Soo Line Historical Museum - More Textiley Things

One never knows when a flash of inspiration for a work will strike.

Often an article stimulates a childhood memory and links to later life experiences.

Are you old enough to remember when general stores wrapped their customers' purchases in brown paper torn off a large roll.....

...and tied it with string. In the home, both brown paper and string were kept, along with the purchase because both had many further uses. Recycling is not a new concept, but maybe it could be expressed as an idea in a work using brown paper to reference another time of recycling?

Hand-cranked sock making machine

Textile related artifacts in museums often attract the eye of a fibre artist. Textile history is as long as human history so the fibre artist has a treasure trove of knowledge and techniques to pull from.

Spinning Niddy Noddy for making yarn into skeins ready to dye.

Every culture fashioned tools and equipment to work with fibre and cloth.

Often these tools are 'known' to us even when we have no idea how to use or operate them.

Any one of these textile related artifacts could stimulate the percolation of a new work for the fibre artist. 

During study sessions and retreats, Articulation members visit the local museums as well as the art galleries to provide depth and authenticity to their research. Observing, drawing, note taking and photographing and talking about primary resources makes a stronger connection to history, a more sensory-rich response to the environment and allows personal memories to be reactivated. The resulting work can have layers of meaning contained in a simple design, concept or story expressed in fibre and stitch that everyone can relate to on some level.