"Wall Flower" and "Worlds in Collision"SDA Exhibited ArtCloth WorksMarie-Therese Wisniowski

Introduction
I have exhibited a number of ArtCloth works with the Surface Design Association (SDA) in juried and members exhibitions over a period spanning almost two decades. The two ArtCloth works that have not appeared on this blogspot are Wall Flower and Worlds in Collision. Today I will rectify this oversight.

Wall Flower (ArtCloth)
Artist Statement: The Australian Waratah is a distinctive flower that was a major feature of the 1930s Japanese-styled wood block prints of Margaret Preston - a well-known Australian artist. This tribute to her places the flower in a modern context, namely, juxtaposed in front of a Post Graffiti wall.

Exhibition History: 'Surface Matters', 2009 Surface Design Association (SDA) Members Exhibition', Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, USA.

Technique and Media: Silk screened, stenciled, stamped and hand painted employing pigments, dyes, gel medium, silicate and coal on cotton.

Size: 46 cm (height) x 46 cm (width).

Wallflower (Full View).

Wallflower (Detail View 1).

Wallflower (Detail View 2).

Wallflower (Detail View 3).

Worlds in Collision (ArtCloth)
Artist Statement: Sam Harris in his book, ‘The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and Future Reason’ and Marie-Therese Wisniowski in her book, ‘Not in My Name’ both claimed the Iraq war (and the subsequent civil war) was a clash of faiths. ‘Worlds in Collision’ depicts that the clash of two world-views creates a greater devastation than the individual devastation inflicted by each, on the other.

Exhibition History: 'Sum of the Parts', 2007 Surface Design Association (SDA) Members Exhibition', Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, USA. ʻFabricateʼ, Contemporary Surface Design Exhibition, Ararat Regional Art Gallery, Ararat, Victoria, Australia (2007). ʻFabricateʼ, Contemporary Surface Design Exhibition, Textile Art at the Guild Gallery, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (2007). '2007 Australian Cotton Fibre Expo', Exhibition, Narrabri, NSW, Australia.

Technique and Media: Dyed, discharged, over dyed, lino block prints and the artist's signature matrix formatted silk screen prints on cotton.

Size: 142 cm (height) x 50 cm (width).

Worlds in Collision (Full View).

Worlds in Collision (Detail View 1).

Worlds in Collision (Detail View 2).

Worlds in Collision (Detail View 3).

The Australian Tapestry Workshop (1996 - 2004)Art EssayMarie-Therese Wisniowski

Preamble
For your convenience I have listed below other posts on tapestries:
The Australian Tapestry Workshop
The Australian Tapestry Workshop (1976 – 1985)
The Australian Tapestry Workshop (1986 – 1995)
The Australian Tapestry Workshop (1996 - 2004)
Tapestry Creations of the 1980s
Tapestries from the USA
Modern Australian Tapestries

This post gives a vignette of the work ATW completed between 1996 - 2004 and so is only a sampler - see reference [1] for further work.

Introduction
The Australian Tapestry Workshop, which was formerly known as the Victorian Tapestry Workshop, was founded in 1976.The ATW specialises in combining the ancient Art form of weaving using time honored and traditional methods that have been used since the middle ages, interpreting the artworks of leading Australian and International artists in a tapestry format.

The tapestries are an all-Australian product having being weaved using the finest Australian wool, which is spun specifically to the Workshop's specifications. The range of color is vast, comprising a palette of over 370 colors. To appreciate the scope of the color palette I have listed below some of the range. Note: The electronic device you are using may slightly alter the hue. Color swatches can be obtained from "The Australian Tapestry Workshop".

Images of the color swatches were sourced from Marie-Therese's deceased mother, Milla Wisniowski. Being an avid and experimental knitter, she bought the boxed package as a gift for Marie-Therese Wisniowski in the late 1970s. It contained all of the color yarn swatches which were available then from the Victorian Tapestry Workshop (now known as the Australian Tapestry Workshop). This heritage boxed collection of color yarn swatches was gifted by Marie-Therese Wisniowski to the Australian Museum of Clothing and Textiles Inc. Maitland, NSW, as a part of their collection.

Color range of woolen yarn 1 - 21.

Color range of woolen yarn 22 - 39.

Color range of woolen yarn 40 - 57.

Color range of woolen yarn 58 - 77.

Color range of woolen yarn 78 - 98.

Color range of woolen yarn 99 - 118.

Color range of woolen yarn 119 - 137.

Color range of woolen yarn 138 - 157.

Color range of woolen yarn 158 - 177.

Color range of woolen yarn 178 - 198.

Color range of woolen yarn 199 - 218.

Color range of woolen yarn 219 - 237.

Color range of woolen yarn 238 - 254. Note: End swatch is a variation on 247.

Color range of woolen yarn 255 - 267.

Color range of woolen yarn 268 - 288.

Color range of woolen yarn 289 - 302.

Color range of woolen yarn 303 - 318.

Color range of woolen yarn 319 - 339.

Color range of woolen yarn 340 - 360.

Color range of woolen yarn 361 - 371.

Australian Tapestry Workshop 1996 - 2004

Artist: Frank Stella (USA); Title: Untitled (February 1996).
Weavers: Hannah Rother, Joy Smith, and Sue Batten.
Size: 2.2 x 2.01 meters.
Commissioned: Tyler Graphics Ltd, New York (USA).

Artist: Emily Kame Kngwarreye; Title: Untitled (May 1996).
Weavers: Grazyna Bleja, Milena Paplinska.
Size: 1.11 x 1.13 meters.
Collection: Private collection, Paris (France).

Artist: Ginger Riley; Title: Wamungku - My Mother's Country - detailed view (June 1996).
Weavers: Merrill Duimbrell, Irja West, Mark Thrush, Amanda Markey, Claudia Lo Priore, Milena Paplinska.
Size: 4 x 8 meters.
Collection: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Canberra (Australia).

Artist: John Olsen; Title: Rising Suns Over Australia Felix - detailed view (June 1997).
Weavers: Grazyna Bleja, Merrill Dumbrell, Claudia Lo Priore, Georgina Baker, Milena Paplinska, Cheryl Thornton, Owen Hammond.
Size: 4 x 7.77 meters.
Collection: Department of Foreign of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Canberra (Australia).

Artists: Arthur Boyd; Title: Shoalhaven Forest (October 1999).
Weavers: Grazyna Bleja, Milena Paplinska.
Size: 1.8 x 2.74 meters.
Collection: Private Collection, NSW (Australia).

Artists: Christopher Pyett and Normana Wight; Title: Portrait of Dame Elisabeth Murdoch (June 2000).
Weaver: Merrill Dumbrell.
Size: 1.47 x 1.2 meters.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery, Canberra (Australia).

Detail View: Portrait of Dame Elisabeth Murdoch.

Artists: Murray Walker with contributing artists; Title: Making Do - Federation Tapestry (one panel only) (July 2001) Weavers: Merrill Dumbrell, Gerda van Hammond, Andrew Weekes, Claudio Lo Priore, Cresside Collette, Milena Paplinska Susan Mowatt.
Size: 2 x 4.4 meters.
Collection: Museum of Victoria (Australia).

Artist: Ian Woo (Singapore); Title: Forest Noise (August 2004).
Weavers: Chris Cochius, Hilary Geen, Milly Formby.
Size: 1.4 x 2.46 meters.
Collection: Mint Museum, North Carolina (USA).

Reference:
[1] S. Walker (editor), Modern Australian Tapestries From the Victorian Tapestry Workshop (now known as ATW), The Beagle Press.

Shoe Designs Based on Pre-16th Century Creations:Sandals (Part I)[1]: Wearable Art Marie-Therese Wisniowski

Introduction
Many modern shoes designs are based on shoes that were designed for a specific purpose - be it ease of wear or to overcome a particular environmental hazard. The difference is that with modern floors, pathways and roads and cityscapes, the environmental hazards for your feet have largely been removed, allowing the modern designer to exaggerate or heighten the simplistic designs to yield more complex environments for your feet.

This post centers on shoe designs that appeared before the 16^th Century that have now morphed into a more modern appearance by shoe designers less focussed on functionality and more focussed on the shoe as a wearable art accessory. Caroline Cox’s book - Shoes: A visual Celebration of Sixty Ionic Styles [1] - provided some of the images below and was also the source for most of the commentary.

Etro Spring/Summer 2011. These robust platform sandals lasso an almost nude foot with a series of leather and embellished straps [1].

An open shoe design that exposes the foot, the sandal not only appeals to people who have a foot fetish-ness, but also sub-consciously it evokes a notion of nudity, thereby eroticizing the foot.

Shoe Designs Based on Pre-16^th Century Creations: Sandals (Part I)
Acts 12:8 of the Bible states: “And the angel said unto him, ‘Gird thyself and bind on thy sandals.’ And so he did.”

The sandal was one of the earliest forms of footwear that human beings wore to protect their feet. The first use of the term sandal was to describe a form of foot-ware in which the sole of the shoe was held onto the foot by means of simple leather, rush stalks or woven papyrus straps. Sandals date back to the Ice Age and many civilizations have versions of the shoe, such as the braided zori in Japan and the paduka in India. Clearly, it was a shoe more suited for a moderate to warm Mediterranean climate such as was found in Egypt, the Middle East, Greece and of course, Italy.

Zori sandal with rice straw.

Paduka sandal.

Sandals also revealed a person's social status, distinguishing the barefoot slave from the pharaoh, who employed his own sandal bearer for important ceremonies and who wore leather sandals in preference to woven straw or palm sandals.

Egyptian Beni Hassan painting shows men wearing thonged sandals.

In Ancient Greece both men and women wore sandals, with styles ranging from heavy and practical versions to lighter with more decorative and intricate designed versions.

Ancient Greek sandals.

Roman sandals were unisex in design, with soles of cork and leather straps or laces. Soldiers wore caliga - a form of sandal with a leather sole and nails tapped into it in order to create a pattern of the ground that identified the legion to whom the wearer belonged.

Caliga sandal.

The fashionable rather than the functional sandal disappeared until the 1920s when it reappeared as a form of beach fashion with the launch of the French Riviera as a fashionable destination. By the 1930s designer André Perugia was responsible for moving the sandal from the beach to the dance floor, after creating a range of high-heeled sandals for evening wear. One of his most renowned designs was a pair of gray leather Louis-heeled peep-toe sandals for celebrated dancer Josephine Baker in 1928 based on her trademark turban.

Josephine Baker [1].
This American stage performer stunned 1920s Paris with her dare-to-bare custumes and cutaway sandals.

The term sandal was now habitually used to describe a shoe in which the foot was visible and the straps were conspicuous. It was in this era that the seductive nature of the shoe began to be most apparent, particularly in the hands of David Evins, who was a footware designer to the stars. Evins’ most famous design is tabular, strapped, multicolored, pavé wedge sandal worn by Claudette Colbert in the film Cleopatra (1934); other customers included the Duchess of Winsor, Judy Garland, Elizabeth Taylor and Grace Kelly.

Claudette Colbert in the film Cleopatra (1934). Note her feet.

From the 1930s through mid-1950s, Italian shoemaker Salvatore Ferrangamo was responsible for creating some of the most extravagantly experimental sandals. Designs included the “Kimo” of 1951, a sandal with an interchangeable gold, red, or black satin ankle sock and high-cut, interlaced straps made of burnt-gold soft leather.

Salvatore Ferragamo presents his creation: 'kimo', a sandal with a colored leather sock.
Photograph courtesy of David Lees (1951).

He also created the “Vtrea” of 1952-54, a gold soft leather slingback sandal with tapered wooden high heel and a vinyl peep-toe strap decorated with pearls, pink glass and topaz beads.

Sandal, 1940. A high heel and platform sole in kid-covered cork, designed by Salvatore Ferragamo (Italian, 1898–1960)

The strappy sandal maintained its popularity between the 1930s to 1950s; in the latter era designs that were prominent were T-bars and slingbacks giving the feet a “nude” appearance that matched the femininity of eveningwear inspired by the “New Look”.

Slingback sandal [1].
Pink suede “Amanda” sandal with leather corsage by Givenchy (2003).

By the end of the 1960s the practical sandal was revived once more by the hippie movement that began to influence mainstream fashion. Young people in North America, Europe and elsewhere advocated a return to simple life, leaving behind the excesses of the space age 1960s. The flat earthbound sandal made a re-appearance. The Birkenstock sandal launched in 1964 perfectly catered to this new market, with its contoured foot bed made out of layered cork and strong thread – it became a badge for the environmentalist, particularly due to its sustainable sole.

In the 2000s, the humble Birkenstock underwent a major rebranding exercise and a series of limited editions were seen on the feet of such celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Aniston.

Gwyneth Paltrow wearing Arizona black Birkenstock sandals.

After being revived during the heady days of the 1970s disco by Andrea Pfister and Kurt Geiger, the high heeled strappy sandal remains a popular evening and summer shoe, from Manolo Blahnik’s gold leather “Sizzle Sandal” of the 1990s through to Jimmy Choo’s red satin thong sandal of 2003.

From Left to Right [1]: (i) Ankle-tie sandal. Fashioned by Andrea Pfister in bronze leather with beaded toe straps (1990); (ii) Flamboyant sandal. By Christian Lacroix in purple satin silk and multicolored calf leather.

From Left to Right [1]: (i) Minimalist sandal. Black velvet sandal with fixed strass chain by Vera Wang (1997); (ii) Platform sandal. A typically maverick constructivist design by Pierre Hardy covered in multicolored suede (2010); (iii) Butterfly sandal. Yves Saint-Lauren’s patent leather sandal uses a motif to give a symbolic flight to the feet (1983).

Reference:
[1] C. Cox, Shoes: A Visual Creation of Sixty Ionic Styles, New Burlington Books, London (2012).