|
|
INTRINSIC BEAUTY: CELEBRATING THE ART OF TEXTILES at The Textile Museum
Intrinsic Beauty inaugaurates The Textile Museum's centennial celebration. The exhibition on view until June 14, 2025, presents the juxtaposition of textiles from different regions and time periods to create conversations that shed light on cross-cultural connections and the preeminent roles textiles have played in the social, political, religious, commercial and artistic life of many communities.
To help uncover some of these stories, the exhibition guides visitors along four pathways. One path pairs textiles with commentary from contemporary artists invited to share their perspectives on the quality and craftsmanship of the historical artworks. (See Debra Lee's commentary below.) Other routes explore the legacy of textiles, and intriguing stories of cultural and artist exchange.
The Textile Museum is located at 701 21st Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. The closest Metro Station is Foggy Bottom on the Blue, Orange, and Silver lines.
MARYLAND FEDERATION OF ART --
CIRCLE GALLERY
The 2024 Small Wonders exhibition features 90 artists who think big but work small. And you know, Debra works small. All the exhibited art are under 11 inches in all directions. Come and see the detail of these wonderful works up close and personal!
Debra is honored to have two of her hand-stitched embroideries selected by juror Tatiana Flores, an award-winning author, curator, educator, and advocate for marginalized communities and their artistic traditions.
Out of more than 400 submitted exhibition entries, juror Flores awarded an Honorable Mention to Debra's embroidery titled, We Are Individuals, Not Stereotypes!
See Small Wonders at the Circle Gallery from November 27 through December 21, 2024.
Maryland Federation of Art, Circle Gallery is located at 18 State Circle, Annapolis, MD and online at mdfedart.org.
INTERACTIVE TEXTILES 101 GALLERY
AT THE TEXTILE MUSEUM
Located in Foggy Bottom of Washington, D.C., The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum opened a permanent interactive gallery called, Textiles 101 on January 27, 2018.
The Textiles 101 Gallery enables visitors to explore how fiber, color and structure influence how textiles are made and allows visitors to enter the mind of designers to discover the creative choices that influence textile design. Visitors can touch different fibers in raw and processed forms, practice various weaving techniques, examine completed fabrics, watch videos of artists at work and digitally design a new textile themselves.
Fiber artist Debra Lee was invited to create an eight-foot by 18-inch banner to illustrate the structure of looped stitches including knitting, crochet, simple looping and macrame for the Textiles 101 Gallery. Watch the video by Pamela Kaplan and Maria Helena Carey to hear about Debra's choices for the banner's design and see the steps involved to create it.
The looped banner hangs in the Textiles 101 Gallery along side of a woven banner created by fiber artist Hillary Steel and a felt banner created by fiber artist Renate Maile-Moskowitz.
TAKING THE STITCH CHALLENGE
In April 2020 Debra and several other hand-stitchers -- some new to stitching and some experienced -- accepted textile artist Julie Booth's stitch challenge to create samples for one or more articles in her four-part series called, Take the Stitch Challenge, for Quilting Arts magazine.
Julie challenged each stitcher to explore the potential of basic embroidery stitches to create interesting marks, textures and layers on fabric. Each challenge had a theme and a set of limitations. The result was a fascinating variety of stitched samples expressing the stitcher's interpretation of the theme created within the given limitations. To whet your appetite, Debra's stitch challenge samples are shown below. Click on the magazine cover to link to the Quilting Arts magazine!
