Dear ALL,
- 1 September - Entry deadline the Fibreworks Members' Online Exhibition
- 1 October 2022 - Opening of Fibreworks Members' Online Exhibition. More details later
- 22 October. AGM at Helga's home.
We had our last meeting at Odette Tolksdorf's house in Westville in May.
Present: Rosalie Dace, Odette Tolksdorf, Sally Scott, Jeanette Gilks, Helga Beaumont, Annette McMaster and Sue Akerman and Sarojani Naidoo.
Lovely to have Sally with us all again after a long absence! She is now living in the Howick vicinity so hopefully we'll be seeing more of her in the future. There was a brief flashback in time as we all remembered our first Fibreworks meeting at Odette's in the late 90's when we launched our Fibreworks group. Sue Physick and Jutta were with us. Odette is moving to the Cape at some stage this year so that meeting could very well be our last meeting at her home. The times they are a-changing.
Some interesting discussion emerged at the meeting, as it always does, and I have elaborated upon it later in the newsletter.
Next Fibreworks meeting:
We have chosen Saturday 6 August as Noddy is here! Noddy is Kathryn Harmer Fox for those people who are unfamiliar with this name. (She will have to tell you personally how this new name was acquired). She is giving a workshop at Giverny in the Midlands. So good to have members at our meetings who are not able to attend regularly as they live too far away.
Fresh eyes on issues and a new voice always give our meetings a new vibrancy. But let me also thank all the people who continue to find the time in their busy lives to attend all the meetings regularly and give input and direction to our ongoing Fibreworks journey. And there have been some difficult times in this journey. I salute you all. I want to thank Helga and Odette particularly for taking charge and writing the February newsletter as I was in the throes of moving house. Definitely not a fun place to be.
Fibreworks journey moving forward:
At the 10th year of the Innovative Threads exhibition in Cape Town, guest speaker Carol Brown remarked at one point in her address that not many organizations last longer than 10 years. Fibreworks has been going on for 22 years!
Fibreworks is a successful organization, and the standard of our work is very high (by all accounts) but the time has come when we need to have a relook at some of our aims in order to keep our organization current, ongoing and growing. We need to expand upon some of the aims we wrote in our Constitution, and introduce some new ones in light of the significant social changes that have occurred in the last few years.
To refresh memories, here are the aims as set out in our Constitution:
- To promote fibre art as a serious art form and to maintain a group committed to this ideal.
- To promote and maintain a standard of excellence of work within the group.
- To hold a national biennial exhibition. This may form part of a national convention/AGM.
- To hold an annual AGM / national convention when office bearers are elected.
- To generate interaction, new challenges and critical input.
- To hold regional retreats organized by individual members.
- To circulate a quarterly newsletter which includes articles and information submitted by members.
- To maintain the website: www.fibreworksart.com
- To encourage all members to actively participate in Fibreworks activities and to spread the word about Fibreworks.
Whilst a number of us are dedicated and very good at promoting our own artwork, which is to be commended, we also all need to contribute to promoting the Fibreworks group as a whole. We need to collaborate further as a Fibreworks team.
More success working as a team will also automatically shower more success on us as individuals. After the last meeting in May and an additional spontaneous visit I had with Odette and Sarojani and later with Helga when we began to devise this letter, I jotted down some of the additional aims we need to thoroughly embrace if we are to remain a vibrant and dynamic group in the future. Here are some of my thoughts:
To create an active online platform where the general public can
- see our work
- hear and read about our work and upcoming exhibitions
- interact with our work i.e. zoom in and see details
- leave comments about our work
- find our work easily
- buy our work and thereby potentially promote us
Do we want to target i.e. who is interested in our work and who would potentially buy our work?
WHERE
- Do we make our work easily available?
- Do we become better known for the work that we do?
- Do we generate an interest and an enthusiastic following?
- Do our target market generally look?
- do we maintain an ongoing public interest in our work and in our exhibitions?
- do we make it easy for people to comment/interact with our work?
- do we encourage people to buy our work?
-
do we promote critical questions about the nature and function of textile art?
We DO have a Facebook page: Fibreworks ART South Africa. After doing some research, Facebook is definitely the place and space we need to be actively promoting our group. Here, on this Facebook platform, we will find our target market, predominantly, both interested members of the public and potential buyers of our work.
The big problem currently is that too few of our members are making active use of this site in order to promote our group as a whole. The answers to our problems/questions are at hand, but it will take our entire membership to make this Facebook platform work both efficiently and effectively.
For too long now has Fireworks relied on too few people to keep it running. Now, more than ever, we need all members to contribute actively to the running of our organization. Think about posting something twice a month to the Fibreworks Art Facebook page. This would take as little as 10 minutes of your time once you are familiar with using this app.
To date, we have 600 followers and this is far too few, considering the outreach that our Facebook page can potentially generate.
Think how quickly we could grow our membership following should we all make a concerted effort to use this platform by posting regularly. This could possibly include written thoughts on upcoming work, work in progress and completed work. Let's make this a dynamic platform that changes as it grows, and because it is growing and changing it generates ongoing interest and interaction with members of the public.
So here is what you need to do, if you have not already done so:
1. Join Facebook then become a Facebook Fibreworks Art member. Fibreworks ART South Africa.
You will automatically be accepted as a Fibreworks ART South Africa member by either Odette or Helga as they are administrators of this site. Please make sure your subs are up to date. The Fibreworks Facebook page is for actual Fibreworks members only to post.
2. Once you are a member, the admin. team will make you a moderator so you can post your own work on Fibreworks ART South Africa. Posting regularly is very important to grow our Fibreworks presence on line. In addition to this, it will also grow your own presence. Good!
3 Those of you on Instagram, hashtag our web site - Fibreworksart.com and our facebook page - Fibreworks ART South Africa. Here is how to do it:
#Fibreworks art.com
#Fibreworks ART South Africa.
This all will all feel a bit weird initially, especially if you are unfamiliar with online systems and processes. I don't know Facebook at all, so I too will have to learn!
Hashtaging is a way to cross reference information that maximizes our exposure.
For those of you who want to know the difference between administrators and moderators, see below the explanation by Google. This gives you the power to upload your own work and in addition you can also veto or accept followers work. As administrators Odette and/or Helga can override this if necessary.
An administrator is the creator of a Facebook group who has control over all the group settings. And a moderator is someone who helps the administrator in keeping a tab on the group activity, ensuring things are functioning properly.
Moderators can approve or deny membership requests and posts within a group. They can also remove posts and comments on posts, block people from the group, and pin (or unpin) a post.
Fibreworks XII
Remember the theme for our Members' exhibition is PASSAGE. You were emailed a letter informing you of our decision to postpone the show to open on 1st October. We would like to use the short Videos that you sent us to promote our exhibition at the Tatham Art Gallery in 2020, to also promote our upcoming exhibition. These will be posted on our Facebook page. Fibreworks ART South Africa. I'm certain these videos will generate further interest in our group.
We do need your permission, however, and I guess we have it! If you do not want us to use the Tatham video for some reason, fine, but please let Helga know before the end of June. If we don't hear from you, we presume we have your permission to post these videos.
Sally was concerned that the video clips as discussed in the previous newsletter was not sufficiently clear, and so Rosalie suggested to look online and see what other artists do with regards to short videos presenting artists and their work. On YouTube, The Dairy Barn Arts Centre hosts Quilt National '21 Artist Talks: e.g. see videos by Pat Pauly, Kit Vincent, and Bob Adams.
Get ideas. See what suits you. At the end of the day it is your work and your presentation. Take ownership of it, and at the same time please use it to help promote Fibreworks.
Please take a further look at the February Newsletter should you be hazy about issues relating to our upcoming show.
I hope you are now inspired and motivated to get cracking with promoting Fibreworks ART South Africa.
We will be keeping you updated on any further developments that we feel you should know regarding the upcoming Members' show.
Roy Starkey Sale of work
We are very happy to announce that one of Roy Starkey's works called Abstract Composition sold for R10,000 at an auction coordinated by Strauss. Fibreworks will receive R8,250 after the auctioneers have taken their percentage.
This will nicely boost the Fibreworks coffers. We thank you Roy, wherever you are!
How Fibreworks Started
by Odette Tolksdorf
To answer Kim Tedder's query about how Fibreworks started:
The group of women who started Fibreworks held their first meeting on 14 November, 1997 in Durban, KZN, at the home of Odette Tolksdorf.
The group consisted of : Jeanette Gilks, Annette McMaster, Rosalie Dace, Sally Scott, Odette Tolksdorf, Margie Garratt (from Cape Town), Jutta Faulds, Leonie Malherbe.
Please do let us know if the list is complete or if we have forgotten anyone and if you have photos please send.
All the people in the group knew each other from the worlds of quilting, teaching/education and/or art. They felt that the time had come to start a group for like-minded artists who were creating art with textiles and could exhibit together and meet together. Margie Garratt started Innovative Threads at around the same time.
At the first meeting we each came up with ideas of a name for the group, and after voting the name Fibreworks was chosen as favourite.
We're not sure when we voted for a Chairperson - it does seem it was not at the very first meeting. Jeanette says she thinks she just offered to do the newsletter and there was no Chairperson in those early days.
In the first one or two years of Fibreworks' existence, anyone could become a member without having to go through an application process. Then after a few years we started an application and selection process which continues today.
For more of Fibreworks history see the website; http://www.fibreworksart.com
(Thanks to Helga, Rosalie, Jeanette & Annette for helping to fill in the information gaps!)
For more of Fibreworks history see the website; http://www.fibreworksart.com
Best
Jeanette and The Team.
