Friday Fibers Roundup: Weavings Mapped

May 4, 2018

This week’s Friday Fibers Roundup features a variety of articles exploring how weaving can be used to map place, histories, and nature.

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1) “The Enduring Appeal of: Baskets” by Deborah Needleman looks at basket weaving from various artist and cultural perspectives to highlight the traditions and diversity within the medium (via New York Times).

2) The New Mexico Fiber Crawl takes place on the weekend of May 18th–20th, 2018. Beginning in Albuquerque and winding north to Taos, this crawl is for anyone interested in New Mexico’s long history with fiber arts.

3) Explore Fiber recently features the colorful and dimensional weavings of Mathijs Siemens.

4) “Salish Weavers Bring Home an Ancient Art Form” by John Goodman spotlights rare blankets on view in Fabric of the Land exhibit at UBC’s Museum of Anthropology (via North Shore News).

5) “Ethel Stein, Who Created Intricate Textile Art, Dies at 100” by Neil Genzlinger pays homage to a famous weaver who resurrected historical weaving techniques and merged them with 20th-century Bauhaus design sensibilities (via New York Times).

6) A Sacred Cat Rug, possibly the world’s oldest rug, now lives in Villa Zorayda Museum in St. Augustine, Florida. This Egyptian relic is woven entirely from ancient cat hair and once carried a mummified human foot (via Atlas Obscura).

7) Alexandra Kehayoglou creates handmade wool rugs merging traditional rug-making techniques with detailed site analysis, drone footage, and photography to create powerful landscapes (via Trendland).

8) “Bringing the Soul Into Minimalism: Eva Hesse” by Grace Glueck looks at how Hesse challenged Minimalism using its vocabulary and serialist aesthetic, creating a genre that went beyond Minimalism’s anti-Expressionism and rigidity of form (via New York Times).

9) “Wakuwal: Threads of Reconciliation” by Peter Botsman tells the story of interconnections and blockages between new and old Australian cultures (via Garland).

10) American Craft Council’s Shows to See: April/May 2018 features Jo Hamilton’s crocheted portraits and urban landscapes at the Boise Art Museum, as well as a blacksmith and clay exhibitions.