Trace Evidence Symposium

This has been such a whirl wind weekend of activity. I attended the Trace Evidence Symposium at UNC in Raleigh, curated by Barbara Lee Smith. The symposium explored thoughts of how textiles serve as an accessible and suitable medium for communicating the interconnected traceries of the paths we travel. A number of layered elements comprise this event. There were several panel discussions, a keynote address called Affective Objects: The Re-invention of Craft by Dr. Glenn Adamson, Deputy Head of Research and Head of Graduate Studies, Victoria and Albert Museum, and a lunch address by Dr. Blanton Godfrey, Dean, NCSU College of Textiles. Panels focused on the Creative Community, Moving Into New Terrain (Panelists: Marian Bijlenga (recent work in Mali); Dorothy Caldwell (research in Canadian Arctic and Australia); Vita Plume (work in Latvia); and Gail Rieke (travels in the far east), Challenging Assumptions (Moderator: Aly Khalifa. Panelists: Cynthia Deis (Ornamentea); Andrea Donnelly (artist); Anne Porterfield (PhD. student and designer), and Artist and the Environment. Noted textile artists and College of Design faculty Susan Brandeis, Vita Plume and Jan-Ru Wan served as panelists together with artists in the Traces exhibition. In addition to the AMAZING exhibition at the Gregg Museum of Art, a number of institutions throughout the Raleigh area were hosting textile exhibitions during the symposium. We were shuttled around to the various locations. Tour stops included: College of Design, Artspace, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, College of Textiles, and Meredith College, among others. Whew! Additionally, I literally stumbled down the stairs this morning getting my coffee and twisted my ankle. So, I'm settled into my pj's, leg propped up with an ice pack, and preparing to flip through the Traces exhibition catalog. I'll be posting some images of the artists work from the show, so stay tuned.
Among my favorite talks was Challenging Assumptions: Artists Who Work Outside Traditional Materials, with panelists: Carol Ann Carter (video, found materials); Kyong Ae Cho (slices of wood, natural materials); Marc Dombrosky (found papers); Clare Verstegen (industrial felt, silk screen, wood burning tools); and Jan-Ru Wan (coffee filters, fishhooks, rusted needles).