TextileArts news and re:views

2010 residencies for artists, curators, scholars, designers and creatives of all kinds

Elsewhere Collaborative, a living museum and experimental production environment in downtown Greensboro, NC, is now accepting applications from artists, curators, writers, musicians, designers, gardeners, makers, builders, scholars, producers, and creatives across media for residencies in 2010.

Elsewhere is set within a three-storey former thrift store, boarding house, and warehouse containing one woman's enormous 58-year collection of American surplus, thrift, and antiques. Elsewhere residencies invites experimental creators to join our collaborating community in utilising this immense collection of objects, no longer for sale and instead circulating internally, as material or inspiration for site-specific projects that become part of an endlessly transforming environment of objects and works. Artists live and work within interactive installations that provide evolving frameworks for investigating collaborations, community structures, and creative processes.

Residency fellowship funding for travel, room and board, are now available in exchange for hosting an educational workshop during the residency. Deadlines are rolling every other month; the deadline for fellowships is 31 January 2010.

Read more and download a brochure at
www.elsewhereelsewhere.org/programs/residencies

Stitch in Time is a Heritage Lottery Funded Young Roots project focusing on creative art and fashion to engage young people in traditional heritage textiles and contemporary customised fashion.

The exhibition showcases the results of workshops, gallery visits and consideration of current fashion issues including body image, identity, eco fashion and photographic styling.

All of the work has been produced by disadvantaged young people from Coventry in conjunction with Groundwork West Midlands and fashion/textile artist Claire Harris.

The exhibition is showing at Community Gallery, Avenue Road, Leamington Spa CV31 3PP, and the opening times are:

Saturday 31 October 2009: 10 am - 4pm
Every Wednesday and Thursday in November: 1pm - 4pm
Saturday 28 November 10am - 4 pm

Job opportunities for textile artists - get involved with the River and Cloth project in the London Borough of Merton. Foir more information see the Embroiderers' Guild web site.

Deadline 12th January 2009

The British Sari Story 2008 competition is offering a £250 top prize for a design for a British Bridal Sari. Do you have a vision of a sari showing the hopes, dreams and experience of a British Asian bride? Traditionally bridal saris have fantastic beading and embroidery from south Asia.

Detail of a Gharcholu sari, worn by brides in Gujarat, India
Credit: Flexeflix/Bridging Arts

"But we're looking for something new – British beading, embroidery and embellishment, reflecting British Asian experience in the UK . We hope you will be as imaginative as possible with your entry. We could see a tweed sari with a heather embroidered motif – or a Welsh sari with leeks and daffodils! Entrants are free to use whatever they like in their embroidery - buttons instead of sequins... The possibilities are endless..."

Finalists' work will become part of the British Sari Story touring exhibition, celebrating British Asian life today. This exhibition is currently at the Harley Gallery, Worksop. Winners will be announced when the exhibition opens at the Charnwood Museum, Loughborough, in October 2008.

Entry is free and is open to all. Closing date 31 August 2008.

More information from the Bridging Arts web site, where an application form can be downloaded; or email , tel 020 8749 9010.

Nilesh Mistry, a Mumbai-born illustrator now based in north-west London, won the top prize in the 2007 competition with his Sari for Harrow. The five metres of silk show Harrow's coat of arms and the famous public school but also the "real" Harrow - an exquisite border of its citizens including a Somali woman in a Burka, a hoodie with a mobile phone, a Gujarati housewife, a Polish builder and Afro Caribbean woman and a mullah.

Call For Entries

The Textile Directory has announced their Spellbinding Textiles Competition, open to anybody with an interest in any area of textiles, including fashion, interiors, textile art and design and 3D work.

The theme of the competition is magic and entrants are asked to produce an item based on their interpretation of this theme.

The overall winner of the competition will receive £1000 to spend on Pfaff products and there will be an exhibition of the 30 best entries at The Forge Mill Needle Museum in Redditch in February 2009.

The closing date of the competition is 31 October 2008. Anybody wishing to enter the competition will need to submit 3 - 4 images of their finished piece plus a short artist's statement by this date to or you can post a CD of your images to

The Textile Directory, 8 King Charles Court, Evesham, Worcestershire WR11 4RF

A gallery of entries will also be included on The Textile Directory website.

More information at Spellbinding Textiles Competition.

Bags2Riches 2008 is the 3rd annual handbag competition to prevent homelessness.

The brief is to create an original handbag to be eligible to win the "The Most Original Handbag Award" with Grand Prize Package. The deadline for entries is August 20, 2008.

The judges will select 10 finalists, with selection criteria including originality, unique design elements, and quality of workmanship. The finalists will be highlighted in a fashion show at the Artsgarden in downtown Indianapolis on Wednesday, October 8 2008, between 11am and 2pm. The Grand Prize winner will be determined by the most purchased votes, and each of the ten final handbags will go home with a lucky voter.

Bags not chosen to be a finalist will be sold or auctioned, with the proceeds benefiting Trusted Partners' efforts to prevent homelessness in Indianapolis. Trusted Partners is an organisation that matches volunteer mentors with families and individuals in homeless prevention programmes to increase the number of people who remain housed.

For an entry form and more information, go to www.bags2richesindy.org.

Please Touch!

Textile artists (individuals and groups) are invited to submit a piece of work for Tactile Textiles, an exhibition at The Red House Museum, in Christchurch, Dorset, from 5 July to 25 August 2008.

The exhibition will provide a stimulating and exciting experience, enabling visitors to touch the exhibits. When we are working with textiles, we are constantly handling them, yet in exhibitions the urge to touch is usually restrained by "Please do not touch" signs. This deliberately tactile exhibition will dispense with this barrier and create a display that can be touched, experienced and enjoyed by all, and especially by children and visually impaired people.

There will be various prizes including cash awards from CADArts and an Xpression Embellisher machine from Janome. In addition Workshop on the Web, the online embroidery magazine, have donated a cash prize of £50 and there are embroidery supplies from Coats Crafts UK, Fibrecrafts, Jennifer Gail Threads and Gillsew.

Organised by CADArts, (Christchurch & District Arts), the competition is open to anyone and you can enter by post if you pay the return postage. The event is being supported by the Culture, Learning and Lifestyle Action Group of the Christchurch Community Partnership.

For further details please visit the Tactile Textiles page on the CADArts web site.

Susan Sorrell has recently created the Fiber Arts/Mixed Media network on the social networking site Ning. It's free to join and members can post information about classes, artwork, techniques, shows, and web resources, share their work, seek advice, and build community. The more people who participate the more wide-ranging this resource will become, so do check it out...

Exhibition of Contemporary Textile Art

August 4th to 12th 2007 ~ Venue 10, Pittenweem Arts Festival 2007

Edge - Textile Artists Scotland have been invited to exhibit at the Pittenweem Arts Festival 2007.

The Pittenweem Arts Festival is an extremely popular major summer event and is now the highlight of the annual life of this pretty East Neuk village in Fife. The festival, which is in its 24th year, features well over seventy exhibitions, plus musical, theatrical and other events. Come along - it really is an inspiring event!

There will be a wide range of innovative and exciting textile work on display and for sale e.g. framed and unframed artworks, 3D items, bags, hats, scarves, cushions, textile jewellery, etc.

For further information please contact: D. Walker: Chairperson, 01382 776249; P Hann: Exhibitions Convenor, 01382 542749; or J Pitts: Publicity Secretary, 01738 444933.

http://www.edge-textileartists-scotland.com/events/watersedge.html
http://www.pittenweemartsfestival.co.uk/index.html

Design-a Print is a fabric design competition from The Clothes Show. The winning design fabric will be made up into a dress for the M&S range. Closing date for competition entries: 7th June 2007.