TCD Loose Threads Archive - April 2009

• Messages in Cloth April 19 - 24 at the Rotunda Gallery
• TCD UCARE students present at annual Research Fair
• Students elect Montage officers for 2009 - 2010
• TCD Grad students Mary Pattavina and Jonathan Gregory win CEHS awards
• Friends group meets for gallery-related brainstorming
• Dr. Jennifer Harris's keynote presentation kicks of 4th IQSC symposium

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Messages in Cloth April 19 - 24 at the Rotunda Gallery

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TCD UCARE students present at annual Research Fair

Madison Simmons with works from her UCARE project developed using digital technology including the department's Mimaki digital textile printer

Several TCD students recently participated in the Undergraduate Research Fair held annually to showcase research and creative work generated by students working in the Undergraduate Creative Experiences and Research Activities (UCARE) Program. Various TCD faculty commit to mentoring undergraduates through the program, a two-year commitment in which students first explore the faculty member’s area of research and then develop their own research or creative projects.

Pages from Madison Simmons' sketchbook show idea development for her child's dress series

 

Madison Simmons has worked for the past two years with Prof. Michael James on Digital Repeat Design and Printing and became very familiar with the department’s Mimaki digital textile printer and its operations. Madison developed a series of images that she printed on silk organza as the outcome of her interest in old photographs scavenged from second hand and antique stores and the ways that these types of images can evoke unexpected emotions in the viewer. “What I learned in developing the imagery for my child’s dresses is that they represent my own fears and anxieties about my own future.”

 

Last month Madison’s dresses were included in the annual undergraduate student exhibition at the Eistentrager-Howard Gallery in the Department of Art & Art History, where she is pursuing a second degree in addition to her TCD major. By a vote of the A&AH faculty, her dress series was awarded the Dan and Barbara Howard Creative Achievement Award of $1000. Madison subsequently showed the series at Indigo Bridge Books in Lincoln’s Haymarket, and is currently showing them in the central display case in the TCD corridor.

 

Assistant Prof. Young Ha with TCD Merchandising major Liz Nguyen and her UCARE project "Online Visual Merchandising Cues: Hispanic Apparel Websites vs. U.S. Apparel Websites."

Also presenting their UCARE projects at the Research Fair were Liz Nguyen (UCARE w/Dr. Ha); Kathryn Alms (UCARE w/Carol Easley; and Alison Goding and Cashmere Boehle (w/Dr. Barbara Trout).

Kathryn Alms worked with Carol Easley on a project entitled Concept to Consumer: Exploring the Product Development Process and developed a collection of men's casual shirts using design artwork by Dan Hergert and printing them on silk broadcloth on the Mimaki.

 

Alison Goding (l.) and Cashmere Boehle (r.) both worked with Dr. Barbara Trout. Ali's UCARE project From Mourning Veils to Fashion Statement and Cashmere's project Black in Japanese Fashion will contribute valuable information for next Fall's Hillestad Gallery exhibiton Power and Pragmatism: Beyond the Little Black Dress

Congratulations to each of these students on the culmination and completion of their two-year UCARE commitments!

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Students elect Montage officers for 2009 - 2010

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TCD Grad students Mary Pattavina and Jonathan Gregory win CEHS awards

 TCD graduate students Jonathan Gregory and Mary Pattavina

Kudos to Mary Pattavina, who’s been awarded the 2009 CEHS Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award, and to Jonathan Gregory, recipient of the college’s 2009 Graduate Student Research Award.

Mary has been working with Dr. Young Ha and under her guidance has taught TXCD 312 Product Development II. Mary is currently preparing for her thesis exhibition, to open April 20 in the Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery.

Jonathan Gregory is working toward his doctorate in Textile History/Quilt Studies under the mentorship of Dr. Patricia Crews. Jonathan was instrumental in helping her and Marin Hanson advance the first volume of the Getty-funded catalogue American Quilts in the Modern Age 1870 – 1940, recently published by the University of Nebraska Press (see below).

Congratulations to both of these hard working graduate students! 

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Friends group meets for gallery-related brainstorming

 

 FRHTG board members Nancy Childs (l.) and Sue Rieber (r.) toast the Friends and the success of their gallery initiatives.

 On Friday March 27 Dean of Undergraduate Studies and TCD  faculty member Dr. Rita Kean hosted at her home an evening of food, drink, fun conversation and brainstorming for board members of the Friends of the Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery. The principal support group for the gallery, the Friends have been instrumental in moving forward numerous gallery-related projects, from the recent  Celebration Threads  exhibition of work by Dr. Robert Hillestad and the accompanying monograph on his work that they published, to the summer 2009 gallery renovation that is expected to get underway in May.

  Friends President Victoria Kovar and board members Jennifer Graham and Tina Koeppe at the board get-together.

The evening was an opportunity for members to get to know each other better, share their interests, and consider new ideas for special events in support of the gallery. Friends President Victoria Kovar welcomed the group and led the discussion that capped off the evening. 

 

 

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Dr. Jennifer Harris's keynote presentation kicks of 4th IQSC symposium

 

The Global Quilt: Cultural Contexts attendees and members of the general public listen to Dr. Jennifer Harris, opening keynote speaker for this 4th IQSC symposium 

The fourth IQSC symposium, The Global Quilt: Cultural Contexts opened on Thursday evening April 2 in the reception hall of the new IQSC Museum building. Keynote speaker Dr. Jennifer Harris, Deputy Director/Curator of Textiles at the Whitworth Art Gallery which is part of the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, spoke on "Innovation and Tradition in Contemporary Craft Practice". Dr. Harris has most recently curated the major exhibitions Take 4: New Perspectives on the British Art Quilt,, and Indigo: A Blue to Dye For.

Her provocative talk, accompanied by a selection of slides featuring primarily British artists, raised several important points relative to the critical discourse surrounding the so-called 'art' or 'studio' quilt. Dr. Harris positioned quilt and textile artists such as Pauline Burbidge within a Positivist framework and sees them as building on and extending traditional practice. By contrast, 'blue chip' artists such as Tracey Emin, working in the mainstream but appropriating such craft forms as the quilt, deliberately subvert conventional notions of domestic objects and turn them to more ironic purposes. Her talk was recorded and will soon be available on the IQSC's website.

The symposium continues through Saturday April 4 at the Holiday Inn in downtown Lincoln. A closing keynote address by Dr. Jacqueline Atkins, the Kate Fowler Merle-Smith Curator of Textiles at the Allentown Art Museum (Allentown, PA) takes place at 10:30 on Saturday.

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