So on Felipe’s recommendation, a few days ago I visited his friend Nilda, and found some wonderful beads – tiny seed ones, larger ones and bugle beads, all with the same dark multi-colour finish, like an oil slick on water. I had been thinking ‘green’, working a design around some wonderful green hand shaped glass beads I bought in Egypt years ago, but that idea can wait for another time, as these beads spoke to me.
As I picked through and auditioned possible materials, I found this great hand dyed purple in my stash, and it’s a perfect background for the beads, so I machine stitched some of it with this holographic thread that recently emerged from hiding. I’m considering stuffed forms for this piece, but am quite certain that metres of threaded beads are in my near future 🙂 The result will be my entry for the second Glass and Textile Art Salon for which entries close on February 1st.
I’m thinking about what to make as an entry for the second INTERNATIONAL GLASS AND TEXTILE ART SALON exhibition, open to South American artists, with similar rules to last time: entries can be 2D or 3D, maximum size 20cm x 20cm x20cm, open technique and theme, and must combine glass and textile materials and techniques in some way. You might remember my piece from the first one, which I was in, last January – and of course I hope to be accepted for this next one – particularly as the exhibition will be at the Museo Arte Precolumbino y Indigena – MAPI – a great little museum in the Old City Montevideo. one of our favourite places
I’m thinking glass beads, definitely, and probably fibreglass again. I still have plenty of fibreglass from last time, but the glass bead supply is a bit meagre, prolly because I’ve only done relatively little beadwork down the years 🙂 Still, I’ve found some lovely green beads from that same collection of Egyptian handmade ones, and I have a few ‘green’ ideas – green being my favourite colour. My textile friend Felipe has suggested I visit another friend of his who retired from a haberdashery/merceria business and may have plenty of the tiny glass beads, or indeed others, so I’m meeting with her next week, fingers x…
In rummaging through my ‘bead bag’ and opening every little container I discovered several things I’d forgotten, including these things I made in some bead jewellry making classes I took here 12 or 13 years ago. There are a couple of revolting brooches, too.
It is interesting, but not ‘me’, and might dismantle it and use the beads for something goldish some time… and what on earth was I planning for the little construction beside it – tie it on to something to wear as an amulet, or something? I don’t seem to have any notes or charts from tha class, and don’t remember who taught it, so this is a dead end. I am taking bids if you can’t bear to think of me pulling it to bits!
With Mike and our friend Dalhel, I visited three of Montevideo’s museum galleries on the weekend. We checked out the exhibition of masks from Nicaragua at the Museo Arte Precolumbiano y Indigeno, MAPI which was lively and interesting as ever. I’m a bit partial to the concept of masks, the motivation to wear one, and how they effect the wearer. Sometime next year there’ll be a call for entries for “masks” in textiles by South American artists, and those selected will be displayed at MAPI, and yes, I hope to enter that. Some modern objects and paintings formed a dialogue with items of precolumbian artifacts collected by Augusto Torres and Elsa Andrada. In the permanent section were some wonderful very early precolumbian artefacts from this and other South American regions, and there’s always something there I haven’t seen before. Our next stop was something to eat and drink at one of our favourite places, the Mercado Agricola, which was new to Dalehl.
We then called in at the nearby exhibition of the National Visual Arts Prize at Espacio de Arte Contemporaneo which was really interesting. In a former cell in this historic city gaol was this installation, which strongly reminded me of all my lecture notes, assignments and files from years at university, all collected up and organised for the end-of-year-exams preparation we called ‘swot-vac’ (I was never this organised…)
At this gallery the works were mostly digital and audio-visual experiences, including a pair of young people doing a coordinated, very slowmotion performance which had them moving from one end of the entry gallery to the other while we were there. There were no facial expressions, no sound, just the same slow, coordinated movement. As we left I said ‘gracias!’ and neither of them blinked or twitched, which was interesting. Other exhibits were even more odd, like the video of a flamingo wandering along a sealed highway heading towards a mountain range… if we’d stayed all afternoon we’d not have seen an outcome to that strange story. That sort of thing makes me feel really out of touch with, um, some area of contemporary thinking.
We moved on to the Museo Nacional Artes Visuales, MNAV where first display inside the entry was the one I particularly wanted to see. Margaret Whyte’s latest textile exhibition, “Time To Listen” has just opened there, and will show until February 2nd next year. Mike didn’t spend a lot of time over it, commenting it reminded him of Ivan’s (teenage) bedroom many years ago, and that resonated! On the other hand, Dalehl and I spent a lot of time discussing our responses, so we were anything but silent, but we were listening in a manner of speaking. We felt the black paint over strong coloured salvaged materials and the large stitches that Margaret’s constructions require, added a note of gloom, referring to something horrible and ugly. Careful examination showed us the middle assembly contained several headless torsos (or were they dressmaker’s dummies?) and quite a number of forms that suggested writhing or broken limbs bound together by cording and strips of garbage bags – surely bodies in tangled wreckage – were these drowned immigrants, or victims of foul play washed up on a shore?
From the moment of birth every human comes into contact with textiles we’re wrapped and then clothed in; and we remain in contact with fabric and textiles throughout our lives. A large quantity of discarded fabrics of all kinds were gathered for these pieces, and I felt this whole installation to be a commentary on the excesses and shifting imbalances of the modern world, the politics of commerce and power, in which even humans themselves can become bundles to be traded or discarded.
I’m also wondering yet again, what do artists do with large installations once an exhibition’s ended? Do these works contain fabrics recycled several times over from earlier installations by Margaret Whyte in her lengthy and prolific career? I think I may have to go back another time.
Identifying and accessing natural materials and recycling discarded ones is definitely a strong trend in contemporary fibre art, which in all its forms is pretty popular Uruguay generally, and Montevideo in particular, and this is the time of year for more exhibitions reviewing student’s work. I love going to fibreart or textile art exhibitions, and this one, currently showing in my own barrio/suburb of Montevideo, is a small but very enjoyable one.
This collective exhibition is by artists who have been learning how to combine stitchery with basketry and soft sculpture techniques while using natural plant fibres and salvaged remnants of older and antique textiles under the guidance of prominent Uruguayan fibreartist Silvia Umpierrez. The works on show feature various plant fibres gathered within Uruguayan environments, including leaves and dried flowers attached to some of the small works in frames or shown on embroidery hoops. I don’t know if those plant parts were applied while still green and pliable, or whether they underwent some preservation processes before being used, but whatever the answer, the result is these works are all various shades of brown, with some subtle touches of principally earthy colours added by using stitch and some layered fabrics. The course of study obviously included layering fabrics, rust dying, burning edges of materials, and a variety of stitches to add texture. I selected these following photos to show the scope of students’ explorations of the techniques they learned.
There were several delightful soft sculpture animal forms under the title “Exstinctios”, the task being to use plant fibres to create some of the world’s extinct animals. Whether my interpretation of some of them was correct or not, they are delightful, and I’m pretty sure in this photo I’m seeing a diprotodon and possibly a kind of dinosaur.
The current trend to recycle and mend began at least 25 years or more ago and one of my favourite artists anywhere is El Anatsui. There are many people today creating their art by recycling salvaged materials, and proudly enjoy all the virtue signalling associated with it. The question of whether salvaging a material and using it necessarily adds extra artistic value beyond it being a well made ‘craft project’ is one I’ve long pondered, and wrote of on this blog in 2010. Such endeavours as these artist’s creative pieces, and my own creative works are frequently dismissively labelled as craft, that is, something less than ‘art’, a world wide difficulty which is slowly changing through the endeavours of prominent artists like El Anatsui. When I look at how I work, and the materials I like to work with, I sometimes feel a twinge of guilt that I’m not doing enough to ‘save the planet’. I mostly use new fabrics, and worse still, they are quite often man made fibres, plus I definitely favour polyester threads and synthetic batting/guata in my own fibreart. On the other hand, as I routinely mend shoes, garments and other things where possible, I re-use packaging materials and conserve water and electricity, I can cope with this level of ‘guilt’ in my art making!
This exhibition is showing a Dodeca Gallery, San Nicolas 1306, on Mondays to Fridays from 4pm to 10pm. Artists will be in attendance on Wednesday 27th November at 6pm. If you arrive during those times, and the gallery is not open, wander in and around the film and television school – a kindly student looked up from checking her phone and found someone for us. It is a known issue that they find it difficult to have someone there all the time, but if it were my exhibition I’d make sure someone was present at the hours listed on the school’s website 🙂
Through my textile souvenirs, I’m revisiting Peru today. One of the most wonderful textile souvenirs I’ve ever collected is this lovely arpillera from the markets in Aguas Callientes, the town nearest Machu Picchu. I’ve written about it previously so will focus on other things today.
It’s wonderful wall hanging, but I try to focus on practical textile/fibre art I can use when we get home. This table runner from Cusco, Peru is an example. While without doubt it was produced for the upper end of the tourist market, such things also offer insights into the best of local craftsmanship. In common with most cultures, weaving and embroidery go together, and Peru artisan markets and shops are a bewildering delight.
Those colours fit our decor perfectly, and I’ve used this table runner more or less continuously since our Peruvian trip in 2008. Raised in Australia to always hand wash anything made of wool, I had reservations about putting it into the delicates cycle of the washing machine – but eventually took the plunge several years ago, held my breath, and it came out beautifully. I take great care of it, and it needs washing only every 3-4 months. I hang it over the clothes airing rack before putting it back on the table, as there’s no way I’d let it find its way into the drier. If I didn’t take care to circumvent her, my wonderful cleaning lady would have it have it thoroughly washed and felted in no time flat 🙂
Writing about this souvenir had me searching for information about the chain stitch so widely used in the Ayacuchano area around Cusco, and I found this video explaining and demonstrating the plain simple chain stitch punta cadena and its variations punta crespo which are used to form fillings and textures, and all of them are used with stem, straight and satin stitch. There’s an academic paper to delve into, too, if your spanish is up to it, on how the Spanish colonisation broought European influences to indigenous textile making over time.
The next two things are in the bright colours which by far dominated everything on sale. Glorious riots of colourful textiles abounded in street markets and all the shops selling local artisan made goods.
I know, I’ve claimed to focus on practical things I can use at home – but I now confess I have never used this red bag for anything 🙂