Beyond Function: Fiber, Fabric, and Finery Aug 17- Dec 2
Thursday, August 9, 2012
I went in the other day to style the exuberant Rose Collar that is on display and can attest that the show looks spectacular! Some great concurrent exhibits too…it is definitely worth the trip (and check out the Spanish Mission while you’re there: gorgeous)
De Saisset Museum, Santa Clara, CA
I’m planning on getting some pictures at the opening on Oct 4th….stay tuned 
Fiber Art at the Crossroads Show in Santa Cruz
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
A happy surprise from Santa Cruz: “Soup” will be at the upcoming fiber show at Santa Cruz Art League!
(…And a little happy dance to be pictured on the postcard…)
To Pinterest or to Instagram, that is the question…
Friday, June 29, 2012
I am really enjoying the new app for photos called Instagram. It allows me to take casual images of work in progress or little snapshots of daily-goings-ons and share them in an informal way. Here are some recent felt paintings snapped on the app, which uses filters to play with the mood and grain of the image. You can follow the developments of this little photo experiment at this link:
http://statigr.am/jennegiles
Between Instagram & Pinterest, there is so much visual candy out there to marvel at! What’s a visual girl to do??
Images from 8th ISS Hong Kong
Thursday, January 19, 2012
The 8th Annual International Shibori Symposium just wrapped up in Hong Kong. I was so excited to see images from the show: it looked pretty spectacular! I can see pieces by Anne Evans (front jacket in sienna browns) and Jeung Hwa-Park (long, snake-like pieces; one in blue/green and the other in red/orange/purple). I wish I recognized some of the other work because it all looks amazing. I had a piece called Tendril Wrap in the show which you can just see on the mannequin to the right of the full red dress mannequin.
I really like the way the displayed it: wrapped with the tendrils on the inside. Not only did it show more of the shibori dye on the flat side of the felt, but it has a sort of reverse hedge-hog look to it. I would never have thought to do it that way but it is very cool!
You can see more images from the exhibit at this link:
Creative Plumbing
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Plumbing 2010
felted wool, mixed media
This is one of my favorite felt paintings. It is titled “Plumbing” and represents the flow of creativity from one idea to the next. As one idea module fills up, the creative waters flow on to an adjacent idea module. Some light up like bulbs and some are simply there as a pit-stop between two ideas. Each has its particular organically-laid circuitry. In this piece, I am inspired by the metaphor of creative flow and the relationship between water and electricity: one propelled by pressure and the other by the desire to seek its ground. Likewise, I think that creative ideas are compelled by both internal pressure and the desire to leap out and be dispelled into the world, finding their ground.
The kind of work that I do is of two types: creative and production. I often get lost in the meditation of production, especially after the holidays, where each day has more to do with the factory running smoothly. A small tweak here or an adjustment there to keep the wheels rolling in their well-tread tracks, all towards the goal of making a more perfect product. With a few personal photo projects and upcoming shows on the horizon, it is time to switch gears. It is now time to turn off the comforting hum of the smoothly-running factory and to power-up the clanky creative machinery again with its intimidating hisses and spurts. It is a jalopy that is not anchored to solid ground, but is a vehicle for driving though unchartered spaces: those scary spots beyond the comfortable and well-travelled paths. There is nowhere to begin but to jump off the edge of the canvas and to discover what lies there in undefined space, pushed by creative pressure and pulled by the desire to find new ground.
Artisans in Art
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Oat Tendril Scarf 2010
Good article on Craft in the Arts in NYTimes/Int’l Herald Tribune:
A Return to the Artisan in the Art World
By ALICE PFEIFFER; Published: December 2, 2011
PARIS — “Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons; there is nothing more depressing for a young artist,” said Bianca Argimon, a student at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris who favors traditional techniques when working with ceramics, engravings and pyrography over what she views as ultraconceptual, increasingly dematerialized art. “Most of us can’t afford — nor approve of — having an entire factory of workers.”
Artisanal techniques, once deemed the opposite of cool, are making their way back into art fairs and galleries, particularly in Europe. Dedicated spaces and university programs are contributing to the renewed recognition of these trades — albeit with modern twists and messages — while also providing young artists with marketable skills. As a result, the line between gallerists and craftsmen, once so clearly delineated, is increasingly being blurred.
Remedios Varo
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
At a recent show, a visitor recommended that I look up the work of Spanish-Mexican painter Remedios Varo, as my felt scarves reminded her of the forms and fashions used in her surrealist paintings. This is the kind of thing that rocks my world: discovering/learning through the art process. Her work feels very familiar to me and I very much appreciate the implied mystery or story behind the images, the textural paintwork and the airy and moving sense of weight, or lack thereof, as the figures float through the composition. I think the forms of the wearables pictured certainly speaks to a sense of fashion, theater and parable that makes my heart go all a’pitter-patter.
Mujer saliendo del Psicoanalista
1961
A few more that I don’t have titles for at present but that really spark the imagination:
This might be called Encuentro
This might be called The Red Woman
About Remedios Varo from Wikipedia
Remedios Varo Uranga (December 16, 1908 – October 8, 1963) was a Spanish-Mexican, para-surrealist painter and anarchist. She was born María de los Remedios Varo Uranga in Anglès, Girona, Spain in 1908. During theSpanish Civil War she fled to Paris where she was greatly influenced by the surrealist movement. She met her second husband (the first was Gerardo Lizarraga, a painter), the French surrealist poet Benjamin Péret in Barcelona. There she was a member of the art group Logicophobiste. They were introduced through a mutual friendship with the Surrealist artist Oscar Dominguez.
In 1937, she moved to Paris with Péret, sealing herself from any return to Franco’s Spain since she had republican ties. She was forced into exile from Paris during the Nazi occupation of France and moved to Mexico City at the end of 1941. She initially considered Mexico a temporary haven, but would remain in Latin America for the rest of her life.
In Mexico, she met native artists such as Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, but her strongest ties were to other exiles and expatriates, notably the English painterLeonora Carrington and the French pilot and adventurer, Jean Nicolle. Her third, and last, marriage was to Walter Gruen, an Austrian who had endured concentration camps before escaping Europe. Gruen believed fiercely in Varo, and he gave her the support that allowed her to fully concentrate on her painting.
After 1949 Varo developed her mature style, which remains beautifully enigmatic and instantly recognizable. She often worked in oil on masonite panels she prepared herself. Although her colors have the blended resonance of the oil medium, her brushwork often involved many fine strokes of paint laid closely together – a technique more reminiscent of egg tempera. She died at the height of her career from a heart-attack in Mexico City in 1963.
Her work continues to achieve successful retrospectives at major sites in Mexico and the United States.
