FGP – Page 6 – FiberArts Guild of Pittsburgh

Membership Exhibition-Behind the Mask – Entry deadline

A Juried Members’ Exhibition of the Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh. Where: Latrobe Art Center – 819 Ligonier Street, Latrobe, PA 15650 When: October 6th – November 2nd, 2022 Opening Reception: Thursday, October 6, 2022 – 6 to 8PM Chairperson: Carolyn Carson: carolyncarson753@hotmail.com and Barb Kubala: hangarounds@verizon.net Entry Deadline: August 1, 2022 Exhibition prospectus Submit your …

A Juried Members’ Exhibition of the Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh. Where: Latrobe Art Center – 819 Ligonier Street, Latrobe, PA 15650 When: October 6th – November 2nd, 2022 – Monday-Saturday 10AM to 5PM Opening Reception: Thursday, October 6, 2022 – 6 to 8PM Chairperson: Carolyn Carson: carolyncarson753@hotmail.com and Barb Kubala: hangarounds@verizon.net Entry Deadline: August 1, …

Opening weekend for Fiberart International 2016 is steaming toward us like a freight train — packed with art, anticipation, and festivities! Lots of last minute preparations behind the scenes before the gala opening on May 6, just weeks away! A favorite part of every FI is inspection week-end when one of our jurors returns to examine each piece live for the first time.

Lucky Guild volunteers make up the white gloved crew who carry out this essential operation. We open each crate with special care, document the condition and note how each piece was packed. After inspection the work is re-packed for storage until installation. Not only is this an opportunity to check out the detail and incredible craftsmanship of your favorite artworks but also to engage with the juror about all things fiberart. Even if you’ve seen the images a dozen times, as some volunteers have — the scale, texture, and power of each piece is a joy to experience firsthand.

Clean out your studio–it’s potluck time!

The holidays are over, it’s cold, snowy, and gray — so you know it’s gotta be time for our potluck fundraiser at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts! This annual event is one of our most cherished traditions. Just when the doldrums of winter start to settle in, we gather together. We clean out our studios, …

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard about Fiberart International (FI), the amazing show our guild produces every three years. The exhibition is so big, it takes up two simultaneous venues: the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and Society for Contemporary Craft. But what you may not know is that we are famous (yes we are!) for hosting a great opening week-end where FI artists from all over the world gather to meet and talk about our beloved medium – fiber art. And the best part is our members are deep in the thick of it all. We all have the awesome opportunity to shmooze, help out, and participate as much as we want. On Sunday January 10th volunteer guild members old and new gathered together to learn all about FI2016.

Happy New Year! There is so much to look forward to in 2016. FGP’s public art installation PoP des Fleurs ,designed by Rae Gold, opens at the Carnegie Library main branch in February and continues to PoP throughout the library system leading up to our critically acclaimed Fiberart International 2016 opening at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and the Society for Contemporary Craft in May.

But we are not the only group with big plans for the new year. Recently FGP President Susan Swarthout and I met with the newly formed Steel City Fiber Collective. Anna Sylvester, Becca Kreiger, Cheryl Koester and Nora Swisher met through a local Stitch n’ Bitch group and together they saw a need for a warm and inviting place where fiber artists and crafters could meet and share. Members would join for a fee and have access to space, tools and equipment that is often too expensive or cumbersome to buy as an individual; think Tech shop but devoted to all things fiber and is affordable.

Elisabeth Higgins O’Connor at SCC

Meet the artist and share her vision

At a recent guild-sponsored lecture at Contemporary Craft, featured Bridge 13 artist Elisabeth Higgins O’Connor talked about the evolution of her style and body of work. Guild secretary Wanda Spangler-Warren took her usual meticulous notes and lent them to us for this post. Thanks, Wanda!

The huge, grotesquely charming, animal-ish forms lumbering around SCC’s gallery owe their existence to a series of happy accidents involving drywall screws, the Iraq war, and a truckload of discarded cushions. Which is just another way of saying O’Connor never met a random input she couldn’t use.

Detail: Wanna do right...but not right now — Detail: Wanna do right…but not right now

As a resident artist in Kohler’s Arts/industry Program, O’Connor learned the slip casting method of making vitreous china, a technique she would later intentionally corrupt by using found objects, creating animal hybrids with ceramic heads and fabric bodies. Perhaps more importantly, Kohler made available to her a huge inventory of hardware – screws, wires, and grommets – which she used to assemble her figures in obvious and deliberate ways.

Tina Williams-Brewer, Governor Wolf, Laura Domencic

Inaugural Exhibition at the State Museum in Harrisburg

One of the great things about being a member of FGP is the opportunity to meet, know and learn from accomplished fiber artists. Tina Williams Brewer, Master Visual Artist, is one of the most distinguished in our region. I had a chance to chat with Tina recently about her inclusion in the special Inaugural Exhibition at the State Museum, Harrisburg, Pa January 20, – February 15, 2015.

Membership Exhibition-Behind the Mask – Entry deadline

Membership Exhibition-Behind the Mask

Membership Exhibition-Behind the Mask

FI16 inspection highlights… and register NOW for the Forum!

Clean out your studio–it’s potluck time!

Help make FI16 the best Fiberart International ever!

Happy 2016! Time to PoP, Open FI16 and Meet the Steel City Fiber Collective!

Elisabeth Higgins O’Connor at SCC

Tina Williams Brewer

Inaugural Exhibition at the State Museum in Harrisburg