February 17th, 2009
Slovakian
Silver and leather jewelry
Ms. Janosik is a graduate from Parsons School of Design & Eugene Lange College, New York, with a BA/BFA in product design/metals and creative writing. After graduating, she continued her education at the New York Studio School of Painting and Sculpture and the Lern Ort Studio, and later at the School of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf, Germany. Ms. Janosik has exhibited at “SOFA” in both New York and Chicago, and many other galleries And museums in the US and Germany. In 2008 she exhibited in a juried craft show at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC.
Visit the Artists’s website at www.janosikny.com
Read about the other artists involved in this summer’s show, Absolut Art, at the Gallery by the River.
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February 12th, 2009
The Gallery by the River is proud to present Absolute Art June 14 trough September 7 2009 featuring artists Andrea Janosik, (Slovakian : Silver and leather jewelry), Owe Johansson (Swedish : Silver), Maria Lancing (Swedish : Scrimshaw and enamel), Ditte Norström (Swedish : Textile wall-hangings), Kerstin Rosengren (Swedish : Knitted sculptures and wall-hangings), Stine van Wynsberghe (German : Textile appliqué), and Annika Österlind (Swedish : Ceramic sculptures).
“Absolute Art” runs from June 14 through September 7. The gallery remains open through September. Friday and Saturday 10am to 5pm and Sunday 12 Noon to 5pm and by appointment. For more information about the artists, the gallery and the show, please visit the Galler by the River page.
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February 10th, 2009
Storing tapestries properly is vitally important; many historic tapestries have suffered through being put away and forgotten in basements and cellars. Hangings, fragments and upholstery covers can be stored safely on open shelves, lined with acid-free paper or in large acid-free boxes, and covered with dust sheets.
Large tapestries should be rolled, front facing outwards, around a PVC pipe or cardboard tube or around carpet rollers, which can sometimes be obtained from a local flooring shop. The tube should be covered with acid-free paper and the textile rolled firmly over it, viewing side out and in the direction of the warp threads. The roll should be wrapped in a dust sheet and tied with white cotton tape, since rope or string, particularly if they are dyed, can damage the textile.
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February 5th, 2009
Most weavers prefer to design and weave on commission and it is in the commissioning that the real excitement lies. A good deal of bespoke weaving is for large architectural spaces, often planned by a team made up of the architect or art consultant and the tapestry artist. Commissioned work does not have to be for large corporate or civic buildings however, and commissioning for a specific area in the home can be particularly satisfying.
Commissioning a new tapestry is a skill in itself and the most important first move is to choose a tapestry artist/weaver whose work is sympathetic. In the search of an artist the Internet can be of great help in finding an experienced artist and also in determining if the artists design style is suitable for the project. A visit to the artist’s studio is also very helpful and most artists welcome such visits.
When a tapestry is commissioned the artist will work closely with the architect or art consultant to make sure that the work is fully compatible with its proposed setting. The commissioning process begins with discussions between the client and the team (or the artist/weaver) and then a design suggestion is prepared. If the client decides to go ahead, detailed discussions are held, after which a firm quotation is given, stipulating both cost and completion date. The amount of time it takes to weave a tapestry varies a great deal, but to give an indication, depending on the complexity of the design a 4ft x 8ft tapestry may take three month to one year to complete.
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February 3rd, 2009
The Peruvians have a long, complex history and tradition influenced by many cultures.
In the ancient past they produced some exquisite woven pieces and the finest of the old textiles that have been discovered in Peru used tapestry-weaving techniques. The Inca had standardized treatments for their tunics, which were often produced in plain weave with tapestry elements set into the cloth. The Peruvians have traditionally woven shirts and tunics of great style and beauty as well as bags, tobacco pouches, belts and straps.
The expertise of the Peruvian weavers in the twentieth century has been devoted to a technique in which the warp face is seen and the weft concealed, which gives a quality rather different from other tapestry weaves. Most pieces are produced as wall-hangings, some of them quite small, with a naïve quality about the images.
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January 29th, 2009
Tribal tapestry exists in many forms, ranging from Middle Eastern kilims and Indian dhurrie rugs, blankets, wall-hangings and room partitions, to tapestry-weave bags and clothing.
Kilims are probably the largest group of tribal tapestries in the world. These flat-woven rugs have been made by nomads and permanent settlers for their own use for many hundreds of years all over the Muslim world, particularly in Turkey and Iran. The most ancient known kilim fragment is around 4,000 years old and was discovered in a tomb in south Russia together with the oldest known pile carpet.
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January 27th, 2009
Today’s tapestry weavers have the advantage over their predecessors of more efficient looms, higher quality yarns, better communication systems and abundant source material for images.
They are still presented with complex choices in terms of colors, yarn mixtures, methods of producing particular effects and the creative treatment of their subject matter. They must also be able to combine all of these elements in order to weave designs that can be produced in tapestry.
Posted in Contemporary Tapestry Weaving, Fiber, Hand Woven, Tapestry, Textile, Ulrika Leander | No Comments »
January 22nd, 2009
One of the best known and most successful community projects was set up during the 1950s in Egypt by the architect Ramses Wissa Wassef. He opened a workshop in the village of Harrania specially to teach peasant girls and boys aged eight years and over to weave tapestry.
According to Wassef, the children were not selected because they possessed any particular talent. He hoped simply, left to themselves, they would all be able to produce tapestries representing different aspects of their daily lives.
And that is what they did.
There was no supervision, there were no cartoons from which to work, the children were simply left to improvise. They wove camels, goats, elephants and mice, and people in their daily surroundings. The weavings were invariably meticulous and detailed.
The studio at Harrania is still in existence, now with a second generation of weavers. The work has been exhibited all over the world. They are highly prized as collector’s items because their freshness and childlike simplicity, technical expertise and the clarity of their depiction of their country, make them unique.
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January 20th, 2009
Artists have different formulas for pricing their tapestries. The most exact, worked out by an accountant that I found in “Weaving for Worship”, by Joyce Harter and Lucy Brusic was as follows: Take the material cost and the hourly cost of the labor and add them together. Multiply the resulting sum by 20% to account for overhead. Add these two figures together and multiply the resulting number by 10% to allow for profit. Add the 10% to the first figure to determine cost.
The making of a tapestry slideshow shows exactly what labor goes into creating the beautiful tapestries you see on the Contemporary Tapestry Weaving website.
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January 15th, 2009
Weaving for hospitals, chapels or other non-denominational settings has to meet some special requirements; the design must be inspirational but not carry the iconography of any specific religious group; ideas such as peace, strength, healing, love and care are popular themes in these settings.
Often such work is a memorial gift given in gratitude for care given to a family member. Nursing homes, colleges, and private schools often request tapestries for their chapels and for these settings, it is essential for the artist to becoming familiar with local practices interests and concerns.
Posted in Contemporary Tapestry Weaving, Liturgical Art, Tapestry, Ulrika Leander | No Comments »