sew loved

The Sew Loved art show is here!


Where: New City School's Delano Gallery, Saint Louis, Missouri.
When: 2012 Winter-Spring show
Why: Sew Loved will feature artists from around the world who love to make softies. These artists will inspire the New City School children and community to create their own softies in a collaborative way. Create, Inspire, Love!



What are softies? Softies are huggable art! Also called soft sculpture, plush, or textile art, this kind of art is soft to the touch and made from any kind of fabric.



How does it work? Each of the softie artists have created a special little package just for you to help you get started making your own softie. You should have already picked up your package when you signed up for the show before Winter Break, but if not, you are welcome to still participate! Bring your softie to the art room by January 6th and it will by hung in the gallery to complete the art show. I can't wait to see what you create!

I'll also be introducing you to some of the artists featured here in the coming months. More from Sew Loved soon!

war weavings part 3

It was interesting to see how many of the third grade textile stories were related to war. Boys and girls created epic battle stories with ultimate destruction and rebirth, historical war references, or man versus some destructive element (robots, aliens, fires, etc).



Good versus evil is a part of any good storytelling, but I was struck by the number of stories dealing with death and destruction coming from my lovely third graders! I thought perhaps that this might be a way for some of them to process what they might be hearing or seeing on the news, in the media, etc. I thought of ways to relate these battle story weavings to the way another culture might retell their own battle stories in their textile art. While pondering these thoughts via a little googling, I found some interesting information. Athena is both the Greek goddess of war and weaving. Neith is the Egyptian goddess of war who wove all of existence with her loom. Or how about the Norse story of woman weaving on a warp of human guts and using arrows as a shuttle!



How amazing to think that this war and weaving relationship is so ingrained that it has become an intuitive part of human expression. These third grade war weaving stories are a primal retelling of our human story.

And one more connection to share, I found this video on the Penn Museum website featuring information about its show: Battleground: War Rugs from Afghanistan.

Notes from Afghanistan: War Rugs from Penn Museum on Vimeo.