Please mark your calendar and visit SLASH, Solo Exhibition for Kingson area artist ELINOR RUSH May 1- June 7, 2015....

Join Elinor Rush and friends at CORNERSTONE Fine Art and Craft Gallery at the intersection of Princess Street and Ontario Street in downtown Kingston, ON for

 

ART AFTER DARK,

Friday, May 23, 2015

7-10 pm

 

The whole downtown will be sharing art in Gallery Locations throughout the city centre.

 

CORNERSTONE GALLERY and GIFTS
255 Ontario Street
Kingston, ON
 

           Open Monday to Thursday

10am-5pm

Friday

10am-7pm

Saturday

                                                                            10am-6pm

                                                                                                 Sunday

                                                                               12noon-5pm

FIBREWORKS Kingston welcomes our Spring 2015 Weekend Workshops Series Artists... HOLLY DEAN, The Muse Journal, April 17-19th and DIANNE GIBSON, "Mixed Media Assemblages" on the weekend of May 22-24th, 2015... Come Play!

Today, a blogger's didactic.... on the state of the fibre arts in our neighborhood and beyond! Your thoughts?

A few years ago, dear friend and forever mentor, HILARY SCANLON, passed the candle to me as FIBREWORKS Coordinator, asking that I carry on her 33 year commitment to delivering Creative Workshops to friends near and far who were committed to the Fibre Arts. Hilary had spent the best years of her life (after raising her children and standing beside her husband through his education and working career) building a small business which she so fondly called FIBREWORKS Kingston.

In 1979, while she was teaching at St. Lawrence College and creating the most beautiful fibre art pieces herself, Hilary committed to not only share her skills with others, but to bring the very best of the best Instructors in Textile Art - the history, diversity and technique to Kingston and provide a venue where their skills, shared through a workshops format could be available for like-minded arts enthusiasts throughout Southern Ontario. In all of her 33 years as Fibreworks Coordinator, Hilary ensured that the FIBREWORKS classrooms were filled with creative fun, exciting Instructor-led technique demonstration and inspiration for the students who attended the Workshops Series.

Starting in 1997, I was very proud to assist Hilary as a classroom assistant, Registrar and helpful friend in fibre until 2008. I stepped out of the team with Hilary's blessing and Donna Hamilton stepped in until the end of the 2012 season, with my goal being to devote time to my own art work and teaching at St. Lawrence College as a Professor in the Textile Design Program... only one of three in all of Canada. Several years have passed since the candle passed as FIBREWORKS COORDINATOR  to me in 2013, and I am still as excited to bring our area and distance Canadian artists opportunities to study with wonderfully multi-talented Guest Instructors, and have the chance to learn the new techniques that are supporting the Textile Arts in Canada today as I was nearly eighteen years ago....

We have two truly amazing artists visiting with us this spring - HOLLY DEAN from Merrickville, ON and DIANNE GIBSON of Fonthill, ON - both well recognized exhibition artists and designers. Both are active in the arts community and provide not only sharing experiences in their studios and beyond, but are leaders in the arts fields through the exhibition art they share with the world. The workshops will run this spring and the small numbers of student participants will be afforded the wonders of study with these two Master Artists, and I will be there to observe the wonder and excitement as new art work evolves...the role continues. 

For me... the commitment to FIBREWORKS is serious and a labour of love. We would really love to have you join us and spend time with these two beautiful and talented women artists.... do please make time to check them out! 

Holly Dean's website:  https://www.HollyDean.com

Dianne's Artist page at http://www.Connectionsfibreartsists.com

So, I decided today to use this forum to speak out...sharing the only thing that is troubling me about the role I serve in as your friend in the arts and Coordinator for FIBREWORKS Kingston. There is really a changing dimension in the communities of artists I support and serve. On one hand I understand it - but who is going to carry on the traditions and joy of sharing art in textile if we can't support the new ones walking into the field by encouraging them to participate and providing the venues for their learning? While years ago, we were a strong network and partnership of friends and colleagues in the arts, so many of our artist friends have decided to step back, to pull in... to work on their own once again as so many others did in the distant past. 

Workshop interest and enrollment has dropped off, not only for FIBREWORKS, but we are seeing/hearing about it indeed all around the globe - in Guilds and Shops, at Retreats, online, and both at the national and international level . This can be attributed partly to the financial constraints many of us are feeling as we move from the working world of the adult partners in our homes, to suddenly feeling the impact of fixed incomes in retirement years... it just costs more to be a homeowner and support a family. But the changes are also attributable to the fact that many of our artists friends are now finding they are seemingly more content to work at home in their studios, and to share in smaller, more intimate settings, choosing to be with just their closest friends and sharing skills with each other at invitation only in-studio stitch days. 

I fully understand, as this is a place I too have settled into...no longer bringing in a "working wage", and wanting to have the time to relax, with needle in hand, and stitch while enjoying the quietude in my home or with friends. This conflicts strongly with my goal of supporting FIBREWORKS in the Coordinator's role, and the commitments I have made to my quilting Guild(s), the new roles I have taken on with The Tett Centre Board of Directors and with my new friends at the Kingston Handloom Weavers and Spinners Guild.  I really cherish time with  my new friends in the CONNECTIONS Fibre Artists Group and with my long time colleagues in fibre art, the members of the Kingston Fibre Artists. I do enjoy sharing what I know and especially watching my students grow, so I will stay on at St. Lawrence College as long as  there are students to share with and strive to encourage area artists to continue to support our Textile Design Program. I am a proud and honoured teaching partner and supporter of those who have stepped out of our classrooms -like DENISE SOKOLSKY, a graduate of the Textile Design Program at SLC, and who has moved on in the arts, and is now preparing her Thesis for her Masters in Fine Arts - Textiles at UMass Boston... how much prouder could an Instructor be?

So I would love to hear from you - how do you see the future of the Fibre Arts in Canada? In your towns and cities? What role do you play and what do you need to see your involvement in the Arts continue to evolve and be recognized? Please do keep the lines of communication open - be a part f the dialogue and don't forget to share your skills with friends - old and new.

And if you have time, come join us at the Spring FIBREWORKS workshops... all the details are here at www.fibreworkskingston.blogspot.ca (on the right sidebar). Come PLAY!

Bethany

Please mark your calendar and make time to visit the MISSISSIPPI VALLEY TEXTILE MUSEUM in Almonte for HOOKED ON RUGS Exhibition

HOOKED ON RUGS

MISSISSIPPI VALLEY TEXTILE MUSEUM

3 Rosamond Street, Almonte, ON

MARCH 3- April 11, 2015

 

 Tuesday to Saturday: 10 am to 4 pm.

$5 admission. MVTM members, free.

 



Artists Loretta Moore and Lesli Zanetti welcomed friends and visitors to the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum on Saturday March 7th for their Vernissage and opening of their  HOOKED ON RUGS Exhibition in the  Norah Rosamond Hughes Gallery. Their hooked rugs display beautifully with artful designs from primitive to modern.

 

Both artists will be conducting demonstrations in the Gallery today, March 12th from 11 am to 2 pm.

 

 

Visitors at the Opening of Hooked on Rugs Exhibition

 

 

Lesli’s interest in rug hooking began with a 1992 visit to Cape Breton, where she was struck by the unique and complex Acadian scenes depicted on beautiful rugs. On a subsequent trip to Newfoundland she was drawn to the vibrant colours and simple scenes of their rugs.

 

Stunning Contemporary and Primitive Hooked Art abounds in the Gallery

 

 

With one of Deanne Fitzpatrick’s rug hooking kits, Lesli taught herself to hook, and her passion for the craft was firmly entrenched. After 10 years, Lesli has found her own style.  She prefers to use recycled wool from garments donated by friends or found at second hand shops.  Imagining the history embedded in a wool garment as it is ripped apart and refashioned into a new rug is an important part of her creative process. 

 

She describes her rugs as simple in style, bordering on the primitive, but without a traditional palette.  Somehow, she just has to inject bright colours into her designs. ( and the COLOUR... amazing!)

 

 

 

 

Loretta’s passion for fibre arts developed at an early age, sitting in her mom’s sewing room and making doll’s clothes from scraps. She later made her own clothing and learned to quilt. It was in a quilt shop that she discovered her first rug hooking kit.

 

“After the first few loops I pulled, I realized that I had discovered a fibre art that appealed to every creative bone in my body. I loved the almost zen-like feel of pulling loops, loved playing with colour and developing my own through dyeing, and loved the final product,” says Loretta. You will often find Loretta in her booth at Ottawa and area Quilt Shows and Needle Arts Fairs. She maintains a studio in her home near Westport

 

 

More of Loretta's Rug Art...beautiful.

 

 

While Loretta's preferred style is primitive, folk art wide-cut rugs, she loves playing with various fibres and techniques. She also teaches and sells supplies through her business “Hooked on the Lake.”  Do visit Loretta's blog at https://hookedonthelake.wordpress.com/

 

 

Don’t miss a chance to enjoy these wonderful rugs. You may well become “hooked” yourself.

 

 

Note: Some text from the Event Posting  announcement at Mississippi Valley Textile Museum website HERE

Have your ever dreamed of making the trip to Paducah, KY for the AQS Quilt Week Activities??? Register soon and be on the bus in April...

Limestone Quilters Guild is sponsoring a 

QUILTERS BUS TRIP 

to the American Quilters Society 's 

"QUILT WEEK IN PADUCAH" 

this spring,  April 20-27th.

It is one amazing trip, and a very reasonable alternative to driving yourself, booking all of your own hotels and being on your own. Who wouldn't want to be among a group of great quilters and seeing the sights, touring the Quilt Shows, visiting the amazing Quilt Show and all of the Quilt Week events in Paducah, the National Quilt Museum and so much more. You will shop til you drop, share great evenings with quilt friends old and new and have so much time on your hands to see all that Paducah has to offer....

Seats are available now!!! The bus leaves from Kingston, and by special arrangement, may be able to pick quilters up at designated points across the 401 as they are driving through to Sarnia to cross into the USA. Passports are required, and yes, a minor technicality of a special rate $15 "membership" in the Limestone Quilters Guild as detailed below (this is a sponsored trip by LQG). .

And you be back well before the QUILTS KINGSTON 2015 Show, or events that your group or Guild is planning next spring. ... make this your reward for getting your exhibition entries in right away! There is no more beautiful city than PADUCAH in April - green grass, beautiful city, hundreds of vendors to shop for quilt supplies and MORE!

Contact Trip Conveanor, Susan Clarke at:  sjcway@cogeco.ca  for all of the details and be a part of all of the fun!

Note: Susan can email you a larger copy of the details sheet below...don't wait. Seats are filling fast!