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| Blinded by Desire V by Ingrid Mida 2010 |
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| Blinded by Desire, Mixed Media on Toile de Jouy by Ingrid Mida |
Showing posts with label Embroidery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Embroidery. Show all posts
Dolce Dreams
McQueen and Embroidery
Although Alexander McQueen was known for his exquisite tailoring, I've not seen much mention of the extent to which he deployed embroidery and beading to embellish his garments. However, in touring the retrospective of his work at the Met, it was apparent that embroidery was one of the creative tools that McQueen used often.
The workmanship on these pieces is incredible and cannot be fully appreciated unless you see them in person. All I can say is that they were utterly breathtaking in both conception and execution.
And as I walked through the show, I thought of my friend Susan Elliot of Plays with Needles who is incredibly passionate about embroidery and beading. These photos are for her!
Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty is now on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and runs until July 31, 2011. To read my review of the exhibition, please visit Fashion Projects or click here.
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| McQueen kimono inspired coat spring/summer 2001 |
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| From McQueen's show Autumn/Winter 2008-2009 |
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| From McQueen's Dante collection Autumn Winter 1996/97 |
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| From McQueen's Ecclect Dissect Collection for Givenchy Autumn/Winter 1996-1997 |
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| From McQueen Voss collection, spring/summer 2001 collection |
Rogue Embroidery by David R. Harper
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| Close-up of Embroidery on Her by David R. Harper |
It is a rare thing to encounter an artist that takes a traditional medium and refashions it into something never seen before. David R. Harper is such an artist. By applying traditional embroidery techniques to animal hides, he creates portraits of women and men and gives the viewer pause to question the relationship between the hunter and the hunter as well as our innate desire to bring nature into our man-made environments.
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| Her by David R. Harper |
David R. Harper was born in Toronto in 1984 and studied sculpture at the the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax. It wasn't until after he graduated that he took up embroidery in 2006. Inspired by the devotional pieces of embroidery that he had seen in the Middle East, he wanted to take embroidery beyond ornamentation and create works that shock and awe the viewer. Mostly self-taught, he considers embroidery "one of the most versatile ways to make art" and describes the fibre arts as existing "between sculpture and painting".
Using sustainable sources of animal hides, Harper uses hides to differentiate his embroidery from others. And that is why rogue embroidery is such an apt descriptor of this extraordinary work. His first embroideries were of the skeletal structures of the animal from which the hide came from (which can be seen on his website). His mother owns one of his first of this series of works, while others are in public and private collections.
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| Gathering by David R. Harper |
Some of David's works incorporate techniques of taxidermy which he taught himself as an undergrad student. He describes taxidermy as a "form of doll-making" which describes the "collision between the natural and artificial worlds" and as representational of the "loss of the natural world". In the words of curator Sarah Quinton, these hybrid sculptures are "precious reminders of the contrasting ideals of co-existence and dominance between human and non-human animals."
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| Last to Win by David R. Harper |
When I first saw David's work, the embroidery stitches were so dense that I assumed he must have had some machine assistance. However, in talking with David, he assured me that each stitch was done by hand and most of his pieces take about three months to complete, stitching 8-10 hours a day. Most stitches are done with the back-stitch but he also uses a unique sequence of running stitches to create a beautiful and subtle form of shading.
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| Close-up of Embroidery on Last to Win |
At present, David is living in Chicago, where he is completing his masters degree in fibre arts at the Art Institute. He also has two shows opening in Chicago in the fall.
David R. Harper's work "Skin and Bones", which is part of the exhibition Person, Place, Thing at the Textile Museum of Canada, will be on display until October 17, 2010. To see more of his work, please visit his website here.
Photo credits: All photos by Ingrid Mida, copyright 2010, taken with permission of the artist at the Textile Museum of Canada.
What's on the Calendar in August?
I can hardly believe that it is already August. Where did the summer go? Here is a list of my summer must-see exhibitions:
Yves Saint Laurent at the Petit Palais, Musee de Beaux Arts in Paris until August 29, 2010
This retrospective of Yves Saint Laurent's work covers the period from 1962-2002 and includes over 250 garments from this master of haute couture and ready-to-wear. The exhibition also includes recreations of Saint Laurent's studio, private "dreaming" room, and a wardrobe designed for Catherine Deneuve.
While I won't actually get to see this exhibition in person, I saw a similar exhibition in Montreal in 2008, which opened just before the death of this great designer. To read more about the retrospective, please click here. I also wrote extensively about Yves Saint Laurent after his death, including a post called Lessons from Saint Laurent, which can be read here. (It seems like an interesting coincidence to write this post today as Yves Saint Laurent was born on August 1, 1936.)
Person, Place and Thing at the Textile Museum of Canada on until September 6, 2010
In this exhibition of portrait-based works by artists David R. Harper, Lia Cook and Stephen Schofield, textiles and sculpture intersect in an unexpected fashion. All three artists make large scale work that is tactile which draws the viewer into a sensory encounter with "embroidered, sewn and women narratives of nature, identity and history." This exhibition affirms my belief that embroidery and sculpture are powerful forms of expression. (I will be taking a workshop called Rogue Embroidery with David Harper later this month and hope it will inspire me to take my textile-based artwork to a new level of development.)
American Women, Fashioning a National Identity at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on until August 15, 2010.
Eighty faceless mannequins present the history of American style from 1890 to 1940 as defined into distinct archetypes including The Hieress, The Gibson Girl, The Bohemian, The Patriot and the Suffragette, The Flapper, and The Screen Siren. Animated throughout by music, lighting and video projections, the exhibition culminates in a video montage of images reflecting the modern American woman including Michelle Obama, Lady Gaga, Serena Williams, Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe.
While on the surface this may simply seem like another costume exhibit, at the core of it is an exploration of the evolution of women's social, political and sexual emancipation as reflected in their clothing. (And this is something that is a touchstone in my artwork). If you are unable to make it to the Met before the exhibition closes on August 15th, you can see a YouTube video of the exhibition here.
Yves Saint Laurent at the Petit Palais, Musee de Beaux Arts in Paris until August 29, 2010
This retrospective of Yves Saint Laurent's work covers the period from 1962-2002 and includes over 250 garments from this master of haute couture and ready-to-wear. The exhibition also includes recreations of Saint Laurent's studio, private "dreaming" room, and a wardrobe designed for Catherine Deneuve.
While I won't actually get to see this exhibition in person, I saw a similar exhibition in Montreal in 2008, which opened just before the death of this great designer. To read more about the retrospective, please click here. I also wrote extensively about Yves Saint Laurent after his death, including a post called Lessons from Saint Laurent, which can be read here. (It seems like an interesting coincidence to write this post today as Yves Saint Laurent was born on August 1, 1936.)
Person, Place and Thing at the Textile Museum of Canada on until September 6, 2010
In this exhibition of portrait-based works by artists David R. Harper, Lia Cook and Stephen Schofield, textiles and sculpture intersect in an unexpected fashion. All three artists make large scale work that is tactile which draws the viewer into a sensory encounter with "embroidered, sewn and women narratives of nature, identity and history." This exhibition affirms my belief that embroidery and sculpture are powerful forms of expression. (I will be taking a workshop called Rogue Embroidery with David Harper later this month and hope it will inspire me to take my textile-based artwork to a new level of development.)
American Women, Fashioning a National Identity at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on until August 15, 2010.
Eighty faceless mannequins present the history of American style from 1890 to 1940 as defined into distinct archetypes including The Hieress, The Gibson Girl, The Bohemian, The Patriot and the Suffragette, The Flapper, and The Screen Siren. Animated throughout by music, lighting and video projections, the exhibition culminates in a video montage of images reflecting the modern American woman including Michelle Obama, Lady Gaga, Serena Williams, Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe.
While on the surface this may simply seem like another costume exhibit, at the core of it is an exploration of the evolution of women's social, political and sexual emancipation as reflected in their clothing. (And this is something that is a touchstone in my artwork). If you are unable to make it to the Met before the exhibition closes on August 15th, you can see a YouTube video of the exhibition here.
Book Review: The Subversive Stitch, Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine
In the world of contemporary art, using embroidery to express yourself is risky. And while I impart a subtle subversive message in those textile pieces, it is hard to overcome the initial impression that I am doing dainty women's work. In my attempt to understand that prejudice, I picked up the book "The Subversive Stitch, Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine."
Written by Rozsika Parker who has published widely in both Art History and Psychotherapy, the book delves into the history of embroidery to explore its associations with femininity. Parker defines femininity as "the behaviour expected and encouraged in women, though obviously related to the biological sex of the individual, is shaped by society." The key argument of this book is that the "changes in ideas about femininity that can be seen reflected in the history of embroidery are striking confirmation that femininity is a social and psychosocial product." (page 3)
In the revised and updated edition, the book is broken down into eight chapters:
1. The Creation of Femininity
2. Eternalising the Feminine
3. Fertility, Chastity and Power
4. The Domestication of Embroidery
5. The Inculcation of Femininity
6. From Milkmaids to Mothers
7. Femininity as Feeling
8. A Naturally Revolutionary Art?
This is a scholarly text, densely written with abundant quotations, endnotes and black/white illustrations. Unfortunately, much of the richness and beauty of the photo illustrations is lost in their small size of presentation in dull gray tones. Nevertheless, the book is a thoughtful and thorough analysis of the history of embroidery and its association with femininity and women's work. Of particular interest to me was the last chapter in which Parker explores the revolutionary aspect of contemporary embroidery by such artists as Louise Bourgeois and Tracy Emin. However, this book is not for a casual reader and is more suited for research in art history, feminist issues or embroidery.
From my reading of this book, I came to understand the reasons the disparity in status between embroidery and painting. The division between women's work and men's work seems to be at the core of this deep seeded antipathy towards embroidery. This particular quote from the eighteenth century sums it up: "Sir, she's an Artist with her needle....Could anything be more laughable than a woman claiming artistic status for her sewing?" (page 172). Luckily, today's definitions of art and femininity are somewhat more fluid, allowing me flexibility to chose the medium best suited for a particular message.
Title: The Subversive Stitch, Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine
Author: Rozsika Parker
Publisher: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, New York
First Published: 1984; Reprinted 1986 and 1989; Revised 1996; Reprinted 2010
Category: Non-fiction
Number of Pages: 247
A Lesson at Hand & Lock Embroidery School
As a self-taught embroider, I have longed to improve my skills. After attending the lecture given by Hand & Lock CEO Alistair Macleod at Seneca College in March, a lightbulb went off. I would be in London in May and take a lesson at Hand & Lock’s School of Embroidery.
I exchanged several emails with Sara Meanwell, head instructor at Hand & Lock and a graduate of the Royal School of Needlework, and we decided a day long private lesson would expedite my learning. I sent her images of my textile based artwork along with a wish list of the things I wanted to learn. This list included: proper working techniques, transferring my drawings onto fabric, embroidery of letters, creating colour shading with satin stitch, achieving smooth lines with stem stitch, creating the illusion of fur, and use of sequins and beads.
Situated in a hip part of London near the Oxford Circus tube station, the offices of Hand & Lock are jammed with works-in-progress, samples, and boxes containing treasures of beads, sequins, gold, silver and other embellishments. I could have happily spent hours investigating, but all too soon it was time to begin my day of training.
In a quiet room upstairs, I put on my reading glasses and my apprenticeship began. Highly skilled and incredibly patient with me, Sara demonstrated a technique and then would watch as I attempted to replicate her example. More than once, my stitches did not measure up and she would smile and tell me to rip it out.
What I learned was that embroidery is not something that can be done quickly. Smooth perfection is created with a single strand of embroidery floss and the tiniest needle imaginable. Great care must be taken where the needle is placed. A small petal done with the silk shading technique takes an hour to do well, and that is only possible if every other stitch doesn’t have to be ripped out.
As much as I enjoyed my day, I left leaving a little uncertain about how I would use the skills I learned that day. Sara and I joked around about how I would need to bring her to Canada to have her sit with me in my studio to rethread my needle. If only I’d learned embroidery when my eyes were younger!!
To be honest, I still have to counter that feeling that I will never achieve the incredible perfection and beauty that I admire in the work of professionals like Sara. I have to tell myself that it is okay to embroider with two strands of floss and a larger needle. After all, my work is conceptually based and perhaps has a charm and beauty of its own. And besides, I like doing it, which is more important than perfection anyway.
Hand & Lock School of Embroidery is located at 86 Margaret Street London, England. For more information on classes, check their website at www.handembroidery.com.
I exchanged several emails with Sara Meanwell, head instructor at Hand & Lock and a graduate of the Royal School of Needlework, and we decided a day long private lesson would expedite my learning. I sent her images of my textile based artwork along with a wish list of the things I wanted to learn. This list included: proper working techniques, transferring my drawings onto fabric, embroidery of letters, creating colour shading with satin stitch, achieving smooth lines with stem stitch, creating the illusion of fur, and use of sequins and beads.
Situated in a hip part of London near the Oxford Circus tube station, the offices of Hand & Lock are jammed with works-in-progress, samples, and boxes containing treasures of beads, sequins, gold, silver and other embellishments. I could have happily spent hours investigating, but all too soon it was time to begin my day of training.
In a quiet room upstairs, I put on my reading glasses and my apprenticeship began. Highly skilled and incredibly patient with me, Sara demonstrated a technique and then would watch as I attempted to replicate her example. More than once, my stitches did not measure up and she would smile and tell me to rip it out.
What I learned was that embroidery is not something that can be done quickly. Smooth perfection is created with a single strand of embroidery floss and the tiniest needle imaginable. Great care must be taken where the needle is placed. A small petal done with the silk shading technique takes an hour to do well, and that is only possible if every other stitch doesn’t have to be ripped out.
As much as I enjoyed my day, I left leaving a little uncertain about how I would use the skills I learned that day. Sara and I joked around about how I would need to bring her to Canada to have her sit with me in my studio to rethread my needle. If only I’d learned embroidery when my eyes were younger!!
To be honest, I still have to counter that feeling that I will never achieve the incredible perfection and beauty that I admire in the work of professionals like Sara. I have to tell myself that it is okay to embroider with two strands of floss and a larger needle. After all, my work is conceptually based and perhaps has a charm and beauty of its own. And besides, I like doing it, which is more important than perfection anyway.
Hand & Lock School of Embroidery is located at 86 Margaret Street London, England. For more information on classes, check their website at www.handembroidery.com.
Hand and Lock Embroidery
As usual, I'm playing catch-up on my blog posts. It was a month ago that I attended the Toronto stop on an international lecture tour given by Alaistar Macleod, CEO of Hand and Lock Embroidery. Hosted by Seneca College's Fashion Department, those who braved the driving cold rain were entertained by this charismatic champion of embroidery.
The lecture began with a quote by Francois Lesage who once said To embroider is to dream. Macleod then went on to define embroidery as "the art of decorative design to fabric by hand or machine". He stipulated the requirements for embroidery include determination, focus, concentration, patience, time, good eyesight PLUS passion and love!!
Hand and Lock is an embroidery company that is a fusion of two long-established ateliers. Hand has its roots in military braids and embellishments and goes back as far as 1767. Lock harkens back to 1898 and has worked with such designers as Christian Dior, Norman Hartnell and Hardy Ames. In 2001, the two companies were merged into Hand and Lock and in 2003, MBA Costumes was added to the group. Currently based in London, the company will add a New York outpost in the fall.
Macleod enchanted the audience of students, faculty, and members of the Costume Society of Ontario with tales about everything from Cornely Machines (a machine invented in 1860 which automates satin stitches) to a Spanish flamenco dancer wearing gelatin sequins. His passion for embroidery was infectious and he encouraged those in attendance to enter Hand and Lock's International Embroidery Competition with prizes totalling $30,000 and for which the deadline has been extended to May 14th, 2010. Macleod said that the things that he likes the most about embroidery is "that which delights the eye!".
The lecture began with a quote by Francois Lesage who once said To embroider is to dream. Macleod then went on to define embroidery as "the art of decorative design to fabric by hand or machine". He stipulated the requirements for embroidery include determination, focus, concentration, patience, time, good eyesight PLUS passion and love!!
Hand and Lock is an embroidery company that is a fusion of two long-established ateliers. Hand has its roots in military braids and embellishments and goes back as far as 1767. Lock harkens back to 1898 and has worked with such designers as Christian Dior, Norman Hartnell and Hardy Ames. In 2001, the two companies were merged into Hand and Lock and in 2003, MBA Costumes was added to the group. Currently based in London, the company will add a New York outpost in the fall.
Macleod enchanted the audience of students, faculty, and members of the Costume Society of Ontario with tales about everything from Cornely Machines (a machine invented in 1860 which automates satin stitches) to a Spanish flamenco dancer wearing gelatin sequins. His passion for embroidery was infectious and he encouraged those in attendance to enter Hand and Lock's International Embroidery Competition with prizes totalling $30,000 and for which the deadline has been extended to May 14th, 2010. Macleod said that the things that he likes the most about embroidery is "that which delights the eye!".
Exhibition Review: Judy Chicago in Thread
Although Judy Chicago cannot sew and does not know how to do needlework, she has made a career out of art created by women volunteers using traditional forms of handwork such as embroidery, tapestry, quilting and cross-stitching. Perhaps best known for her landmark project The Dinner Party (1979) in which she presented a table set for dinner with an imaginary guest list of famous women from history, Chicago established feminist iconography as a subject worthy of a professional art practice.
What if Women Ruled the World: Judy Chicago in Thread opened at the Textile Museum of Canada on February 11, 2009 and continues until September 7th. Curated by Allyson Mitchell and co-produced with the Art Gallery of Calgary, the stated intent of the show is to offer a retrospective of Judy Chcago's textile-based art from 1971 to today. The question posed by the thematic title of the show is supplemented by two other questions: "Would God be Female? and "Would there be equal parenting?"
The exhibition is organized around Chicago's projects including The Birth Project (1985), The Holocaust Project (1993) and The Resolution Project (2000). As well, there is one work from 1971 and a mixed media piece from 2000 called Find it in Your Heart.
To see a Judy Chicago textile piece up close is a lesson in innovation in mixed media. Unimaginable combinations of paint, embroidery, applique, quilting, macrame, crochet, beading, printing, cross stitching, and needlepoint all come together in a swirl of vibrant colour and energy. Although the effect is anything but subtle, the considerable hours of work that went in to the creation of such intricate handwork is evident.
My favourite piece called Earth Birth is an image of "bringing forth light, a visual representation of early creation myths that posit a female deity as a source of all existence." This air-brush painting and quilting on fabric by Jacquelyn Moore Alexander and Judy Chicago from 1983 has a muted palette of black, silver and blue. The elegant refinement of this piece is unique compared to the other works in the exhibition and undoubtedly that is why it has singular appeal for me. I prefer subtlety of message and an elegance of line and colour which are not tenets of Chicago's work.
Other highlights of the exhibition include two videos about Chicago and her cadre of volunteers. To hear an artist speak about their work adds to the depth of understanding one has about their art. In this case, since there are sometimes hundreds of volunteers involved in a Judy Chicago project, these unheralded women were finally given a voice.
In Resolution: A Stitch in Time, directed and edited by Kate Amend and Johanna Demetrakas (2000), Judy Chicago and the women volunteers explain the collaborative process on The Resolution Project. According to Chicago, she wanted to create life-affirming images based on proverbs that state basic human values since "proverbs are the way different generations pass on their wisdom". Many of the volunteers expressed joy and a sense of community in working to complete Chicago's artistic vision. As well, some treasured the sense of purpose that it gave them "to work on something bigger than themselves" and "to have their work displayed in a museum".
In a video about The Birth Project directed by Vivian Kleinnam Productions (1985), Chicago said that there are very few birth images in the history of art and she wanted to reclaim history for women. She used the birth process "as a metaphor for creation in the largest sense". There were 150 volunteers who used a variety of needlework techniques to create 84 pieces related to all aspects of birth of which nine of those pieces are displayed.
Twenty artworks are exhibited in the retrospective of Judy Chicago's work at the Textile Museum. The singular element that does not fit with the curator's intent is the 1971 photograph called The Red Flag in which a woman removes a bloody tampon from her vagina. To me, this photograph is representative of art that a strident feminist produces for shock value alone. This ugly and disturbing photograph is not textile art and has no place in the show even though it is represetative of Chicago's early explorations in feminist iconography. The extensive range of the textile-based artwork that is on display at the Textile Museum is proof that Judy Chicago is capable of expressing meaningful and positive messages through her art. Without this photograph, the answers to the questions "What if Women Ruled the World?" and "Would God be Female?" would have been self-evident. Instead, I left the exhibition uncertain of what I wanted the answer to be.
When Women Rule the World
February 11 - September 7, 2009
Textile Museum of Canada
55 Centre Avene (St. Patrick subway)
Toronto, Ontario
416-599-5321
Ecole Lesage
I have always wanted to learn to embroider and I decided to learn from the best. While in Paris, I spent a day at the Lesage atelier and ecole. (This over-the-top salute to embroidery was on the staircase outside the atelier.)The Lesage atelier specializes in hand embroidery for haute couture and ready to wear garments. Now owned by Chanel, the atelier can trace its roots to the middle of the 19th century when Michonet embroidered for the house of Worth.
On a tour of the archives with the charming Monsieur Francois Lesage, I saw breathtakingly beautiful samples of embroidery from Vionnet, Yves Saint Laurent and other legendary designers. I wanted to clap when M. Lesage said "Embroidery is like a piece of art; you put yourself into it."
After seeing the dedication of his staff hunched over their worktables as they created wearable works of art, I could hardly wait for my lesson to begin at Ecole Lesage. Not long after sitting down to work, I realized how difficult this work is.
Although the instructors were highly skilled and extremely patient, I had to be shown some of the steps more than once and had to redo parts over. It was a painstaking 3 hour long effort to make an embroidered, beaded organza flower brooch.
I am now hooked on embroidery. The school offers an array of courses ranging in commitment from 3 to 150 hours. I want to go back!!Ecole Lesage
13 rue de la Grange Bateliere
75009 Paris, France
01 44 79 00 88
www.ecole-lesage-paris.com
email: ecole-lesage@lesageparis.fr
18th Century Embroidery Techniques
Embroidery in the 18th century was a professional occupation, dominated by men who belonged to a Guild. Creating the intricate and elaborate decorative effects on courtier's clothing required considerable expertise, patience and time.
In one of my earlier posts about Marie Antoinette's letters to her mother, she refers to a waistcoat she was embroidering for the king. While it is not known if she ever finished that waistcoat, I thought it might be fun to see a photo of an embroidered waistcoat from that period.
Man's Waistcoat, 1750-1770
Gawthorpe Hall, Lancashire, UK
This elaborate waistcoat in cream satin illustrates the metal-thread technique known as rapport embroidery. This specialized technique required a high level of skill and I'd hazard a guess to say that it is highly unlikely that Marie Antoinette could execute it.
In one of my earlier posts about Marie Antoinette's letters to her mother, she refers to a waistcoat she was embroidering for the king. While it is not known if she ever finished that waistcoat, I thought it might be fun to see a photo of an embroidered waistcoat from that period.
Man's Waistcoat, 1750-1770Gawthorpe Hall, Lancashire, UK
This elaborate waistcoat in cream satin illustrates the metal-thread technique known as rapport embroidery. This specialized technique required a high level of skill and I'd hazard a guess to say that it is highly unlikely that Marie Antoinette could execute it.
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