Shellie Holden

Wall Paper - Mounted Paper Textile Approx. 60 x 115 cm

 

Q So who is Shellie Holden?

I am an artist/maker, wife and mother brought up in Lancashire, trained originally in embroidery at MMU, Manchester then later at Goldsmiths University, London. I lived in London for 11 years before relocating to Wales two years ago, having been drawn to living by the coast.

 

Behind Clouds - Framed Paper Textile - 41cm x37cm

 

Q How did you decide to become a maker?

Naturally progressed from a background steeped in creative and practical endeavours. It seemed the most obvious and fulfilling direction for me to take.

 

Text Book

 

Q What made you choose the materials that you work with?

Low cost/low key/reclaimed- freedom they gave to be experimental and non-precious with the opportunity to turn them into something unique and valuable because of the labour and investment of time spent in the making.

Extracted Teeth Book and Neckpiece

 

Q Are there any other materials you would like to explore and work in?

I have recently been producing a series of laser cut paper textiles and this has led to an interest in working with more precious materials such as silver and copper as this would enable me to produce more robust pieces hat could be used for both interior pieces and body adornment.

Bookworm

 

Q What are you currently working on

Several projects - one of which involves looking after my new-born! I’m catching moments in-between to work on pieces, including the project described above. I am also completing a piece for the ‘First Anniversary: Paper’ exhibition, 5th May- 31st July 2011, at Unit Twelve, Tixall Heath Farm, Tixal, Stafford, ST18 0XX and also for an exhibition at Newport Art Gallery and Museum, Wales, with Fibre Arts Wales, a textile group that I am affiliated, 30th April - 11th June.

 

Q Where do get your inspiration from?

Difficult to pinpoint exactly - my surroundings, attitude to life, experiences and chance occurrences. Perhaps something someone has said, or something I have seen that triggers a response or reaction.

 

Q What motivates you on a cold winter’s day?

Being in my home. I collect and acquire pieces of furniture, objects and textiles which I enjoy refurbishing, restyling and reinventing. This is an on-going project, which I see as part of my creative work. I like the idea that objects can evolve and change, but can also be timeless when mixed with traditional and contemporary styles.

Stitched and Constructed Textile Painting  - Dimensions 92cm x 92 cm each

 

Q Do you create your work in a studio base or a home base?

I have a studio from home in the loft of our Victorian property. It’s a unique space, which has slanted walls and an original fireplace. I have furnished this with tables and chairs I have acquired over the years, each which has its own story. They just happen to fit perfectly around the edge of the room leaving me a big open space in the middle. I love walking to the top of the staircase and entering the room. It is my sanctuary.

Q What is your working style?

It is very much about collecting and collating, reclaiming and reinventing. I approach my work with an idea, which I then aim to convert into visual objects/pieces through a process of experimentation with materials and techniques.

Q What does a typical day look like?

Varied - Some days/weeks I am able to devote entire periods to the production of new work, which I find deeply gratifying and inspiring. Other times I am distracted by domestic chores, and other projects, which perhaps take me away from the immediate task of making although give me the time and space to process ideas and consider new or different approaches, which are equally valuable to my work as a whole.

Stitched and Constructed Textile Painting 2 - Dimensions 50cm x 40 cm

 

Q Crafts in the 21^st Century – what does this mean to you?

Versatility, vitality, diversity - breaking the rules, revisiting traditional materials and techniques, experimenting with new technology. Less about trying to categorise, more about (effortless) originality.

Q How do you sell and promote your work?

I am a member of CAA, London, Fibre Arts Wales and Textile Forum South West (TFSW). I’ll be showing work at the two exhibitions due to open (mentioned above), and am hoping to sell work directly through my website soon.

Q 3 words of advice for an aspiring Craft artist/maker...

Perseverance, persistence and passion!

 

Corsages - hand made in fabric or paper. Approx. 10 cm circumference

 

Q Who is/are your favourite artist(s)/maker(s)?

Wide and varied including photography, sculpture, painting, textiles, mixed media….. Includes Jeff Wall, Cy Trowbly, Sarah Sze, Jonathan Callen, Louise Hopkins, Joseph Cornels….My husband recently brought me an exhibition catalogue featuring photographs by Robert Polidori which I am currently looking at.

 

Q What music are you listening to at the moment?

Wintermusik by Nils Frahm, The Blue Notebooks by Max Richter, Music for Egon Schiele, by Rachel’s, Found Songs by Olafur Arnalds……

 

Q What do you do to relax?

Fresh sea air (and a swim in the sea in summer) always helps.

 

Ordnance survey of England, Kingsbridge and District (third edition) sheet 150, 1908-9 - updated in London 2006 Dimensions and Ordnance survey of England, Cornwall and Devonshire 1919 - updated in London 2006 - Framed Stitched Drawing 75cm x 87cm

Lizz Aston

 Macramé Repeat 3 – detail 2009
(Paper Fibre, Free Motion Embroidery, Polyester Thread, Burnout)

 
Q So who is Lizz Aston?
I’m a fibre based artist, currently in my second year as an artist-in-residence in the textile studio at Harbourfront Centre. I was originally born and raised in the greater Toronto area. Growing up, I had the good fortune of being accepted into an amazing and forward thinking high school for the arts, Cawthra Park S.S.

The time I spent there, immersed in a specialized arts program came to inform the beginning of my life as an artist working within a crafts-based medium. After high school I went on to study fashion, worked as a sheet metal apprentice and developed my skills in a number of other avenues. It wasn’t until I eventually went back to school for Crafts and Design at Sheridan College that I finally realized there was a larger identity at play in the work I had been making all along.
 

Crochet 2010 (Paper Fibres, Free-Motion Embroidery, Cotton Thread, Burn-out.)

 

Q Paper features heavily in your work, what is it that excites you most about this material?
My current body of work employs the use and manipulation of paper surfaces in an attempt to reference a series of ideas inspired by traditional knotting practices. In my work I am interested in exploring the implications that these two material practices carry in combination with one another and the tension or relationship that may exist as a result of this juxtaposition.

Through my work I am interested in exploring the multifaceted relationship we have to paper and its archaic practices, as I work to discover this material through an in depth examination of its inherent transformative, resilient and simultaneously ephemeral qualities. This convergence of ideas along with an innate love of discovery through material process can be seen as the ever present theme that propels my work forward.

 

Crochet 2010: Paper Fibres (Free-Motion Embroidery, Cotton Thread, Burn-out.)

 

Q Is there any other medium you would like to work in?
I am currently at the beginning stages of learning to work in metal at the jewellery studio down the hall from me. I’ve really enjoyed revisiting this material on a much more refined scale, working alongside a fellow jewellery-studio resident Alisha Marie Boyd at the Harbourfront Centre.

I am also currently about to begin working on a collaborative group show entitled Studio Remix, in which six craftspeople pair up to teach each other our respective material processes as we work in one another’s studios. The end result will be an exhibition at the Ontario Crafts Council, a prominent Canadian craft gallery in Toronto, in August 2011. For this exhibition I have been paired up with a wonderful ceramics artist by the name of Sylvia Nan Cheng. I’m very excited to begin working in this new material as I feel it will open up a lot of new doors for me in the ways I approach making my work.
 

 Antiquated Notions 2, 2009 (Paper Fibres, Free-Motion Embroidery, Polyester Thread, Burn-out.)

 

Q Do you create your work in a studio base or a home base?
I work primarily out of the studio space at Harbourfront Centre, but tend to carry my work around with me wherever I go. I have also been known to cart my sewing machine along with me to my day shift at the bar I work at, in lieu meeting rapidly approaching exhibition deadlines!

I feel very lucky to be surrounded by such a great community of artists, musicians and makers both at the studio and at my work in Kensington Market. If anything, bringing projects along with me to work adds to the atmosphere of the already oddball Kensington market crowd I have grown up with over the years.

 

Degraded Muffin Cup Forms, 2010 (Paper, Muffin Cups, Burn-out.)

 
Q What is your typical working day look like?
Wake up. Drink coffee. Get to the studio. Read 35 emails. Eat a bagel from Tim Horton’s. Write an extensive to do list. Freak out about how much I have to do. Put on some good tunes. Cross off the list one by one. Laugh with my studio mates. Get some research, samples or a project a little further along to completion. Take a break. Look at the list again, before going home and thinking about what’s left to do tomorrow.
 

Q What is your working style?
Anybody who has ever worked alongside me in the studio would tell you that I am driven by an incredibly compulsive need to work on meticulous, fragile and generally insane, labour intensive projects that would make any normal person go cross-eyed and give up.

I love spinning delicate paper into thread, burning tiny holes into paper surfaces to create a network of lace-like structure. Counting the threads in finely woven piece of linen and binding it back to create larger patterns of negative space, as well as crocheting thousands of tiny structures before starching them into intimate little sculptural forms and so on.

Wavering Paper Formation, 2010 (Paper Doilies, Beeswax, Burn-out.)

 
Q How do you sell and promote your work?
I am primarily focussed on creating work that is intended for galleries and exhibitions. I tend to use exhibition deadlines as an avenue for which to research and explore new ideas and directions in my work. I also have a website which I am currently in the process of updating, as well as a blog which I began in the summer.
 
Q What is your greatest achievement to date?
All of the decisions that have lead me to exactly where I’m at in my life right now. Being afraid to take risks, living with the fear and just doing it anyways...

 

Paper Bark Grouping

 

Q Crafts in the 21^st Century – what does this mean to you?
As makers, we are constantly engaged in an ongoing dialogue that exists in the creation of meaningful objects; challenging the application of traditionally learned skills, to expand upon a greater definition of art and design.

Contemporary craft continues to evolve as it has become a celebrated practice that is of-the-moment and vital. This marks a turning point for a community of makers, whose work charts out and advocates a larger discourse in the ever evolving landscape of contemporary art and design.

 

Crocheted Sekishu Fibre Hatpin/Brooch

 

Q What music are you listening to at the moment?
I listen to a lot of 1960’s, punk, psychedelic, garage rock and shoe gaze. As well as medieval, folk, jug and blues. There’s also a really amazing local music scene here in Toronto with a diverse range of bands such as the Hoa Hoa’s, the Saffron Sect, Flowers of Hell, Planet Creature and the Constantine's. As well as bands like the Born Ruffians, Sports: the band and the Meligrove band....Wow, I guess you can tell I’m plugging all my friends? But really, it’s worth a serious listen.
 

Q 3 words of advice for an aspiring Craft artist/maker...
Self-discipline, the support of family and friends and a deep passion for what you do are essential to living an inspired and successful life as a craftsperson.

  Sekishu Paper Fibre/Yarns

 

Q Who is/are your favourite artist(s)/maker(s)?
To name a few: Jeannie Thib, Jean Shin, Tara Bursey, Shary Boyle, Arounna Khounnaraj, Eva Hesse, Doug Guildford, and Catherine Heard, as well as the larger community of crafts people and artists that I have been acquainted with here in Toronto over the past couple of years.
 

Q What do you do to relax?
Meeting up with friends in Kensington Market for a pint, listening to good music, cooking and sharing good food with the people around me, is an essential part of my day to day life. I am especially looking forward to a fun and wholesome winter full of Mixed CD Swapping on Sundays, impromptu dinner parties and home-made Soup Trades.

Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition - July 2010.

Shuyu Lu

 

 Antenna Head (hand embroidery, cotton and solid fleece)

 

Q So who is Shuyu Lu?
I was born and raised in China and I am currently a textile artist-in-residence at the Harbourfront Centre Studio in Toronto. I came to Canada to pursue an art education at the OCAD University and graduated in 2009 and received a BD (Bachelor Degree) in Fibre.
 
Q Where in the world are you based?
I am living in downtown Toronto now, a very dynamic multiple cultural atmosphere city.

 

Birdie Cushion (Screen Print on Cotton)

 
Q How did you decide to become a maker?
It took me for awhile to figure out that I want to participate in the craft field, and eventually consider myself as a craft maker. Here is the long story: I was studying advertising in the first year in university and I realized that I am not into the program at all; I am not an advertising person style. When I was struggling at that time, I saw the MAAD (Material art & design) program thesis student doing the fundraising sale in the lobby one day; they made things like the little crochet creatures, purses, dyed scarves, ring, coffee mugs, etc. I spent quite a long time there, picking up everything and look at them, that gave me delight!
To make some beautiful things by your hand and sell them, people happy because they like it; as well as the makers happy because they know people like it. Things become simple and back to the original way, is it the most wonderful thing? I bought a crochet birdie ornament from the sale and I think that might be the reason that finally made me decided to change my program! Indeed, if you don’t like something but you are still doing it, it will be a torture and pointless. I have no regret that I’m doing craft now, it is the best thing I’d like to do as my career.
 

My Childhood, My China - 2009 (screen print and hand embroidery on muslin)

 

Q Do you create your work in a studio base or a home base?
I work in the studio mostly. I am the current textile artist in residence at the Toronto Harbourfront centre. The craft department there provide a studio each for the textile, glass, ceramic and jewellery, for the emerging artists and designers. The studios also create a strong craft community and good working atmosphere there. It is a great transition place for those who just graduated from school and start the independent craft career like me.
I work at home too since I need to spend lot of time for hand embroidery. I know it’s not a good habit but it’s enjoyable—pick a good movie and start embroidery.

 

Welcome to the Village No2 – 2010 (hand embroidery on toile fabric)

 

Q What made you choose the materials that you work with?
In the second year of MAAD( Material art and design) program in OCAD university, students have to take all fibre, ceramic and metal intro courses. That allows us to have a chance to experience the different materials of these categories and then choose the one that most suitable (or comfortable) for each student to focus. My works express my feeling about differences in culture, as well as nostalgia for my own Chinese heritage. My works are mainly focused on screen-printing and embroidery and they help me to visualize the concept freely, easily and directly.
 
Q What are you working on at the moment?
I finished school last year and I had a few series of work so far. They are all made from a narrative perspective expressing my feelings about cultural impact. In my new work, I will continue to develop this concept. I’d like to bring the old and the traditional into contemporary pieces, meanwhile showing where the Western & Eastern elements melt together – their melting point.
 

 New Treasure - 2009 (screen print on cotton and silk organza, hand embroidery)

 

Q Crafts in the 21^st Century – what does this mean to you?
Craft is everywhere in the 21^st Century. Craft shows in the furniture pieces; craft shows in the fashion, craft shows in the industry products, craft shows in the art galleries, craft shows in the luxury culture, etc. The term “craft” has the different meaning than the old time - craft is not just represent the traditional skill and have to only come with the functional things; but also, craft acting as a medium to reflect our social value. It’s blurring the boundaries between art, design and craft today. Like me and my studio fellows, we make craft-art pieces and meanwhile we make craft-design items. However, we have to admit that it is really a niche market for craft; it’s very unique but small. It always needs people and the society’s appreciation and support. Craft melding into the different disciplines is the way to survive.
 
Q How do you sell and promote your work?
I mostly participate the sale shows and juried exhibitions to get exposure at this early stage. I also sell some of my functional items (toy dolls and cushions) in Distill  and Bounty. They are two of the biggest stores in Toronto that provide a selling opportunity to Canadian artists.
 

So Far, So Close – 2010 (screen print and hand embroidery on silk organza)

 

Q 3 words of advice for an aspiring Craft artist/maker...
Passion, love life & appreciation.
 
Q What inspires you?
My Chinese background, childhood, nostalgia, the impact of the different cultures, urban life, my working environment…
 
Q 3 things that you hate?
Maybe I say something that I don’t like? Hate, Beet, No time to sleep

 

So Far, So Close [yellow] – 2010 (screen print and hand embroidery on silk organza

 

Q Who is/are your favourite artist(s)/maker(s)?
It will be a long list for this question!

The most inspired one is Zhang Xiaogang – the Chinese contemporary artist. He was born in 1958 and was influenced by a period of Cultural Revolution during his youth. His surrealist paintings are a perfect reflection of the period. It conjures the depressive atmosphere of the time. Dorie Millerson’s needlepoint is also a favourite. Most of her work is tiny and deals with memory, nostalgia, defining home and identity. The lace work brings her memories and moments of attachment to life with their delicate shapes.

Also here are the other artists I like: Ron Mueck, Yayoi Kusama, Yoshitomo Nara, Julie Moon, Lyn Carter, David R. Harper, Ai Weiwei.
 

Q What do you do to relax?
Take a walk in my neighbourhood and shopping at the vintage stores.
 

Welcome to the Village – 2010 (hand embroidery on toile fabric)