Donate to a textile cause!

We are getting close to our goal of getting freight money to get our Textile show to the UK for the three Knitting and Stitching shows but are stalled at 80%. Can anyone help us get to goal? We have about $600 and 10 days to go. If we don't get there, we lose all the money that has been pledged so far, as it never gets taken out of the donors accounts.
There is a tax credit for donations of over $5 for donations from New Zealand. Thankyou to all those who have already donated.

Boosted Appeal for New Zealand Textile to get to the Knitting and Stitching Show

Here is a detail of one of my pieces going to the show. It was made by sewing shapes on the back of the fabric (raw edged appliqué) then running dyes and pigments from cups at the top. In this piece I have added a backing layer to see what would happen if I turned it into a 3 layered 'quilt'.

Detail of Harvest

The Liberated Quilt Exhibition Bilston, UK

My textile installation 'Bitter Harvest' which is dyed on the wall ( I call it vertical performance dyeing), is part of a group show at Bilston Craft Gallery in the UK. The exhibitors are agroup of international quilt/textile artists exhibiting under the group name ' Throughourhands' and the show has been organised by Linda Kemshall and Annabel Rainbow.

I would have loved to have been at the opening but it was not possible at this time. Although I might get to the UK and Europe in October this year, but that doesn't coincide with either of the shows I will be in this year!

The vertical dyeing pieces plus a new and as yet unfinished piece will be shown at Festival of Quilts in August. I am grateful to ThroughOurHands for making it possible for me to show my performance dyeing pieces in the UK.

In the meantime I should be making the piece for this show, the idea is in my head but house renovations ( kitchen, dining room, lounge) plus preparing my mother's house for sale keeps me out of the studio. 

Objectspace Exhibition, costumes etc.

This is what the wallhanging at Objectspace looks like today. Next week the curator will add another color. The wheat hasn't started sprouting yet!

This week I have been making hats for a ballet performance and now I have sprayed one of them with gold and have gold fingers and bits of gold on my glasses. The next thing to do is add gold foil.

I realize that this is quite a mixture, dance costumes and conceptual object art. I guess we have to be generalists as textilists, costumes are my 'bread and butter' that is 'when i get paid' although most people are happy to pay for materials and less interested in paying for my making skills.

Here are the two hats I have been working on:

Headdress for La Bayadere , the Golden Idol

 I tried a variety of methods before settling on using some Guipure lace I had in my stash. Now I just need to find more. Lots of gold spray paint and gold foil on top. I am very pleased with the result.

Turban for the slave master guy, La Bayadere

Objectspace Exhibition, Auckland NZ

On my way back from Melbourne I stopped in Auckland to help hang my exhibition  at Objectspace, which is at 8 Ponsonby Rd, Auckland.
Daily photos of the dyeing in progress will be on the Objectspace facebook page 

It is a very minimalist exhibition, just three wallhangings but it is a lovely gallery with really nice natural light and the work can be seen through the window of the gallery even when it is closed.

Bitter Harvest before dyeing on day 1

Start of dyeing day 1 - red and yellow mixed to make scarlet

The dye starts to separate

End of day 2

The exhibition is on for 4 weeks and more dye will be added each day.

Clare Smith

Artist Statement

My work investigates the relationship between commerce, the environment and the damaging effects of ‘the race to the bottom’, where the consumer and importer demand the lowest price and the manufacturer is forced to cut corners to secure a profit.

Water treatment is expensive and rivers in textile manufacturing countries,  run blue or pink or turquoise with waste-water run-off from the textile industry. The dyes are so strong that it is possible to predict fashionable colours for the seasons ahead by looking at Googlearth.

Materials

Cotton fabric and thread, spice racks, metal bowls, polystyrene cups, fabric dye, wheat, barley, rice.

Size: 1.5m wide X 2m high

Watermark textiles and Te Papa

kelea's photostream on Flickr.

These are textile wallhangings which I have dyed vertically in previous exhibitions over the last 6 months. They are all inspired by images on Google Earth of rivers dyed multi-coloured by textile dye. I find the images of dyed rivers beautiful but disturbing at the same time...

Here is the latest Watermark wall hanging which was dyed in Te Papa Museum on Saturday as part of Makertorium.

Photo by Marie-Claire Andrews

It was a hot day and I should have worn something cooler. The sun was coming straight through the window at me . It dried out the dye so that it took much longer for the dye to travel around the picture. By the end of the day most of the exhibitors were coughing because of the dry air and drinking lots and lots of water .

In spite of the heat, it was a GREAT DAY!!
All the other exhibitors were so enthusiastic, it was a great celebration of 'makers'. I had a wonderful time and would love to do it again armed with more knowledge of how the dyes work in the drier air, how not to get dye on the floor of Te Papa, and what to wear to keep cool.

I also know more about what the public might do in a tight area. There were lots of people trying to get past or trying to stand back to see what was going on. The booth opposite me was also very popular so we caused a bit of a bottleneck. And some of the public got a bit grumpy and tried to do things like walk very close to the dripping wallhanging or even around the back. Some tripped over the leg of the stand and one woman even put her finger in the dye pot to see what was in there. If the stand hadn't been very sturdy there would have been an accident which I would have had a hard job explaining to Te papa (we all signed a form saying we would not make a mess).

Thankyou to everyone who came in to see the show, thanks also to friends who made a special effort to come and see my work because they missed it last year.

Here is the wallhanging hanging up in my sewing room while the dyes set. I have put soda ash in the cups at the top and that is running down right now so the picture looks even blurrier than before. It is still impossible to tell what the final image will look like as the soda ash changes the picture and sets only in some places.

In some ways I like the details best

regards
Clare

Makertorium Saturday 27th April

On Saturday one of my dripping wallhangings will be dyed at Te Papa as part of Makertorium.

I'm really excited about this as I get to show my work with a whole load of people who tinker away in workshops and studios and hopefully it gets seen by a  lot more people than tucked away in a gallery.

I'm also really excited about seeing all the other exhibits which include demonstrations of 3d printers, lazer cutters, robot toothbrushes and all sorts of weird and fun things.

My work is listed a 'Spectacle' and I will get a particular timeslot to start the dye off. There will also be a dvd running with a sped up version of the vertical dyeing performance (I never know what I should call it).

The new wallhanging will look a bit like this when it is dyed, but I have simplified it a bit because it will only be up for one day.

I have quite a quiet year this year as I didn't take many teaching bookings because I thought I was going to be a full-time student. If you are part of a club which would like a dye or print class, machine quilting or one of my other classes please contact me at smith_c*actrix.co.nz
I have spaces for most of June and November as well as dates in July and October available.

I'm going to list my classes on the right side of this blog.

Bitter Harvest dyeing

Last Thursday was the opening of 'Wind it Up' the Whitireia student exhibition. Here are some pictures of my pieces as the dye starts to travel through them. I really hated the lurid colour of the turquoise in the middle one so went back the next day and added extra dye to the cups which changed the turquoise to something less nasty.

The bowls at the bottom of the panels contain from left to right: Barley, Wheat and rice.
The barley and wheat are not human food grade and were sold as animal feed , anything not contaminated will be recycled as wheat bags or given to chickens. The rice was from a damaged bag begged from the supermarket. They were going to dump it in the skip. So I don't feel like I am depriving anyone of food. I am a bit worried that the smell of the grain might entice rats/mice/sparrows into the gallery though - so far its been OK.

 Day 2. I added extra dye to all the cups. The two on the left are made of pre-washed fabric. The one on the right is made of unwashed fabric.

At the opening of the exhibition there was a prize-giving. I was taking photos as 'official photographer' but had to have the camera taken off me when I won 'Best in Show' which was a big surprise.

I am in the centre, with the joint course coordinators, Chris White (left) and Deb Donnelly (right).

This is work by Kerry Reddy who was in my class. She is also a quilter, and there is an article about her solo exhibition work in the latest New Zealand Quilter magazine.








Below is a detail of work by Chloe Reweti. It consists of hundreds of laser cut screenprinted moths attached to wire stalks which are drilled into the wall. It is very time consuming to put together but very effective. It is on the feature wall of the exhibition at Pataka.

To see more of all the students work go to
http://winditup2012.wordpress.com/

Exhibition

If anyone would like to see another example of vertical dyeing, my work will be on display at Pataka Museum in Porirua (New Zealand) from 14th December to 14th January 2013. The work will be dyed during the exhibition and the dye will follow seam lines into bowls on the floor. If you would like a preview of the whole group exhibition please go to this blog for 'Wind it Up' .

As my work is already showing on the group blog, I think I can safely show it here too.

The pieces are based on Korean Pojagi and the first two I made used up the scraps left over from the previous 'Watermark' exhibition.

 These are the three which will be in the exhibition. The dye follows the lines down into the bowls at the bottom which contain grain. Wheat, Barley and rice.

Here is my artist statement

Bitter Harvest

Clare Smith

Sometimes it is possible to forecast  fashion colours for the season ahead, from the colour of rivers seen on Google Earth.

This is a spare wallhanging that I made, I tested how the dye would run through it and it wouldn't be as effective as the three chosen so I will keep it to show separately.

I hope some of you will be able to see the exhibition while it is hanging, if not, I will put pictures on this blog after the dye starts to run.

New work

I've been working away on my pieces for the end of year show which is a groups show with the other graduating students from Whitireia. The show is at Pataka in Porirua from the 15th of December to the 15th of January but the work has to be in on Monday (5th ) for marking. Once again I am working with white fabric so I am having to do most of my work at home or the fabric gets very dirty. It's hard to work with white in a shared space. As technician I am also helping the students with their work and its getting a bit too close for comfort for some of them who left it a bit late to get started.

Here are some detail shots of my work for this show. They are based on pojagi, Korean pieced textiles and the patterns are field patterns from google earth. Once again they will be dyed vertically in the gallery but the dye will probably only run on opening night as it is too hard to control unless I am there all the time. The dye represents the dye which is dumped into rivers which then is used to water crops such as rice or wheat.

Actually I don't even know whether I will be allowed to run the dye in that gallery space. maybe I should match the dye I use to the carpet colour just in case!

These are detail shots only. Don't want to give the game away before the exhibition opens.
C

Kete show dye 'event'

Here are pictures of the latest vertical dyeing 'event'. It definitely got a lot of attention. It was hard to take photos as there were always people in the way so some of them are from odd angles.

The above photo is my favourite. I love it that  the guy is looking the the other way!

I got some really good feedback from all sorts of people including some gallery owners and craft collectors. Although most people didn't know what it was about as there were no artist statements.

Here is my latest stab at an artist statement for the Watermark panels.

Spring 2013

Cotton fabric and thread

Hand-guided machine applique and embroidery

Fabric Dye

Size 220cm X 150cm

My work investigates the relationship between commerce, the environment and the damaging effects of ‘the race to the bottom’, where the consumer and importer demand the lowest price and the manufacturer is forced to cut corners to secure a profit.

Water treatment is expensive and rivers in textile manufacturing countries,  run blue or pink or turquoise with waste-water run-off from the textile industry. The dyes are so strong that it is possible to predict fashionable colours for the seasons ahead by looking at Googlearth. As consumers, how much responsibility do we have for environmental destruction in a far off land, ‘out of sight, out of mind’? Do we have any right to even comment when our own rivers are polluted with invisible contaminants; fertilisers and bacteria from farms and heavy metals as run-off from roads?

-----------------------------------

The hardest part is moving on. Now the work for this show is done, I need to start thinking about what I do next. We have a group show at the end of the year with approximately 1.5 m each so not much space. I don't think I am going to come up with a new idea before then so will see whether I can come up with a variation. All ideas gratefully received!
Clare