Nuit Blanche, BMO 1st Art then TSA symposium in Lincoln Nebaraska in one week

From running around Nuit Blanch in Toronto on 2 Oct untill sitting at friends computer in Calgary the day after Thanks Giving (Canadian version) I have seen and heard from makers, educators, museum professionals, artist, artisans, historians and free trade textile traders from around the world.



the dancing feet of the"Textiles and Settlement: from Plains space to Cyber Space"

 "Textiles and Settlement: from Plains space to Cyber Space" the 12th biannual Symposium of the Textile Society of America took place in Lincoln Nebraska October 6-9 2010 and I was there

To have a small climps into what I saw visit my facebook album `` veiws from the 12th TSA Biennial Symposium 2010`

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mean while life in Toronto did go on unobservered by me. here a few of the things I did get to see.

Stage Book (Arabella) by Celine Gorham
New Brunswick College of Craft & Design
Found books, hand embroidered and tea stained cloth, cotton string, button
27.9 x 19 x 21.5 cm; 11 x 7.5 x 8.5 in,

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The 8th annual BMO 1st Art! Exhibition at MOCCA 952 Queen West in Toronto. Deans and instructors of undergraduate certificate, diploma, and degree programs in visual art are invited to select from their graduating classes three students, whose ability and imagination place them 1st among their peers. A distinguished selection committee chooses a national winner and one winner from each eligible province and territory.

This years selection committee consisted of:

Paul Butler, Artist, Director and Curator, The Other Gallery
Wayne Baerwaldt, Director and Curator, Illingworth Kerr Gallery
Marnie Fleming, Curator of Contemporary Art, Oakville Galleries
Jeanie Riddle, Artist and Director, Parisian Laundry

BMO representatives: Gilles Ouellette, President, BMO Private Client Group and Dawn Cain, Curator, BMO Financial Group

The works of art produced by the 2010 winners cover a range of themes in a variety of media including:

*Celine Gorham, winner of New Brunswick is a fibre artist and her award-winning piece is a three dimensional paper and cloth structure made from re-purposed books and embroidered and dyed cloth.

* An autobiographical sculpture of a decaying loaf of bread that symbolizes a difficult childhood

* A digital print that uses whole and fragmented light bulbs to represent success and failure

* An oil painting that features characters and settings to address the themes of irrationality and absurdity

* A prosthetic spine that represents literal and figurative support

* An etching that tells the story of human transformation into animal form

This annual competition has included students working with fibre including these 2009 Winners; Bronwyn Gallagher from New Brunswick College of Craft and Design and Hope Clark from Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, Memorial University

Homage to Monet by Bronwyn Gallagher
New Brunswick College of Craft and Design
Hand painted, hand woven complex weave structure using silk and merino wool
3 pieces, each 60 x 6 in; 152.4 x 15.2 cm

Pink Codfish Doll by Hope Clark
Soft sculpture with detachable parts, fabric, acrylic paint, thread
7.9 x 3.5 x 28 in; 20 x 8.8 x 71.1 cm, Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, Memorial University

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Representing the best of Canada's newest generation of artists, all of the BMO 1st Art! winners’ works will be on public display at MOCCA 952 Queen Street West in Toronto from October 6 - 31, 2010.

The winning pieces can also be viewed on BMO Financial Group’s website at:: http://www2.bmo.com/bmo/files/images/7/1/BMOfirstArt.html

‘Pae White: Material Mutters’ opened at the Power Plant  last firday .  From 9 October, 2010 – 2 January, 2011.

Pae White began creating massive tapestries in 2004, ambitious undertakings that use heavily digitally manipulated photos of crumpled aluminum foil, plumes of smoke and dynamic image collages of collected scraps of image, pattern, colour and text as their content. White’s ambitious commission for The Power Plant is a tapestry entitled Sea Beast, a large-scale image of a found macramé wall hanging. The new piece signals a new visual direction in her work – its source is a woven form, including mussel shells, label and tassels, and involves a three-dimensional scan. The survey ‘Pae White: Material Mutters’ contextualizes Sea Beast with many of White’s past tapestries of epic scale, as well as two video projections and a series of new works on paper, Smoke Studies.

visit the Power Plants web site for more information; http://www.thepowerplant.org/current.html



Kia Chan`s The Tower and its Spirit 1984 wood, thread, cotton organza 234 X 59 X 51 cm and 239 X 56 X 61 cm ( in the collection of the Museum of Civilization CMCC -94_576.1...-2)

 Kai Chan: A Spider's Logic Frederick Horsman Varley Art Gallery in Markham Ontario is
part one of a retrospective of the 35 year career of Chinese born Canadian based "fibre artist" part 2
opens at the Textile Museum of Canada in November

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and if you wonder what i did the week befor  ``the last week of september 2010, Kai Chan: A Spider's Logic`