Tapestry: Changing Concepts – exhibition highlights
Tapestry: Changing Concepts opened at the City Art Centre, Edinburgh in November and will run until March 2022. The show looks fantastic, with many pieces I would be happy to take home with me. We have also had some good press coverage: ‘Fresh Fruit of…
How to put together a tapestry show
In about two weeks, a big exhibition of tapestry will open at the City Art Centre in Edinburgh. Four years in the making, Tapestry: Changing Concepts is a collaboration between the venue and Scottish Tapestry Artists Regrouped (STAR*). Why does a show need four years…
The Year of Grief
2020 was a hard year for all of us, but I had a particularly bad time. My mother died in March, and my soulmate, Barry, in August. Various things helped to keep me going – friends and family, my dog, the allotment (community garden) and…
Scam Alert Part II
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog article about how a Dr Paul Donna had stolen the blurb from my book, Tapestry Weaving: Design and Technique, and published a book of his own called Tepestry [sic] Weaving – The Pratical [sic] Guide to…
9/11 and my exhibition
About twenty years ago, in September 2001, I was excited that my solo touring show, Unmarked Lives, was about to open at the New Jersey Center for Visual Arts in Summit, NJ. I had spent decades researching my ancestors, who were Jewish-Lithuanian, Jewish-Ukrainian, Japanese and…
Miniature Tapestries
Featured image, Flying, miniature textile by Joanne Soroka, 20 x 20 x 9 cm, cut Japanese paper, exhibited at Miniartextil, Como A large tapestry is a major commitment for an artist to embark on, since it may be three months or even more in the…
The Year of Tapestry
Among the cognoscenti, Edinburgh is known as the epicentre of tapestry weaving. Starting with the founding of the Dovecot Studios in 1912 and the inception of the Tapestry Department at Edinburgh College of Art fifty years later, the city has been long been home to…
The Art is the Cloth
Tapestry weaving has gained a new prominence lately, with quite a few books published on the subject. They range from how-to ones to histories of the medium in general or about a given work, era or workshop. But until now, there haven’t been any that…
What’s so special about tapestry weaving?
One of the great strengths of tapestry weaving is the surfaces that can be created. Each medium has its positives, and with tapestry, yarns can be used in multiple ways to create texture in bas relief or even into the third dimension. Here are a…
Art in the time of coronavirus
With the current pandemic, we are in a life-and-death situation, all feeling isolated and scared. Most of us are doing our best to comply with medical advice and government regulations. We are practising social distancing by staying at home and minimising contact with others. Tapestry…