carlyn yandle
  • about
  • crafted objects
  • public art
  • painting
  • the creative process
  • exhibitions
  • contact

Joyful Making in Perilous Times

9/10/2020

 
Where is the joy when you’re living in a time of a global coronavirus pandemic and a local toxic-drug epidemic? What is the use of making when your city is seized by global investment-real estate schemes, when there’s too much stuff in a overheated planet and a hateful, superpower president next door?

These questions ricochet around my brain, only abating when this futile, exhausting expenditure of energy hones in on the rote activity of knotting and needleworking. The hand-wringing falls into rhythm as I grasp at lost, tossed threads that I make whole and into whole new ideas.

Making is a very personal physical reaction to perilous times and unstable circumstances but working with found fibre is also an intrinsically social action that weaves in disparate economic circumstances, language, race, age and abilities. Braiding, stitching, knotting, needleworking create resilient connective tissue between one body and another. Strands thicken into solid links between the ancient and the modern, utility and self-expression, the digital and the physical, the personal and the political.

By exploring the inherent qualities of abject manufactured material, the body binds with other bodies and other places, some known, some not. It is work, but outside the tumultuous dominant economic system. It is an experience of the history of production and distribution through the material at hand.

Even in these times, when gathering around a table is a hazardous activity, when our pack species is feeling at loose ends, masked up and reluctantly apart, the tactility of rote hand-making grounds us into the here and now, one stitch, one loop, one knot at a time. We grasp at the tendrils, continuing the work, with the results standing as artifacts of a time, place and our individual and collective states of being.​

Three major works created over one year remind me of the uncertainty, the panic, the perilousness of these times, and of the solace gained through individual making and the joy of making with others. The three are relics of two years of material research that culminated in a Master of Fine Arts 2020 exhibit set up one day before the university locked down.

1. Scaffolds

Picture
'Scaffolds': 2019, 10' x 10' x 8" All materials gathered by workers at residential tower construction sites in the Vancouver area.

2. Resurge

Picture
'Resurge' is inspired by the palette of the West Coast foreshore where it began.
Picture
Spanning 12 feet in diameter and grounded to the floor, 'Resurge' troubles distinctions between utility craft and visual art.

3. Hearth

Picture
'Hearth' serves as a visual archive of five months of community hand-stitching sessions at kitchen tables and art studios.
Picture
A close-up view of the wall installation reveals provisionally-composed strips of fabric and sewing pins framing the several dozen hand-stitched "log cabin"-style quilt blocks by many hands.
Picture
The simple blocks were made by artists and members of the community at large during five months of open weekly sessions.

Tripping on this troublesome rug

12/6/2019

 
In the final critique of my final work in this second-to-final semester of graduate studies, I could see that there was going to be trouble. 
Picture
​From the start, there was the trouble of actually getting a full view of this sprawling, chaotic, twisted mass of deconstructed jeans. It required everyone to stand around the perimeter of the low-lit white-cube gallery, in a circle, facing in, looking down at this problem child.
 
There was the troubling of its position: Why not on the wall or hung from the ceiling? Since it’s sprawled out on the floor, does it invite being walked on?
 
There was the troubling of method: Why the knotting and weaving and braiding? Why the obvious waistbands and labels? Why spend all this time and labour? Why not just a pile of denim strips?
 
And there was the troubling over concept: Is it too obvious? Too simple? Too many signifiers? Not enough points of entry? Or too many? Is it art or craft? Who is this talking to? And to what end?
 
And those are just my questions. 

Picture
​I question everything, especially as I work, with my hands, intuitively. But my first line of questioning is directed at the material itself. What do you want from me? (Or, to borrow from my then-eight-year-old nephew, in an inexplicable situation: What are we even doing here?)
 
As much as I could have sat and gazed at the striated piles of folded jeans collected, machine-washed and line-dried by my mother and hauled to my studio by my others, now those jeans demanded more of me.
 
Seams, the index of the work by mainly women in foreign factories, needed to be exposed, so I cut them away from the yardage, bound them up in my own hand-stitching into tight, potent fast-fashion/slow-craft units. For what? For now, just for today: my daily reminder not to overthink or force solutions.
 
The labels and tags required daylighting, too, and the more collisions the better between fonts and texts and all that those brands try to stand for.
 
That left the denim textile, the fabric of this whole fraught, toxic industry. Shucked from their constraints of style and function, I ripped them into strips and watched them fall from my cutting table into heaps on the floor like tidepools.

PictureImage-searching "jeans industry" produces a blue-stained global-reality horror show.
As much as I love the immersive works of minimalist textile installations, more would be more here. I would be mining all my own making methods and circulating them into this circles-within-circles piece, in allegiance with all of those who work with their hands for a living or for the love of material. Or both.
 
Like most makers I know, I love the challenge of constraining the work to some specific rules of material engagement so I limited mine to a single material, a knotting/binding additive process and two tools: scissors and sewing needle (well, three, if you count my hands).
 
I intrinsically start from the centre in an almost innate process learned over a lifetime, from macramé plant-hangers (1970s) to braided rugs (1990s) to crocheted giant doilies (2000s) created to cover and protect in the public sphere.

​The work begins with a gathering of material-energy into a tight nucleus of force (I’ve been mixing up issues of 
astrophysics and making over the last year) and spreads outward, finding pattern then breaking that pattern toward new horizons. It’s a process of allowing the material to ebb then roil up again into forces that break into near disintegration, a rhythm that keeps me in the swim of things. As it flows outward into small tsunamis, then eddies, I feel an oceanic, topographic, geologic personality wash over this thing.

Picture
And this definitely wants to be a thing, not an immersive installation. This is an object that requires some finishing, a symphony of soundwaves that started with a bang but wants to end in a hum, in the round. It is a rug you can’t walk on, borne of Seismic Rug that emerged while I was confined to the floor with sciatica,  watching footage of the horror of the 2011 Japan Tsunami flood in.
 
It is a resurgence of that making, and that fear of that flood and of the oncoming higher waters, but also the resurgence of my ability to grab hold of physically-challenging handwork after falling on the low-tide foreshore this summer and breaking my ‘good’ arm in two places. I cast aside those fears of not being able to make/do from the cast-offs of this unsustainable era of human history.
 
Resurge feels right for the piece formerly known as the Monster that raises issues from the ground up, this fuzzy menace.

Picture
Left: A colleague lists initial reactions during critique; right: pattern and collapse seen in one section.
Picture

Mammoth social sculpture going up at Draw Down event

6/5/2015

Comments

 
I'm not knocking social media. Hitting 'Like' to one posted act of injustice after another is nothing like joining a sit-in at your MP's office or marching in protest. But I also get that there is power in those tweets and online petitions. We saw it this week when Tim Hortons decided it had had enough bad press and was breaking its ad deal with Enbridge.

Still, there's a lot we lose by going through life connecting with one another mostly via screen-pecking 'like' or tweeting or 'gramming. We are, after all, a social species; our well-being is dependent on sharing space in the actual physical world. Consider this: If someone took away your ability to connect on social media you might get seriously miffed. If you were allowed unlimited social media access but had to connect in physical isolation from all other humans, you might get seriously unhinged.
PictureEarly days of the Network. Photo by Debbie Tuepah
There is something profoundly healthy about being around the energy of other people. It's the why for clubs and associations, parties and gatherings. And it's the why behind the Network sculpture/social engagement project.

Artist Debbie Tuepah and I came up with the idea just a few years after the birth of Twitter and Facebook, and within a year of the debut of Instagram and Pinterest. We felt a need to create a physical alternative to all this virtual social networking — some low-barrier, small-footprint way to bring people together. Something that would be collaborative but less skill-based than, say, a quilting bee, but offering similar tactile engagement.

This thread of an idea soon joined other threads: the materials should be found/donated and should be the stuff that ordinarily ends up in a landfill. Synthetic, petroleum-based fabrics and sheeting would do the trick. (No one knows what to do with those lurid-coloured Fortrel bedspreads and vinyl shower curtains.)

PictureThe more people work on it, the more visually interesting it becomes.
We cleared the decks and hung several strands from a hook in the studio ceiling, like I did as a kid when making those macrame plant hangers. We added one strand to another by simple knotting. We held parties and invited friends to bring their friends to tie one on. Kids got knotty and businessmen who thought the whole thing a little weird at first were soon weaving free-style. 

We knew we were onto something. A year later it made its public debut at the Mini Maker Faire at the PNE, where it grew into the gargantuan piece it is today.

Picture
The Network is too big for any studio parties now. This mammoth collaborative sculpture demands the kind of space like the Atrium of the Mount Pleasant community centre, where it will be suspended on Saturday, June 20, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. as part of the city-wide Draw Down event. 

Come on down, tie one on, grab a thread and take part in this social medium in the actual, physical world.


Comments

craftsmanship at the core of paper art show

4/4/2014

Comments

 
PictureClockwise from top: Connie Sabo, Rachael Ashe and Sarah Gee Miller with their respective works. (Carlyn Yandle photos)


Sarah Gee Miller says she's pretty handy. That's the understatement of the evening. Her paper 'paintings' are not only visually stunning and conceptually rich but they resonate with the dedication of a serious craftsman.

Funny how the word 'crafts' only gets the serious respect it deserves when the 'man' is attached to it. Suddenly the mind moves from, say, knitting or embroidering to, say, boat-building or blacksmithing. Here at the Voices from Another Room show at the Hot Art Wet City gallery, the craftsmanship is here in the medium of paper.

It's that juxtaposition between the humble, ephemeral material and the heavy-duty skill and commitment of craftsmanship that makes this show of five artists' work so compelling. The results of that individual devotional patience, determination, repetition is on view. And I can attest that there's also frustration, physical exertion, second-guessing and the flops. You don't get to this calibre of work without enduring a few hard battles.

The conceptual elements of the pieces in this group show may reference particular art genres (or not) but the methods are perhaps unconsciously rooted in this region that is built on a New World culture of self-sufficiency, innovation and handwork, in a medium fitting for this corner of the world that was built in large part on the pulp and paper industry. Location, whether in art or real estate, is everything.

The beauty of the group show that has that one connecting thread — or in this case, wood fibre — is in how far that thread can be stretched, from Miller's totemic paintings to Sabo's heavy net-like installations of twisted newspaper, to Ashe's filigree screens, to Alison Woodward's three-dimensional twisted fairytale vignettes and Joseph Wu's origami sculptures. But beyond the medium there's the other connecting thread of craftsmanship, which Wu articulates as both a scientific and artistic exploration.

This is a show of skill that is developed through the often meditative repetitive act of carving or twisting or folding, but the art is in the repetition of those expanding skills. It is how Sabo's net works have led her to ideas about laminating newspaper blocks, or how Miller's paper paintings grew out of her own drawing machine.

"The open relation between problem solving and problem finding... builds and expands skills," according to author Richard Sennett in The Craftsman. "But this can't be a one-off event. Skill opens up in this way only because the rhythm of solving and opening up occurs again and again."

Voices from Another Room: 5 Artists Explore Paper continues to April 25, Wed-Sat noon to 5 p.m. at 2206 Main (at 6th Ave.), Vancouver.






Comments

Put down that Blackberry and go get some blackberries

8/1/2013

Comments

 
Picture
I so adore this old World War I royalty-free poster created for the Canada Food Board that I post it in my kitchen every year during the putting-food-by months, already underway.

I love the displayed array of fresh produce that would never be pushed by a private enterprise (where's the profit margins in stuff you can grow?) and the chief goals of saving and not wasting. So anti-capitalist. There's nary a scrap of the patriarchy in this national call to action. You want to live well? Listen to what your grandmother's got to say, girl, and you'll be wanting not. 

It's propaganda art you can really sink your teeth into.

There's an art to putting food by without relying on electricity, and an art to harvesting what's wilding in your environment, also known as foraging. We do it with intention (in jeans and long-sleeved shirts, with hook, snips, and yogurt containers) or without intention (leaning one's barely clad beach-bound body into the thicket for a few juicy morsels). 

We are not wanting for blackberries in this corner of the world, to put by, or put in a pie — and not just for the fruit. In what should become an extension of this very Vancouver (and Vancouver Island) activity, the ubiquitous rogue species of Himalayan blackberry can be harvested for their durable 'vegetable leather.'

PictureDavid Gowman photo from The Georgia Straight, straight.com
The time of this writing is the perfect time to reap a particular harvest, according to local artist
Sharon Kallis. It's late enough in the growing season for the canes to reach the thickness of a baby's arm and shoot 10 feet in the air in search for cyclists to take down or paths to take over. But it's not so late in the season that the menacing-looking vines are too woody to be able to be stripped. That hits around mid-August.

Why would want to strip the canes? It's a rhetorical question for anyone who likes to make something out of nothing, and this is even better: make stuff, while hacking into this invasive species' ability to turn diverse urban woodlands into a thorny monocrop.

Kallis, whose special interest is in social engagement, shows how to strip blackberry vines (or watch this video) to wrestle down this barbed invader and amass some very usable material that can be used immediately or stored for later to make useful things like baskets or privacy screens, and useless, more interesting things like installations. Some inspiration from the prolific American sculptor Patrick Dougherty:

Picture
Crossing Over, American Craft Museum, New York, New York, 1996.
Picture
Dougherty installing at the North Carolina Museaum of Art, 2009.
Picture
Summer Palace, 2009. Morris Arboretum, Philadelphia.
Comments

Maker's mecca in downtown Toronto (for now)

11/9/2012

Comments

 
Picture
A real trip: Toronto's textile-retail district is a visual feast for any kind of maker. (Carlyn Yandle photos)
Picture
Stephen Cruise's 1997 public artwork at Richmond and Spadina. (Carlyn Yandle photo)
Like other Vancouver makers, I mourn the latest closures of stores dedicated to those who work with their hands, hearts and heads, for love or livelihood. Last month it was the needlework shop in my neighbourhood. Dressew is fast becoming the city's last great fabric store standing.

So the first chance I got while in Toronto last week I headed to the mecca for fibre-arts-makers: the Queen/Richmond/Spadina area. This bit of heaven boasts 100-year-old storefronts jam-packed with notions both humble and grand: a button shop — just buttons — next to one devoted to beads or ribbon or wool or shiny embellishments. Across from a luxury textiles boutique is a warehouse crammed with tables heaped with remnants. All in the space of a couple of blocks, and right in the thick of the city.

Yet even Canada's biggest textile retail district appears threatened by encroaching condo towers. (Note the billboard in this photo hawking pre-sale units in the "Fabrik" development on the site of the old King Textiles building.) 

Just when you think you're the last fabric-hound standing there's the World of Threads festival to restore the soul. This multi-venue Oakville-Toronto event showcases staggeringly skillful works embedded with rich ideas and spaces to consider, and to transcend. Despite the diversity of media and methods, a thread runs though this fest: in an all-too-consumptive art world these artists are grateful for the chance to show. The value of the work is not foremost in commericial saleability but is in the maker's connection to the material itself, the often transcendent physical experience of the making, and the connectedness to the pattern of art forms that pass down through families and through every culture.


Comments

Putting art value to good use

2/28/2012

Comments

 
Picture
The art world doesn't have much use for "use objects" as art objects. There's really nothing valuable about them beyond their use value. And the fact that they're laboriously handmade doesn't cut it either, I realized several years ago in the middle of a big-box bedding store as I examined the hand-stitching of a $69 queen-sized made-in-China quilt. Much of art value to do with uniqueness and innovation -— stuff that's quite outside the massive production lines that keeps Bed, Bath and Beyond in business.

I've struggled with the uneasy relationship between useful things and art things, and have poked around their parameters through my own practice. And what I've come up with is this: my collection of handmade, spider-web-delicate doilies crocheted by the great-aunts are not considered artworks (yet). But reproducing them in a painting series makes them art (for now). The distinctions often lie in the intended environments for the objects. Doilies, although formerly employed to protect domestic surfaces in order to extend their lifespan, are most likely found in thrift-store bins. Paintings are intended for the walls of public or commercial galleries or upscale living rooms. And therein lies the awful truth about how we value those different spaces. Original art exudes investment value. Use objects are only worth the function they serve.

So what to make of the ceremonial robes on display at the Bill Reid Gallery last year? The "Time Warp" show revealed that the erroneously known ‘blanket’ is far from the household craft the word suggests but a magnificent artwork that honours the wearer and carries culture through its use.

I haven't quite put it all together but there's a hint of where this exploration is going in the Logo Sweater I knit in the weeks leading up to the 2010 Winter Olympics. It was in its wearing by a number of people during the Games (to their peril) that contributes to its intrinsic value as an art object. All while its assumed use value works against accepting it as an artwork.




At right: Haida Weaver Tracy Auchter Yahgulanaas with "Graduation Robe" (Ann Seymour photo from Bill Reid Gallery site) Below: Logo Sweater, Carlyn Yandle 2010.

Picture
 
Comments

Unravelling the mystery of an unravelling rug (It's a lo-o-ong story)

3/25/2011

Comments

 
Picture

Design has the most to say about the origin of what is commonly known as an Oriental carpet. But the patterns woven into a mysterious tattered, dun-coloured wool rug that has been in my family for as long as I can remember have led to more questions than answers.

My mother purchased the rug in 1969 at a Salvation Army thrift store in East Vancouver. As a long-time social justice activist, she was attracted to the two major central designs in the rug. They looked to her like bombs, and she was attracted to the notion that it may have been made in creative reaction to the war-zone region where it was woven.

This curious design saved it from an uncertain future 40 years ago, and saved it again during a recent “shoveling-out” of the old family cabin. Aside from the two bomb-like figures there are other mysterious pattern features: dark indigo lines of arrows that appear to point in specific directions; an intriguing, restrained use of white as a border highlight; faint yet distinct lines of pattern resembling field rows. The ‘bombs’ themselves are marked by subtle differences, including the fact that they are not the same size.

My general, limited knowledge of handmade area rugs told me at first glance that this was, at the very least, an Oriental rug, due to its pattern of a border surrounding a central field. It was also likely tribal, due to its asymmetrical dimensions — 80 centimetres at one end and 100 at the other — indicating it was made on a small, simple and probably transportable loom. It was also likely an important size to its nomadic makers; at just 170 centimeters in length and an almost brocade-like thickness, this lightweight carpet packs easily. The colourway reflects the largely barren region of the largely nomadic Central Asia, at least prior to 1969. The lack of saturated colours indicated that the wool might have been natural, from animals that would have been important for nomadic peoples such as camel, goats and sheep, or would have been dyed using natural plants or minerals found or traded in the region.

But it is the simple, abstracted geometrical patterning that is the most compelling indicator of its roots in rural Central Asia, as opposed to China, India and Persia where the complexity of those stable cultures is representative in the largely floral, ornate patterning.

Pattern would provide both definitive answers to location, but also more questions about how complex ideas of culture, the physical environment and the mystic can be embedded and encoded in deceptively simple patterns.

My hunch was that this was a prayer rug, and the ‘bombs’ were directional elements contributing to its purpose of orienting the worshiper toward Mecca.

Initial research did confirm that this was not a “war rug”, a highly collectible type that first appeared in the Steppes region of Afghanistan and northern Pakistan following the Soviet invasion in 1979.

So are these central features in the field known among collectors as the “main stripe” ships, buildings, fish? Anything resembling the images is at odds with the arid geographic location in which this rug was likely made.

Other than these two confounding images, this particular carpet resembles Turkmen rugs in terms of size and colours, however, the main stripe lacks the typical pattern of rectangular or octagonal ‘guls’ that many believe to be heraldic emblems. Also, its lack of a mihrab, or prayer arch, in the main stripe arguably discounts this as a prayer rug.

The simple abstracted geometrical border design of narrow frames, known as the guard stripe provides structure and focus in the same way that a frame highlights a painting but it is also the most useful part of a carpet’s design in determining place of origin. The border of the rug in question features a number of motifs, from a turret-like pattern, and a linking of triangles that may derive from the Tree of Life that is characteristic of all Oriental rugs including the strictly geometric pattern of Turkmen rugs. Any interruption of the flow of the pattern around the corners would indicate that the rug was copied from another rug or done by memory.

The fact that the dyes in my rug are essentially shades of brown, with navy and white used as outline connects it to the general group of Turkmen rugs, which are traditionally dyed with madder in shades that include browns and brick shades, and the limited use of black or dark brown outlines for to create subtle emphasis. 

However, the almost minimalist ground and subdued patterning points to weavers of tribal groups distinct from the Turkmen with whom they are usually associated. 

Research also reveals that the Balouch rug, also known as Beluch or Baluchistan, is often described as monotonous and drab. One blue and a small amount of white is typically used in contrast to a range of browns. This is an accurate description of my rug, which locates it within a people, but it is the one specific pattern set of the Balouch that is more intriguing.

The Balouch often incorporates the Tree of Life design, often on a camel ground, like mine. It may be an Engsi, a rug traditionally used as a closure on the tent-like entrance of nomadic dwelling, specifically a Khatchli design. Adding weight to that theory is the typical design of a Khatchli, which is Armenian for ‘cross-like.' A “cruciform paneling” essentially segments the rug main stripe into quarters and includes and “elem” panel at the bottom. The cross-like shape can be seen to mimic the panels in many wooden doors but also suggests a garden, according to one collector I found at a website on Oriental carpets.

This rug does seem to bear traces of the Khatchli layout, although without the elem panel. However, the two main images remain at odds with any examples shown in Khatchli rugs.

It was only after seeing an image posted on an online discussion board of a similar ‘bomb’ that I realized my rug was pictured upside-down. One collector/writer discusses this uncommon design:

“The footed vase design is referred to as Qalem Dani, or pen holder. Because of the protruding leaf forms, Westerners think of an upright holder for a quill or pen. The weavers more likely had in mind the Persian type of long, ovate, papier-mâché or wooden pencil box, richly ornamented with lacquer painting. It graphically shows how a pattern is simplified and then a specific element is extracted to become a major design element.”

The author says he believes the Yacub Khani sub-group of Balouchi weavers, who were not known for making prayer rugs, made the footed vase rug.

The arguments and theories continue, now more likely in online discussion boards dedicated to specific topics under the subject of the Oriental rug.

Three collector/academics at the most prominent non-commercial website for collectors of Oriental rugs I was able to locate weighed in on the rug and gave three different interpretations of the design. One suggested it was an Afghan rug featuring a design reflecting the narrow and pointed headstones of the area:

“The arrow-like devices could represent cypress trees, which have been associated with cemeteries for a very long time, or a fence around a tomb. Afghans and others visit cemeteries on their New Year. Some areas have a tradition of weaving a rug for the funeral and in Turkey many were then donated to the local mosque.”

Another agreed that it was likely not used for a door, also known as an “Engsi”, because it lacked the typical bottom panel design in the pattern. He theorized it was a Balouch floor rug, featuring an old design no longer used but roughly translated as “inkwell,” which may refer to the aforementioned “pen-holder” theory.

Another aficionado attributed the uniqueness of this rug to the possibility that it was a knock-off of another, more valuable rug style, while others on the discussion board suggested rugs with similar ‘emblems’ may be referencing the espaliered trees the weaving cultural groups were known for cultivating. 

The lively discussion reveals that although these tribal rug designs appear simple they are difficult to attribute and interpret because of a long history of cultural change in the region. As cities changed hands, so did the redistribution of tribal motifs to the point that the patterns cannot be definitively attributed to a particular group.

The exact meaning of specific patterns may be lost or simply unfathomable to western sensibilities, but their mystery continues to inspire discussion on matters both mundane and supernatural.

Considering the political upheaval and harsh physical environment in which this rug was likely created, it is reassuring that some aspects of tribal culture cannot be accessed, exposed, dissected and explained in definite terms.




Comments

    RSS Feed

    browse by topic:

    All
    Abstract Painting
    Activism
    Additive
    Aesthetics
    AgentC Gallery
    Alison Woodward
    Aluminum
    Anxiety
    Appropriation
    Architecture
    Arleigh Wood
    Art
    Art Business
    Art Discourse
    Art History
    Artist
    Artist Residency
    Artist Statement
    Artist Talk
    Art Marketing
    Art Quilt
    Art School
    Art Show
    Art Spiegelman
    Assemblage
    Author
    Banksy
    Bauhaus
    Beauty
    Betsy Greer
    Big Data
    Billy Patko
    Blogs
    Blog Tour
    Bob Krieger
    Body Of Work
    Books
    Boro
    Braided Rug
    Braiding
    Bruce MacKinnon
    Bruce Mau
    Building
    Bull Kelp
    Business
    Buttons
    Carlyn Yandle
    Caroline Eriksson
    Cartoon
    Ceca Georgieva
    Challenge
    Children
    Christmas
    Cindy Sherman
    Cirque Du Soleil
    City As Site
    City Planning
    Cityspace Gallery
    Clay Yandle
    Climate Change
    Cluster
    Cob
    Cob Oven
    Collaboration
    Collage
    Colonialism
    Color
    Colour
    Commission
    Community
    Community Building
    Composition
    Conceptual Art
    Conceptual Craft
    Connie Sabo
    Construction
    Coronavirus
    Cover
    Cover-19
    Covid
    Craft
    Craft Blogs
    Craftivism
    Crafts
    Craftsmanship
    Creative Process
    Critique
    Crochet
    Cross-stitch
    Cultural Hub
    Cultural Studies
    Culture
    Culture Jamming
    Culturejammingc9d75664fd
    Current Conditions
    Cycling
    Dafen Village
    Dallas-duobaitis
    Dance
    Data-graphic
    Data-graphic
    Dear Human
    Deep Craft
    Denim
    Denyse Thomasos
    Design
    Discomforter
    Display
    Distraction
    Distracts
    DIY
    Doilies
    Doily
    Domestic
    Domestic Interventions
    Douglas-coupland
    Draw Down
    Drawing
    DSquared2
    Dude-chilling-park
    Dyeing
    Eastend
    Eastside Culture Crawl
    ECUAD
    ECUAD MFA
    Editorial
    Edward Burtynsky
    Eggbeater Creative
    Embellishment
    Embroidery
    Emily Blincoe
    Emily Carr Cozy
    Emily Carr University
    Environment
    Environmental Art
    Exhibit
    Exhibition
    Experimentation
    Exploration
    Expression
    Fabric
    Fabricating
    Facebook
    Failure
    Fashion
    Feminist
    Feminist Art
    Festival
    Fiber
    Fiber Artist
    Fiber Arts
    Fibre
    Fibre Arts
    Film
    First Saturday Open Studios
    Flo
    Flow
    Foraging
    Form
    Foundlings
    Found Materials
    Found Objects
    Fractal
    Free Store
    Fuzzy Logic
    Gallery
    Gallery-row
    Garden
    Garment
    Gentrification
    Gill Benzion
    Gingerbread
    Globalization
    Glue
    Grad 2020
    Graffiti
    Granny Square
    Granville-island
    Green Space
    Grid
    Guanajuato
    Guerrilla Art
    Guerrilla Girls
    Halloween
    Handmaking
    Hand Stitching
    Hand-stitching
    Handwork
    Hashtags
    Haywood Bandstand
    Healing
    Health
    Hearth
    Hideki-kuwajima
    Homelessness
    Hot Art Wet City
    Hybrid Thinking
    Ian Reid
    Ian Wallace
    Ideas
    Identity
    Images
    Incomplete Manifesto For Growth
    Industrial Design
    Industry
    Innovation
    Inspiration
    Instagram
    Installation
    Intervention
    Invention
    Irena Werning
    Janet Wang
    Jeans
    Jeff Wilson
    Joel Bakan
    Joseph Beuys
    Joseph-wu
    Journalism
    Joyful Making In Perilous Times
    Judith Scott
    Kim Piper Werker
    Kimsooja
    Knitting
    Knots
    Knotting
    Kyoto
    Labor
    Labour
    Landon Mackenzie
    Landscape
    Leanne Prain
    Lecture
    Lighthouse
    Liz Magor
    Log Cabin
    Logo Sweater
    LOoW
    Lost Painting
    Lumiere Festival
    Lynda Barry
    Macrame
    Maker
    Making
    Malcolm Gladwell
    Male Gaze
    Maquette
    Marie Kondo
    Marketing
    Mark Lewis
    Martha Rosler
    Masks
    Material Exploration
    Mathematics
    Maya
    Media
    Meditative
    Metalworker
    MFA
    Mister Rogers
    Mixed Media
    Monique Motut-Firth
    Monte Clark
    Mosaic
    Motivation
    Mt. Pleasant Community Centre
    Mud Girls
    Mural
    Natalie Jeremijenko
    Nature
    Needlework
    Neon
    Net
    Network
    Networking
    Neuroplasticity
    New Forms Festival
    Newspapers
    Nick Cave
    Noah Goodis
    North Vancouver
    Omer Arbel
    Online Talk
    Openings
    Organization
    Origami
    #overthinking
    Paint
    Painting
    Pandemic
    Paper
    Paper Sculpture
    Parkade Quilt
    Patriarchy
    Pattern
    Pechakucha
    Pecha Kucha
    Perception
    Performance
    Performance Art
    Photography
    Playing
    Political Art
    Polly-apfelbaum
    Pompidou
    Poodle
    Port Coquitlam
    Portrait
    Process
    Production
    Profession
    Project
    Protest
    Psychedelic
    Public Art
    Qr Code
    Quilt
    Quilt Block
    Quilting
    Rachael Ashe
    Rachel Lafo
    Ravages
    Raw Materials
    Rebar
    Recycle
    Research
    Residency
    Resurge
    Retreat
    Rhonda Weppler
    Richard-tetrault
    Richmond Art Gallery
    Right Brain
    Rondle-west
    Rug
    Ryan-mcelhinney
    Safe Supply
    Safety
    Sarah-gee-miller
    Sashiko
    Saskatchewan
    Scaffolds
    Scale
    Scraps
    Sculpture
    Seaweed
    Semiotics
    Sewing
    Sharon Kallis
    Shawn Hunt
    Shigeru Ban
    Sketchup
    Slow Craft
    Smocking
    Social Engagement
    Social-engagement
    Social History
    Social Justice
    Social Media
    Soft Sculpture
    South-granville
    Space Craft
    Spore
    Stitching
    Storage
    Street Art
    Studio
    Styrophobe
    Subversive Stitch
    Surrealism
    Surrey
    Tagging
    Talking Art
    Tapestry
    Tattoo
    Technology
    Terry Fox Theatre
    Text
    Textile
    Thrift Stores
    TJ Watt
    TO DO
    Tools
    Toronto Design Offsite
    Toybits
    Trash
    Trash Art
    Trevor Mahovsky
    Typography
    Tyvek
    Unbridled
    Unfixtures
    Upcycling
    Urban Design
    Use Object
    Use Objects
    Utility
    Vancouver
    Vancouver Art Gallery
    Vancouver International Airport
    Video
    Video Tour
    Visual Field
    Visual-field
    Visual Language
    Wallace Stegner House
    Wall Hanging
    Waterwork
    Weaving
    William Morris
    Wood
    Wool
    Work Wraps
    Wrap I
    Wrap II
    Writing
    Yarn Bombing
    YVR
    Zaha Hadid
    Zendoodle
    Zero Waste Art
    Zero-waste Art

    Archives

    August 2022
    June 2022
    November 2021
    April 2021
    September 2020
    April 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    November 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    November 2017
    September 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Picture