Chilean arpilleras might at first look like playful, whimsical patchworks, featuring brightly coloured houses, scattered children and blazing suns. But closer inspection reveal that they are a potent, emotionally raw form of resistance and rebellion, one that emerged during the brutalist regime of Augusto Pinochet from 1973-1989. While women were forced into submissive silence by…
Textiles and Resistance: The Art of the Chilean Arpilleristas
Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do. My name is Claire and I’m the owner of Studio Studio, a creative design practice focused on branding. On any given day of the week I’m being creative in one form or another: design work for a client, sewn or knit garments for myself, highly…
Themes of identity, belonging, transience and displacement permeate throughout the art of Tsherin Sherpa, whose art is as diverse and complex as his life. As a Tibetan born in Nepal who now lives in United States, his own life has taken its fair share of twists and turns, giving him a multitude of ideas to…
Have you ever experienced the discomfort of wearing a garment that hangs awkwardly or twists unexpectedly? Or, have you had the frustration of laundering a particular garment only to find that it has shrunk or grown unevenly? These annoying problems often come from the fabric’s grain alignment. This little detail has a big impact on…
There is a curious and unexpected dichotomy between sound and fabric in the art of Vivian Caccuri, inviting us to consider the ways in which the two are more closely interrelated than we might at first think. Primarily a sound-based artist, her recent forays into textiles has provided a tactile and sensorial element to her…
I have relocated around the world multiple times, and downsized from a house to an inner-city studio apartment. Since moving to Munich, I’ve also had to develop almost two different wardrobes to handle the more extreme temperatures, rotating my wardrobe and periodically packing away those seasonal pieces when they are not needed. Therefore, I have…
Linen and summer go together like peanut butter and jelly, they say. Okay, maybe they don’t say that… but it’s true! Living in a very hot climate is one of the many reasons my closet is mostly comprised of linen. It’s natural, so my skin is sure to not get irritated when it reaches the…
Hailing from Johannesburg, textile artist Billie Zangewa makes intricate stitched collages from raw silk that celebrate the joys and struggles of her life as a black woman and mother. Her work reflects on the ways in which black women’s wider political status bleeds into their everyday lives, a process she calls “daily feminism.” Yet there…
Taking body measurements always felt daunting, so I often avoided it. Even with a fashion design degree, our curriculum only skimmed the surface on this crucial skill, focusing instead on creating patterns for a “standard” size 10. However, a recent digital pattern-making course helped me overcome this. I had to take my full body measurements…
There is a quiet, understated elegance in the art of French painter Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, whose dreamlike paintings and murals came to encapsulate the spirit of late 19th century Symbolism. His timeless models, adorned in drapes and gowns, drift through panoramic scenes, where muted shades like PALE GREEN spill out onto the ground or…
What is more luxurious than linen pyjamas? (Okay- that is a rhetorical question because everyone has their own vision of luxury.) Linen pajamas evoke slow mornings and leisure. They are more elevated than your partner’s old sweats and a toothpaste-stained sweatshirt…which tends to be in rotation for me regularly this season. As I was preparing…
The tapestries of American textile artist Erin M. Riley are remarkably frank, depicting dark and emotionally raw subjects ranging from nude selfies and private wounds to messy, unkept tabletops scattered with the kind of awkward detritus that would make most cringe with embarrassment. In doing so, her art becomes a powerful form of catharsis, laying…
I’m sure most of us in the sewing community have experienced feeling like we have lost our “sewing mojo” – a dip in our motivation that can leave us feeling stuck and frustrated. Don’t worry! With a little self-reflection and by implementing a few of the strategies in this article we can reignite our motivation…
French 19th century artist Eugene Boudin captured vast, soaring skies filled with flickering patches of dappled cloud, which flit between soft shades of pale grey, light blue, and the hazy lilac grey of Grey Pearl. His mastery of cloud painting even prompted Barbizon painter Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot to coin Boudin as the “king of the skies.”…
I started writing (and sewing) about dopamine makes just over a year ago. Thank you for coming along this journey with me- it means the world to know there is a place that extends beyond the practical and into the….unabashed silliness of sewing with no purpose except to feel. (That is NOT to say I…
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