Sheila Hicks: 50 Years Opens at ICA

detail of work by Sheila Hicks

"The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) presents Sheila Hicks: 50 Years, the first major retrospective to honor this extraordinary American artist. Sheila Hicks has built an international reputation with her two- and three-dimensional works in fiber. Her remarkably far-reaching artistic focus has encompassed painting, sculpture, photography, weaving, fabric design, writing, publishing, teaching and collaborations with architects."


"Born in Hastings, Nebraska in 1934 and a resident of Paris since 1964, Hicks is a pioneering figure noted for small woven works and public commissions whose structures are built of color and texture. Independent in spirit and itinerant in practice, she deliberately and provocatively engages what are often considered mutually exclusive domains, rethinking and pushing the limits of generally accepted contexts, conditions, and frameworks."

above excerpts from ICA's website

on view March 24 to August 7, 2011

Fashioning Self and the Environment for Earth Day

Mosstika's installation of live succulents (Edina Tokodi/József Vályi-Tóth)

I am excited that things are coming together so organically for the Earth Day open house that I am organizing at the Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn. This evening event will take place from 6pm to 9pm on Friday, April 22, 2011, and the range of projects and activities to be shared will include a spectrum of ideas related to fashioning self, fiber, textiles, and craft in environmental outreach. Refreshments and organic treats will also be provided.

Eko-Lab's A/W 2011 Collection

The current list of artist/designer participants is as follows: 


Susan Benarcik, Meiling Chen (Fearless Dreamer), Abigail Doan, Daria Dorosh, Xing-Zhen Chung-Hilyard and Melissa Kirgan of Eko-Lab, Ceca Georgieva, Titania Inglis, Anjelika Krishna (a.d.o. clothing), Renata Mann, Rachel Miller, Eve Mosher, Shannon South (reMade USA), Study NY with Awamaki Lab, Edina Tokodi (Mosstika), Tali Weinberg, and Zoe Sheehan Saldana.


Please RSVP at rsvp@textileartscenter.com 

'Life Jackets' filled with boyant milkweed fiber 

(image courtesy of Zoe Sheehan Saldana)

Good Work Call For Submissions

detail of a silk painted, natural dye quilt by Tali Weinberg

Good Work, curated by Tali Weinberg

Gallery Exhibition and May Day Celebration at the Textile Arts Center and Oak Knit Studio Gallery / submissions due March 25th / opens Friday evening, April 29th, 2011

"May Day is a celebration of spring, rejuvenation, fertility and life—a day to dance and weave the Maypole. And it is a day to honor laborers, to mark the social and economic achievements of the labor movement in the US, and for workers around the world to celebrate their ties to an international community.

1908 photo of two girls from North Carolina who worked in the textile mills. 

The oldest girl worked ten hour days for fifty cents, the younger girl irregularly.

(image courtesy of the Library of Congress)

This May Day the Textile Arts Center and Oak Knit Studio are celebrating the textile workers, artists, designers, and activists who make our world more beautiful and just—all makers tied together by the products of our labor—all makers whose work tries to do good in a multitude of ways. Artists and designers are invited to submit works for the exhibit Good Work in the Oak Knit Studio Gallery for the months of May and June that address related themes, including but not limited to labor, justice, gender, care, fair trade, the hand, immigration, skill and craftsmanship. Feel free to interpret the theme of “Good Work” broadly.

*more submission details here

Second Skin by Agostina Zwilling

'Second Skin' by Agostina Zwilling

(materials: tussah silk top, ramie top, hemp, flax, organic merino wool top)

As Agostina described so poetically in an e-mail to me: 

"My research focuses on the analysis of the relationship between the garment, as a second body, and its extension in space through the use of natural and organic materials. 

Dress that falls on deaf ears, the memory of an ephemeral body. Deprived of the function to cover and protect the body, it embodies the idea of an ephemeral body. A fall of non-bodies. In a light, which is surreal, the dress emerges from the darkness and shows its purity, reassuring and pleasant, relieving the suffering of this fall.

My research and my world is told around a thread, a thread which is able to unite (bind) women, men, history and the culture of time and space ... "

Learn more about Agostina Zwilling's work and her felting courses.