TCD Loose Threads Archive - June 2009

• Wendy Weiss and Jay Kreimer mount "Landscape with Floating Biology"
• TCD Alumna Dr. Eulanda Sanders selected for CEHS Masters Week honors
• TCD Students and Faculty enjoy successful European Study Tour

Landscape with Floating Biology (detail view)

In conjunction with the Surface Design OFF THE GRID 2009 international textile conference Wendy Weiss and Jay Kreimer of Lincoln, NE presented Landscape with Floating Biology at the Cocoon Gallery in the Arts Incubator of Kansas City the week of May 25th. The show continues through June 27th. The gallery is located at 115 W. 18th Street, Kansas City, MO 64108. The gallery contact person is Jeff Becker (816) 916-8970. Hours of Operation: Thursday- Sat 11- 3 or by appointment.

Kreimer and Weiss describe this new work, which they previewed in Beijing at the Beyond Thoreau conference in October 2008, in this way: “We leave the constructed grid and make an alternative installation, a landscape of tree-like handwoven, natural dyed cylinders, printed suspended figures, and natural forms. An embedded sound score made from field recordings and immediate electro-acoustic sources responds to the varied presence of people in the gallery. Triggers animate the weavings and biological forms. Some of the weavings hang vertically while others tilt off the grid or tumble onto the ground like trees felled in a storm.”

Professor Weiss recently returned from a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Award semester in India where she worked with master weavers to document the practice called Patola or double ikat weaving.

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TCD alumna Dr. Eulanda Sanders has been selected by the College of Education and Human Sciences to participate in Masters Week 2009. This prestigious honor recognizes graduates of the college who have distinguished themselves in their professions and careers. Masters Week provides an opportunity for outstanding alumni to share their career experiences and to serve as role models for CEHS students.

Dr. Sanders is Associate Professor in the Department of Design & Merchandising at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado. Among her major areas of research/creative scholarship and teaching are apparel design & production, CAD and patternmaking, social psychological aspects of African American appearance, knitwear production, historic reproductions and material reuse. In 2009 she launched Yo-San Studio LLC where she serves as Design Director for her signature collections of wearable art textiles. Dr. Sanders is a member of the International Textile and Apparel Association and has exhibited her design work widely.

All of TCD congratulates Eulanda Sanders on this singular honor and looks forward to welcoming her November 4 – 6.

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Twenty-eight TCD majors along with faculty members Dr. Barbara Trout and Dr. Diane Vigna recently returned from a two-week study tour to Prague, Czech Republic and Paris, France. Although they returned very tired, the students now know their way around both of these historic European cities. While they caught the tourist highlights for which these cities are widely known, they experienced many things beyond the usual tourist haunts. Dr.Trout points out that they now know not only Prague but also Bohemia, that they enjoyed a performance of Puccini's La Bohème, and that they could claim Paris’ Montparnasse as their French home base. The group experienced a heavy dose of Art Nouveau, Art Deco and the Baroque art and design, including an exhibit on Baroque costume at the Chateau de Versailles, which they described as, in a word, brilliant! At the Yves St. Laurent archives they got a close-up look at an exhibition of native regional Russian dress.

Czech designer Jaroslava Procheslova (in sunglasses) and a university colleague discuss apparel design design particulars at the Academy of Arts, Architecture & Design in Prague

Czech fashion designers Jaroslava Procheslova and Tatiana Kovarikova, who exhibited their work last winter in the Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery and visited numerous TCD classes at the time, proved to be amazing reciprocal hosts in Prague where they took the group into their showrooms and ateliers and shared their business and design models. Visits to major Czech design schools including the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design expanded the students’ and faculty’s thinking about textile and apparel education. In summary, the trip was exciting and enlightening on many levels. While this trip will be a tough act to follow, the May 2010 Study Tour to China promises to be as culturally expansive and eye-opening as any study tour can be. Look for opportunities to learn more about next year’s trip in the coming months.

Students debriefing on the steps of the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague with designer Jaroslava Procheslova (center)

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