ONLINE: Textiles From Home: Local Crafts, Global Conversations

×

Expand

Giovanni Valentine

Interdisciplinary textile artist Bisa Butler in front of her work "The Warmth of Other Sons."

Anyone interested in the fiber arts should explore this multi-day conference from the Center for Design and Material Culture at the UW-Madison School of Human Ecology. Presentations focus on connections between textile making, domestic space, and local environments, historically and now, and include sessions on such of-the-moment crazes as artful mending, embroidery, women in fiber mills, and Scottish wool. The keynote is from the extraordinary quilt portrait artist Bisa Butler, March 18 at 4 pm. Find the remaining events and sign-ups here.

press release: Join us for a week-long (virtual!) celebration and exploration of the connections between textile making, domestic space, and local environments, both historically and today.  Events will be scheduled throughout the week of 14-20 March 2021 and we will do our best to accommodate multiple time zones. Though we recognize that not all timings will be ideal for all people, we will aim for a critical mass at all events, as well as building community throughout the week!

Please comment about your experiences throughout the week using the hashtag #textilesfromhome

Textiles from Home is a project of the Design Studies Department and the Center for Design and Material Culture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Images on this website are highlights from the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection.

Sunday 14 March: Daily Theme: Mending

11am-12noon CDT: Mending Practices, Lewis Scott, The Personal [Class] Politics of Mending; Angela Maddock, In Kind: A Dialogue on Repair

12noon-1:30pm CDT: Mend-A-Long and Group Discussion (limited numbers), Hosted by Sam Comerford and Addison Nace

Monday 15 March: Daily Theme: Education

9am-10:30am CDT: Embroidery in Isolation: A Panel Discussion with Degree Students from the Royal School of Needlework, Hosted by Amy Hare

11am-12:30pm CDT: Textile Education and Meanings of Home, Noga Bernstein, Localism in the Making at the New Bezalel's Textile Department; Nichola Burton, Designing Machine-made Nottingham Lace at Home; Sally Cooke, Home Sewing as Sustain-Ability

2pm-3:30pm CDT: Learning from Collections, Grant Johnson, Domestic Aesthetics: Textiles and the Museum at Home; Jennifer Lindsay, The Center for Knit and Crochet: Digital Strategies for Preserving and Sharing Our Knitting & Crochet Histories (talk and tutorial)

Tuesday 16 March: Daily Theme: Materials

9am-10am CDT: Cotton: A Conversation with Malkha

12noon-1pm CDT: Wool: A Continuing Tradition of Women in Textile Factory Work: A 21st Century Semi-Worsted Mill, A Tour with Kelsey Patton of The Fiber Mill

1:30pm-3:00 CDT: Scottish Wool and Knitting Pattern Launch, Alison Mayne, A Very Scottish Stash; Alison Mayne, Launch/Collective Cast-On of The Peigi Anndra Shawl

Wednesday 17 March: Daily Theme 1: Responding to Crises through Textiles

9am-11:15am CDT: Responding to Crises through Textiles, Rohma Khan, A Home Can Be a World; John Chaich and T.J. Dedeaux-Norris, Peace by Piece: ReMaking Identities at Home; Joanna Dermenjian, Choosing to Sew: How Women Use Sewing to Respond to Disruption; Tania Pérez Bustos and Isabel Gonzalez Arango, Making Textiles to Invent Life in the Middle of the Colombian Armed Conflict

Wednesday 17 March: Daily Theme 2: Families

1pm-2pm CDT: Making Textiles with Family, Emily Popp and Leo Hain, Necessity is the Mother of Collaboration; Suzann Thompson, Round and Round in the Art, Craft, and Culture of Doilies

2pm-3:30pm CDT: Children at Home in the Archives: A Virtual Collection Visit/Workshop (limited numbers), Hosted by Sarah Carter and Sam Comerford

4pm-6pm CDT: Future Heirlooms: A Making Workshop (limited numbers), Hosted by Sasha de Koninck, Research Lab of Ambiguous Futurology

Thursday 18 March: Daily Theme: Art, History, Culture

4pm-5:15pm CDT: Ruth Ketterer Harris Annual Lecture, Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection, A Conversation with Bisa Butler

Friday 19 March: Daily Theme: Landscapes

11am-12noon CDT: Inspirations from Local Landscapes 1, Sarah Pedlow, Making the Global Local Through Embroidered Art Practice, Lisa Jevbratt and Helén Svensson, The Color of a Weed: Artists’ Talk

12:15pm-1:15pm CDT: The Color of a Weed: Home Dyeing Workshop/Citizen Science Project (limited numbers), Hosted by Lisa Jevbratt and Helén Svensson

2:00pm-3:30pm CDT: Inspirations from Local Landscapes 2, Jenine Shereos, Eternal Garden; Beverly Gordon and Lisa Binkley, An Expanded Sense of Home: Working with the Natural Materials of Our Near Environments

Saturday 20 March: Day/Night: The Equinox Craft Sessions

Join participants for informal crafting and conversation. Drop in during any of the following time slots:

*9am-10:30am CDT

*1pm-2:30pm CDT

*5pm-6:30pm CDT