a tangled tone cluster. The more colors there are, the less color is distinguishable. How many colors make gray, and how many grays are there?”

If you are in New York this spring, don’t miss Sheila Hicks’s monumental installation “Pillar of Inquiry/Supple Column” (2013–14) on the 4th floor of this year’s Whitney Biennial.

Sarah Quinton

Curatorial Director

Textile Museum of Canada

Pulling Strings Reference Library: Susan Warner Keene and Joe Lewis

We hope you've been enjoying our series of mini "reviews" of textile publications from the collections of some of our favourite textile heroes, a companion to the launch of the Pulling Strings Reference Library. This post features a couple of meaty offerings from sculptural paper artist Susan Warner Keene and textile man about town, Joe Lewis.  Keep an eye on the blog or our Facebook group for more posts like this one over the next few weeks leading up to our April event!

Cut My Cote
Dorothy K. Burnham
Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum
(1973)

The title of this monograph references the English proverb, “I shall cut my cote after my cloth,” an admonition to live within one’s means. Dorothy Burnham uses it as her jumping off point into wider meaning in this important cross-cultural study of the shapes of traditional garments. In succinct commentaries that accompany photos of pieces in the ROM collection and diagrams of pattern layouts, Burnham considers: clothing with minimal sewing (or none); the development of the shirt; the influence of skin garments, and methods of shaping. Her observations about fabric widths and their relationship to loom development and garment structure are thought provoking to anyone who works with cloth – or indeed any material.

I came across this little book when I was a beginning weaver and it opened my eyes forever to the powerful connections among material, technology, economy, and cultural expression. Cut My Cote is a small but mighty example of Dorothy Burnham’s tremendous contribution to the understanding of textiles.

Susan Warner Keene
Handmade Paper Artist
Toronto, ON
http://www.susanwarnerkeene.com/

Textile History

Pasold Publications

If I had to recommend a print magazine or journal that satisfies my textile curiosity it would have to be “Textile History” from Pasold Publications. It is a peer-reviewed journal that was started in 1968 and publishes an amazing range of articles. I find it informative and it takes you in directions you might not normally go and expands your horizons almost by osmosis. It is history and deals in factual information rather then theoretical interpretations though it is as seen through contemporary eyes. This publication is an investment in time and money conveniently the Textile Museum of Canada subscribes to it and I can dip into it there. 

Joe Lewis 
Weaver, writer and publisher of fibreQUARTERLY
Toronto, ON
http://www.velvethighway.com
http://fibrequarterly.blogspot.ca

Pulling Strings Reference Library: Kate Jackson

Welcome to the second installment in our series of mini "reviews" of textile books from the collections of some of our favourite textile heroes, this time featuring two offerings from fragile embroidery artist Kate Jackson.  Enjoy, and keep on the look out for more posts like this one over the next few weeks leading up to our April event in connection with the Pulling Strings Reference Library!

A Handbook of Lettering for Stitchers

Elsie Svennas

Van Nostrand Reinhold Company
1973 (original copyright 1966)

The first book is small but full of amazingness... I found this book in a great used bookstore that lives inside a fantastic bed and breakfast in Durham, Ontario.   The book is full of photos of different letters of the alphabet done in a variety of stitches.  There are also some charted alphabets but the best part of the book are the last pages with each page devoted to one letter drawn in amazing fonts.  I would say it is THE go-to book for anyone wanting to stitch monograms.

 

Sassy Magazine

 

I had a subscription to the magazine as a kid...from grade 6 onwards I think...  and I recently found a box of the magazines in my moms attic.  I was super inspired by them when I was younger.  They influenced my fashion style, I learned what DIY meant and made a shirt/dress out of a pillow case as one issue suggested.  My friends and I made zines all the time I crushed over a pair of Fluvvogs pictured in the magazine for years before getting my own pair. The artsy cool independent girl vibe in this magazine is for sure somehow responsible for me wanting to be artsy cool and independent!  I remember being thankful for Sassy when I was a kid and I remember bringing it into school and showing my friends who were all reading YM and knowing that MY Sassy magazine was different and ALTERNATIVE! and waaaaaaay cooler!   Finding that box last summer and rereading them does not disappoint.  

Kate Jackson
Textile Artist
Toronto, ON
http://katejacksonart.blogspot.ca/

Introducing the Pulling Strings Reference Library!

Introducing the Pulling Strings Library - where you are invited to discover something new about and through textiles.

In scheming programming for Pulling Strings, we often refer back to books, zines, and other textile related publications and ephemera that live on our bookshelves or bedside tables.  It occurred to us that we could pool our collections and share them with the Hamilton community, hopefully inspiring some folks with new ideas and imagery in the process. Needlework (174 James Street North, Hamilton), a gathering space for textile fans, seemed a natural fit to house the library, and thankfully Kate and Liz were excited about the project as well.  We set up shop in the Needlework window just in time for the March Art Crawl, and that's where a selection of our collections are currently, available for anyone to drop in and peruse! We will be announcing a Show and Tell event involving some of our favourite area textile folks shortly.

In the long term, the library will move out of the window and in to the shop, and we look forward to presenting an evolving collection of books, magazines, journals, pamphlets, zines, artist multiples, manuals, vintage patterns, etc. 

Inspired by the Pulling Strings Library Project, we will be running book reviews by our textile heros right here on our blog, so stay tuned for those in the coming weeks.

We are also happy to accept donations of anything wonderful/weird and textile-related to include in the collection.  Please contact us at pullingstringshamilton@gmail.com to discuss!

Pulling Strings Reference Library: Robyn Love and Grant Heaps

Welcome to the first installment in our series of mini "reviews" of textile books from the collections of some of our favourite textile heros. First up are artists Robyn Love and Grant Heaps, who share a passion for quirky retro craft books.  Enjoy, and keep on the look out for more posts like this one over the next few weeks leading up to our Pulling Strings Reference Library event in April!

A New Look at Crochet: Using Basic Stitches to Create Modern Designs

Elyse and Mike Sommer

New York: Crown Publishers, 1st Edition 

(1975)

When I think of publications that I reach for when I am looking to be inspired, I want to say that my first impulse is to immerse myself in the writing of Louise Bourgeois or Anni Albers.  I want to say that because I do reach for my books about those great artists - and other great artists.  I want to say that but it isn't completely true.  My first impulse is to reach for A New Look for Crochet by Elyse and Mike Sommers.  It is part history of crochet, part pattern book and part showcase of what was happening in the world of crochet c.1975.  To me the book is pure inspirational gold.  It is the perfect combination of sincerity, absurdity and genuine artistry.  There is nothing flashy or even well designed about it, but it is its very earnest tone that makes it so compelling.  It never fails me.

Robyn Love

Interdisciplinary Artist

Queens, NY/Gilliams, NFLD

http://www.robynlove.com

Floral Potpourri
Juliano's Hang It All 
Pineapples on Parade

I love how-to books on textile crafts. I have been collecting these books since I was a child and fell in love with trying to copy the ideas put in front of me on their pages. I love them because they offer such great hope. With limited supplies and tools you can reproduce the wonderful things they offer up as lessons. As a child, I would try and copy and follow the instructions but I always struggled with my results-- those in the photos on the pages before me were so much better than mine. Today I find constant inspiration in these publications and use their patterns and instructions to create things in ways they were never meant to. Floral Potpourri is filled with graphed flower patterns ready to be made much bigger using scrap textiles. Juliano's Hang It All is filled with macrame directions that I want to manipulate into organza lampshades. And Pineapples On Parade is crochet pattern after crochet pattern ready to be pillaged for a mural of a roller coaster being consumed by a garden.

Grant Heaps
Textile Artist
Toronto, ON

Winterlore at Hamilton Winterfest 2014

Thea Haines, Blanket Fort 

Things have been a little sleepy here on the Pulling Strings blog for the last few months.  If you've been wondering what we've been up to since our last event, we were hard at work up until a few weeks ago in our respective roles for Hamilton Winterfest, a community event presented by the City of Hamilton Tourism and Culture Division that has been going strong for nearly four decades.  Jen was by and large the main brain behind this year's installment of Winterfest, I curated Winterlore, the outdoor exhibition that was part of the Winterfest kick-off event, and Thea was one of the exhibition's ten participating artists.  Her embroidered Blanket Fort (pictured above) was a beautiful and evocative tribute to the importance of warm textiles to Canadian pioneers in wintertime.

The photos below show more highlights from Winterlore and the Winterfest kick-off event.

Jacqui Oakley and Jamie Lawson, Awakening 

Tonya Hart, Phantasmagorical Nights 

 KalynDar (wearing some lovely Ukrainian-inspired accessories)

Hitoko Okada, Lotus Lantern

For more information and photos of Winterlore, take a look at the exhibition Facebook page!  Also, stay tuned for more information about our upcoming March/April event coming very soon!