Kate Kretz ("The Final Word" (detail), 2012, embroidery on black cotton velvet, 24 x 18")

As I was writing Hoopla, I became fascinated with the long tradition of Chinese hair embroidery ‘Moxiu’ and Victorian mourning jewelry which was often crafted with the hair of lost loved ones. Contemporary examples are always fascinating to me, so when Kate Kretz alerted me to her art show, I was instantly intrigued:

“This Sharp World…”, a solo exhibition by artist Kate Kretz, opens this week. The exhibition features embroideries made with human hair, edgy embroidery employing extensive stumpwork and dense layers of French Knots, as well as paintings incorporating embroidery and silverpoint drawings on found silver objects.

The exhibition will be on until June 2nd at at Hardcore Art Contemporary Space in Miami

A visual catalog of work from the exhibition can be seen at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/katekretz/sets/72157629594506999/

Kretz’s hair embroideries were featured in the “Pricked: Extreme Embroidery” exhibition at the Museum of Arts & Design in NYC. Her embroidery has been reviewed / featured in the New York Times, Surface Design Magazine, 1626 Magazine, (Guangzhou, China), American Craft Magazine, Fiber Arts Magazine, and PASAJES DISEÑO, a Spanish Design Magazine, and chosen as the cover image for the “The Chaffey Review”, an LA-based literary magazine.

Kretz is best known for her 2006 painting, “Blessed Art Thou”, depicting Angelina Jolie as the Virgin Mary hovering above a Wal-Mart. The painting has appeared in every major newspaper in the world, all the major news networks, and continues to appear internationally in textbooks across disciplines.

Kate Kretz

Death Looks for Love - Mary M. Mazziotti

Death Looks for A Date - Mary M. Mazziotti

Mary M. Mazziotti sent me some images from her incredible macabre but charming series ‘Death Gets Married’. Take a look at her website www.mazziottiart.com to see the whole series.

Hukrodama – Embroidery by Takashi Iwasaki

Ever wonder what it would be like to go to New York City and see your embroidery work in a gallery show?

Takashi Iwasaki, Hoopla book interviewee from Winnipeg Manitoba,  did just that this past November. His work was shown as part of Full Fathom Five at the Jenkins Johnson Gallery on West 26th Street.

Here are some photographs from the trip that he took to New York with his adorable wife Shih-Han:

He says, “Shih-Han and I really had a great time sharing our experience and thoughts, seeing “Chicago” show on Broadway, eating good food, meeting some of my friends, visiting many galleries, and a bit of shopping.”

“We ate a huge lobster at Chelsea Market and pastry at some places. We love eating, so those were our great memories! The High Line’s renovation has been completed (it had been an abandoned rail way in the middle of city for many decades, but it have just become a park/walkway), and we walked on it for many blocks. The day we did was a very sunny perfect day for a walk, and there was a good amount of people on the path. It really is a great place for a walk to see the city from a very different perspective. If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend you to next time!”

Little did 12 year old Mary Antrim know that her domestic sampler, created in 1807, would be sold at auction for $1,070,500 in the year 2011.

Sotheby’s auction house had only estimated it worth between $80,000-120,00 USD.

Eliot, a beat box artist and crafty superstar from Berlin, cross-stitches graffiti style artwork onto stretched canvases. I interviewed him for Hoopla, and within the book we discuss the cross stitching in relation to his path as a graffiti artist. His work is bright, colorful, and tongue in cheek.

Eliot has also written a blog post on Hoopla that shows pieces of his artwork which were published in the book. Take a look at all of his art on his site, and don’t miss the beat boxing videos in the music section. They are not to be missed.

Thanks Eliot!

Image from Miss Cross Stitch: http://misscrossstitch.wordpress.com

In the same school as Ulrika Urdes’ public embroideries, not only does this woman create ‘street embroidery’, but she has also made patterns out of her designs and sells kits. I quote:

Now you are able to beautify your surroundings for your own: Here you can get the first Embroidery-Kit, which contains all the things you need, a light and weather-resistant rope, tie-wraps and a detailed instruction manual. It´s available in 4 different motives at Dawanda.

Traditional motifs of ducks, hearts, and flowers somehow look much more appealing when they are large and on iron.

After leaving Winnipeg on the east coast lag of my tour, I had one day at home in Vancouver before it was time to be off to sunny San Francisco. My first stop was the amazing Craft Bar with Etsy Labs ($1 beers while you learn a new craft. amazing.) at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art in San Francisco. If you are ever in SF during one of these events, I highly recommend stopping in!

Craft bar seated about 100 people and there was a group of extremely skilled craft teachers (most of them part of the Etsy SF Street Team) who quickly learned to teach Siobhan Long’s Photo Feelism project from Hoopla: The Art of Unexpected Embroidery to attendees.

Sherri Lynn Wood, who I featured in the book, arrived with one of her infamous embroidered tattooed baby dolls. This is the very last doll in the series that she started in the mid-nineties. Everyone wanted to look at this doll – it was a really special experience to be able to see it. This was seeing embroidery history in the making.

Karyn Fraser, who designed the beautiful All Aflutter Necklaces featured in Hoopla also attended the event. It was great to be able to meet both of these women who were a big part of the book.

Some of the attendees came up with some really inventive interpretations of the historical photographs that they were given to stitch on:

It was such a fun night! Craft bar was followed by an amazing tour of San Francisco. We rode cable cars, had our fortunes told at the Musee Mechanique, shopped at the 826 Valencia Pirate Store, visited the Curiosity Shoppe, and ate too many wonderful Mexican and Italian meals.

A few days later, it was off to Nine Rubies in San Mateo. When we arrived at the store we were greeted by a luxe, knit-graffiti gate created by Saloni, Christine and the staff of Nine Rubies:

Local artist Scott Hamilton had made an amazing window display of mohair pillars. My iphone camera does not do these justice. They were beautiful in person!

After I talked about both Yarn Bombing and Hoopla, I received a very kind invitation from Lucy Barter to come see work by students of the Royal School of Needlework at the local Hyatt. The school, which is based in England, has an outreach program in the Bay area twice a year. Students learn traditional techniques, including goldwork, blackwork, stumpwork,and silk shading. Many of the students I met that last night were working towards certificates in embroidery under Lucy’s guidance.

After San Francisco, it was a short plane ride to Portland, Oregon to the In Other Words feminist bookstore and resource centre, famously parodied on Portlandia. The volunteers were gracious and kind, and thought the parody was funny. It was a stormy night, so we had a small crowd mostly of book contributors – including Penny Nickels and Johnny Murder, Amy Adoyzie, and Cate Anevski who all answered questions about their work.

I could not leave Portland without visiting Powell’s books and sampling some craft beer. I went to Deschutes and had some of their ‘End of the World’ stout. It was delicious.

From Portland, we took the train to Seattle. We only had one night in Seattle, so we took in the new(ish) Rem Koolhaas-designed downtown library, which had some banana yellow escalators and red inferno-esque meeting rooms. I loved it. They even have an established room in the library for writers to work undisturbed. Amazing.

Then it was off to Assemble Gallery and Studio, the host of my Seattle event. I was so honoured by Andie and Emily’s crafty window display.

Assemble is a dream boutique and workshop space – by which I mean, I wish I lived close enough to be there all the time. They have a wonderfully curated selection of books, jewelry, embroidery kits, stationary supplies, and cool nick-knacks. Both women obviously have great taste and strong design sensibilities. It is a must-see in Seattle.They also host classes in book-binding, needlework, sewing, and other crafts.

I purchased some silkscreened wooden buttons for a friend and a Print Workshop book for myself.

After giving a brief talk about the artists in the book, we got down to business, drank some white wine, and worked on some stitching projects.

The participants made fun projects and we left a crafty mess behind. All in all, it was a successful night!

The tour was definitely the highlight of 2011, and an experience that I will always remember. It was so good to meet so many of those who contributed to the book and find out what crafters are up to in other places. The trip taught me many life lessons including:

1. Always bring an extension cord. You will need it.
2. Don’t expect to embroidery much when talking about embroidery to strangers. You will end up with a mess.
3. Customs officers do not know what embroidery thread is. It is better to say ‘sewing supplies’ and make grand hand gestures in the air.
4. Independent bookstore and craft store owners are among the most generous people.
5.  The Occupy movement (I saw it everywhere that I traveled) is unique to each city
6. Powdered energy drinks will explode in your suitcase
7. After a long day, cheap Trader Joe’s wine IS good
8. Using twitter on your phone in another country is very expensive
9. The Bart doesn’t run as early in the morning as you think it should. Sometimes it IS better to take a cab.
10. Urban Spoon is actually quite helpful.
11. Craft tourism is at its best when you buy supplies that you can’t get at home (linen thread, anyone?)
12. People, and crafters in particular, are amazing.

Christopher Pendergast and Matilda Tumin in their studio (photo Clare Gee)

Curious about the strange stitched animal on the Hoopla book cover? Read this wonderful interview from Northings with contributing Scotish artists Tumim & Prendergast to learn more about the motivations behind their work.

Also, related to Hoopla, pattern designer Andrea Drajewicz wrote a great post about contributing to the book and how she conceived of her pattern for a embroidered graffiti project: http://kidsbyhand.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/as-promised-hoopla-pics.

My book tour has come full circle, and I’m back in Vancouver, prepping for local events. The first is this coming weekend on beautiful Bowen Island. Here are the details:

Author and Artist Talk
Sat. Oct. 22, 2011 at The Gallery
589 Artisan Lane, Bowen Island
For all who love art and textiles with a dash of whimsy!

Event schedule:
4:30pm – Doors open
5:00pm – Author Leanne Prain talk & slideshow presentation
6:00pm – Local artist Sarah Haxby brief talk & stitchwork demonstration
6:15pm – Question & Answer, book signing, sales and nibbles

Thank you to the Bowen Island Fibre Arts Guild`s members, and supporters of this event. This event is organized by the artist Sarah Haxby, whose new work is featured in the book.

Free/admission by donation, all ages are welcome to attend! I will be discussing Hoopla: The Art of Unexpected Embroidery and also a little bit about my first book Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti.

In Toronto I visited the eclectic Kensington Market. There was a car turned into a garden and some interesting graffiti.

I also got to spend some quality time with Diane Yee, who has designed both of my books, and her cute son Sullivan. We ate chocolate-garlic ice cream (yes, you read that right), Korean food, and the most amazing salads at a restaurant called Hibiscus. We also visited the Textile Museum of Canada which has a really fun hands-on room where you can play with looms, test your fibre knowledge, and play with all sorts of textiles.

Beautiful embroideries at the textile museum.

Next up was the Toronto launch of Hoopla at the stunning Type Books on Queen Street West. Everything that I’d heard about this book store was accurate. It was beautiful and it had a well curated book selection.

I managed to eat a lot of wonderful Italian food in Toronto. Thanks to Jessie, Mike, Diane, and Alia for introducing me to some very good restaurants, including Terroni.

And, on my way to lunch with Alia, I noticed a young girl and her grandmother finger knitting on the Toronto subway.

Next up was Park Slope, Brooklyn where I fell in love with each and every brownstone.

After some lunch with Dory Kornfeld who kindly showed me around the ‘hood, I bought some linen embroidery thread at the well-stocked Fibre Notion.

Then I took off to Textile Arts for the Brooklyn Launch of Hoopla with artists Richard Saja, Iviva Olenick, Annie Coggan-Crawford and project designers Malarie Burgess and Erin Stanton.

Textile arts is a wonderful space.

The day following the event, I had an epic 14 hour walk around Manhattan.

Then it was back to Canada. Hello Winnipeg! Winnipeg was the friendliest place that I’ve ever been.

I arrived in the middle of their Nuit Blanche festival, an all night art party near the city art gallery. Both yarn bombing and embroidery were on-site.

The next day I met Takashi Iwasaki. We had an event together at the stunning McNally Robinson bookstore which is as epic as Powells in Portland and Strand in New York City.

Takashi’s embroidered works:

My days in Winnipeg concluded with some sight-seeing of the Osborne and Exchange Districts, and some of the best sushi that I’d ever had.

Next stop, San Francisco! If you are on the West Coast, please take a look at my San Mateo, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle event details on my book tour page and come out to stitch & bitch, listen to a talk, or just to say hi.