Pulling Strings Reference Library: Robyn Love and Grant Heaps

Welcome to the first installment in our series of mini "reviews" of textile books from the collections of some of our favourite textile heros. First up are artists Robyn Love and Grant Heaps, who share a passion for quirky retro craft books.  Enjoy, and keep on the look out for more posts like this one over the next few weeks leading up to our Pulling Strings Reference Library event in April!

A New Look at Crochet: Using Basic Stitches to Create Modern Designs

Elyse and Mike Sommer

New York: Crown Publishers, 1st Edition 

(1975)

When I think of publications that I reach for when I am looking to be inspired, I want to say that my first impulse is to immerse myself in the writing of Louise Bourgeois or Anni Albers.  I want to say that because I do reach for my books about those great artists - and other great artists.  I want to say that but it isn't completely true.  My first impulse is to reach for A New Look for Crochet by Elyse and Mike Sommers.  It is part history of crochet, part pattern book and part showcase of what was happening in the world of crochet c.1975.  To me the book is pure inspirational gold.  It is the perfect combination of sincerity, absurdity and genuine artistry.  There is nothing flashy or even well designed about it, but it is its very earnest tone that makes it so compelling.  It never fails me.

Robyn Love

Interdisciplinary Artist

Queens, NY/Gilliams, NFLD

http://www.robynlove.com

Floral Potpourri
Juliano's Hang It All 
Pineapples on Parade

I love how-to books on textile crafts. I have been collecting these books since I was a child and fell in love with trying to copy the ideas put in front of me on their pages. I love them because they offer such great hope. With limited supplies and tools you can reproduce the wonderful things they offer up as lessons. As a child, I would try and copy and follow the instructions but I always struggled with my results-- those in the photos on the pages before me were so much better than mine. Today I find constant inspiration in these publications and use their patterns and instructions to create things in ways they were never meant to. Floral Potpourri is filled with graphed flower patterns ready to be made much bigger using scrap textiles. Juliano's Hang It All is filled with macrame directions that I want to manipulate into organza lampshades. And Pineapples On Parade is crochet pattern after crochet pattern ready to be pillaged for a mural of a roller coaster being consumed by a garden.

Grant Heaps
Textile Artist
Toronto, ON

Pulling Strings Profile: Shannon Gerard

Shannon's Plants You Can't Kill

Our talk and workshop with Shannon Gerard is only a few sleeps away!  To tide you over until then, we've asked Shannon to respond to a few questions about her work.  Read on to get a window onto Shannon's practice, which meaningfully connects crochet to drawing, research, math and history (among other things!).

How do you position textiles within the context of your greater art practice?

I was starting to type something here about what percentage of my time and studio practice is devoted to crochet, but I'd like to resist that compartmentalization of crochet from the rest of what I do. I do it A LOT, but at this point it is not distinct in its intention or outcome that any other media I work with. It's a form of drawing, writing, research, and play in the same way that making books, or writing every day, or animating, or taking on huge social-political performances are part of the daily work of building an art practice.

You have long-standing interests in both textiles and printed matter.  Do you see a connection between these two (seemingly) disparate media?

Yes, for sure. Crochet is a form of drawing for me, as well as a form of research and a way of being in the world. In the book work that I do, I draw a lot of portraits and I find that the act of drawing faces changes my relationship to the world. I see a face I have drawn and I can then never extrapolate the lived face from the drawn face. I am now seeing the world through the lens of having drawn it. Writing is the same-- you replace your lived experience with a poetic description of that life and you have only the description and not the thing itself. Crochet is the same. I use it to pacify anxiety, to create forms, to research mathematical patterns, or to play-- and suddenly crochet is a way of thinking and knowing the world. I am surprised by the number of things I read or hear people talking about and I'm thinking, "yes, that is just like hyperbolic crochet."

How do you think textile work/processes lend themselves to collaboration, education and social change?

Textiles, and in my case yarn and wool specifically, are very mediating materials. We recognize them from living (wearing clothes, setting tables, doing laundry, sitting on furniture), not from art. So we know how to approach these materials. To work on textile-based works together is very natural-- it opens up conversations because our hands are busy. Our minds can run. And textiles have a physicality that gives them a history beyond art-- a history that is often very political, which complicates those collaborations and conversations quite dynamically.

Share three textile/fibre (re)sources you can't live without.

The Textile Museum's annual More Than Just a Yardage Sale (which I call Tits & Elbows because of the sheer VOLUME of women in the tents), Romni Wools on Queen Street in Toronto, and ANYTHING that Kirsty Robertson is involved in. (http://twodriftersofftosee.wordpress.com/)

*****

For more on Shannon and her work, check out the following links:
http://shannongerard.org/index.html
http://shannongerard.tumblr.com/

Crocheted tree stump in Shannon's studio

Pulling Strings 1.1: Shannon Gerard Conceptual Crochet Talk & Workshop (Nov 23, 2013)

After months of coffee shop scheming and logo napkin doodles, we are pretty dang excited to be getting Pulling Strings off the ground with a talk and workshop led by Shannon Gerard! Shannon was a natural choice for a first speaker in the series – her playful approach to her practice is never stuffy or alienating but always makes you think about things not previously considered – exactly what we are trying to achieve with Pulling Strings.

Next Saturday (November 23) Shannon will give a talk and Q&A at the Hamilton Artists Inc, followed by a hands-on workshop at Needlework. We are super grateful to both spots for giving Pulling Strings, a roving series, its first home.

Recognized for her engaging teaching and speaking style, Shannon will share the evolution of her crochet practice from recognizable objects with a decorative or educational function to forms that graph concepts of hyperbolic space or chart biographical and emotional journeys.  Following the talk, anyone is invited to push the boundaries typically associated with crochet as a functional pastime in a conceptual crochet workshop - no crochet experience necessary! As spaces are limited, we'll need you to register beforehand by emailing us at pullingstringshamilton@gmail.com.

Here are the details:
Who: Shannon Gerard (http://shannongerard.tumblr.com)
When: Saturday November 23, 2013; Talk and Q&A (2:00-3:30pm); Workshop (4:00-5:30pm)
Where: Talk and Q&A – Hamilton Artists Inc. 155 James N Hamilton, ON (@ Cannon); Workshop – Needlework, 174 James St N Hamilton, ON
Cost: Talk - FREE; Workshop - $10
Registration: Talk – all are welcome, no RSVP required; Workshop – contact pullingstringshamilton@gmail.com to register.

A bit about Shannon: In addition to teaching courses in print media and nano-publishing at OCAD University in Toronto, Shannon Gerard makes artist's books about magic, hope, faith and human frailty and produces large-scale installations that incorporate stop-motion animations and digital print. Shannon spends at least 50% of her waking life crocheting soft sculptures, which include Boobs and Dinks, Plants You Can’t Kill, and contributions to the Toronto Hyperbolic Coral Reef.



Toronto Hyperbolic Coral Reef (by Shannon & Others)