Dear ALL
Dear All
- 1 October 2022 - Opening of Fibreworks Members' Online Exhibition.
- 25 February 2023 Fibreworks meeting on Zoom. More on this later.
We had our AGM at Helga Beaumont's home on 22 October.
Present: Rosalie Dace, Odette Tolksdorf, Jeanette Gilks, Helga Beaumont and Sarojani Naidoo
As there were not enough members to form a quorum, we enlisted three additional Fibreworks members to give their opinion on the latest submission of work. Thanks for the input here.
We welcome Barbara Murray to Fibreworks. Congratulations and Welcome! You are now also on the Fibreworks WhatsApp chat group.
Our AGM was a little different but very stimulating indeed. After our Face2Face (F2F) meeting at Helga's home, we hosted a Zoom discussion with a number of our members. I believe this was the fourth Zoom session we have had and slowly all of us become more accustomed to this method of communicating. Online meetings and discussions, hastened by Covid, becomes the new norm. Initially anything new is fairly weird and disconcerting: glitches include voices with no sound, voices that trail off into cyberspace and people who never manage to get access to the Zoomed room, amongst other things. Some of us nevertheless are dab hands at Zooming about, and others - like myself - all fingers and thumbs. But just watch this space!
As we value the input from all our members, we decided that we should continue hosting parts of our meetings this way. It makes our meetings lively and inclusive. It would be heartening to have more members participate in these meetings as in a Zoomed session the response and interaction amongst people is immediate. Also lovely to see people's faces and to hear laughter. All very encouraging indeed.
We also decided that in addition to addressing issues that need immediate attention, it would be beneficial and interesting to all if we had various topics presented by members themselves. Mandy Shindler suggested that having a general discussion on photographing our own work, for example, would be helpful. So consider this: if you have a pet topic that you have researched and/or feel needs to be shared, discussed or even debated with the group, please let us know in advance and we will try and factor this into the upcoming meeting. The first meeting in 2023 will be sometime towards the end of February.
The topic for discussion that I hosted on Zoom was the well known Leonard Cohen quote. I asked people to send through their comments or anything that they remembered from the chat that particularly resonated with them. Thanks Sheila for your submission! I would really like to print out everyone's feelings and thoughts in the 2022 December newsletter. And even if you couldn't make the meeting, let's have your thoughts anyway. I'd like everyone's meanings - layered and nuanced!
Fibreworks journey moving forward.
We suggest you read the June newsletter to familiarize yourselves with the aims of Fibreworks and the current discussions emerging about the future of Fibreworks.
Thanks very much for the letters received from Mandy Schindler, Marie Claase and Catherine Knox. We appreciate your input and the time spent in communicating with us directly.
Here below, and amongst other things discussed in the AGM, we have captured important points in the various letters and addressed some of the suggestions raised:
- It was decided that we would continue to have prospective members submit work for current members to assess at the AGM, as stated in our Constitution, but
- We decided we need to boost Fibreworks membership.
All Fibreworks members are encouraged to always promote Fibreworks and tell all and any other South African fibre/textile artists about the simple process to apply for Fibreworks membership: http://www.fibreworksart.com/Membership.html.
Sarojani Naidoo kindly volunteered to write a short letter to send off to various institutions, such as art galleries and guilds etc. to spread the word about Fireworks and to encourage people to visit our website and current online exhibition. She will also be creating a flyer that will further assist in the promotion of the group. Please see what she wrote at the end of the newsletter.
- If anyone has information about any exhibition, talk, podcast, competition etc. that you feel needs to be shared, please send us the information for the newsletter. I have put this request out many, many times over the years. I am very aware that the Fibreworks WhatsApp group is a-buzz with chat and fibre related information which is absolutely great, but please, in addition to sharing on this platform, send Helga the news too so we have it on record in the newsletters. Remember our newsletters not only inform members of current activities. The Fibreworks newsletters have become the history of our group and will most likely last longer than the WhatsApp! I could be wrong here, but please forward news to Helga nevertheless. Thanks.
- All of us need to keep eyes and ears open for possible and appropriate places for the group to exhibit and a heartfelt thanks to Mari who has tirelessly tried to hunt down exhibition venues for us. She has kindly offered to continue to look out for opportunities for us in the Stellenbosch area. Good! Who is keen to do the same in their area? Please let us know what you can do for Fibreworks
- We must be very wary, however, of exhibiting at craft shows as it's precisely this 'craft' connection that many art galleries shy away from. What exactly constitutes 'craft' and how our kind of work interfaces with it continues to be an ongoing debate and the newsletter is not the place to hammer out our particular feelings on this. That said, should someone like to Zoom-host a chat on the matter, let us know. It would be good to have some fresh ideas on the topic. I have a lot of unfresh ideas in my head as I've been mulling over this for the last 40 years!
- The suggestion to exhibit at the Hilton Arts Festival next year is an excellent idea and we need to investigate this further. Thanks for this proposal Cathy Knox.
- Continue to post your work on your Facebook page, if you have one, and on the Fibreworks ART South Africa page. Facebook is definitely the social media platform right now that is visited by people most likely to buy our work. Please see Catherine Harmer Fox comments later under Achievements of Members
- Thanks Sheila Walwyn for sending in your write ups in response to the Zoom meeting at the AGM! I also wrote my ideas down straight away. Please can the rest of you consider giving me some of your thoughts too as I would like to include them in the final December newsletter 2022. This would be a fitting way to end the year.
Achievements of members:
Congratulations to Odette Tolksdorf and Phumzile Dlamini for selling their works on line. The Safari browser had a problem with our web site, but Rod has fixed it now so check again.
- Also congratulations to Sheila Walwyn for selling her work 'Moving On' at the Rupert Museum in Stellenbosch.
- Kathryn Harmer Fox
- I am writing about how I was chosen as a featured artist for Art.co.za and my use of Facebook. I think the two are linked; I received an email from Art.co.za saying that they were interested and would I send some images of my work. My memory is faulty but this was the first that I had heard of them. I did so and was then told that I had been chosen as a featured artist - I think they had either seen my work on Facebook or (thinking more cynically) they choose artists with a certain number of followers in order to boost their own. I care not a jot, I was happy to be chosen.
- Facebook has afforded me many opportunities and I must have made well over a million in the decade or so that I have been actively using this platform as my virtual gallery. My first invitation to teach in Australia was via Facebook - I am now planning my 4th teaching tour for 2023 and the exchange rate spikes my income by 10! I have received commissions via Facebook, sold existing works, and my Postcard kits are still flying all over the world. When I travel, I write. When I'm home, I work. I post both my writings and my art (at least weekly) and I get a delightful amount of positive engagement on both, especially the process images for my artwork. I encourage all artists to use this free platform as a professional selling tool. My next planned adventure is into Youtube!
- NATIONAL QUILT FESTIVAL IN STELLENBOSCH
Congratulations to everyone who participated in the National Quilt Festival in Stellenbosch and special congratulation to all the prize winners:
Best Wall Quilt:
Cathy Knox ... Invitation
Judge's Choice:
Rosalie Dace ... Cherry Pickers by Cathy Knox
Paul Schutte ... When you see 8 crows together - Elaine Barnard
Best Group Quilt:
Arty FartyMigrations ... (Sarojani Naidoo)
Modern Quilts:
Highly Commended ... When you See me, Cry. Elaine Barnard
Diversity Theme:
3rd Prize ... Blue Night in Shining Armour. Mari Claase
Wall Quilts/ Art Quilt/ Fibre Quilt (Masters)
1st Prize ... Fermentation ... Marilyn Pretorius
Highly commended. Biodiversity within a diverse country. ... Tille de Harde
Wall Quilts/Art Pictorial (Masters)
1st Prize ... When you see 8 Crows together ... Elaine Barnard
2nd Prize ... A Flurry of flight ... Kathryn Harmer Fox
Highly commended. ... Ghost church. ... Jenny Hearn
Wall Quilts Open:
1st Prize ... Cherry Pickers ... Cathy Knox
Wall Quilts Art Pictorial
2nd Prize ... Faraway. ... Cathy Knox
Highly Commended ... My Succulent Garden. ... Barbara Murray
Fibreworks continues to take action re: finding homes for Roy's artworks that we own (that Roy bequeathed to Fibreworks).
Reminder: If any Fibreworks members would like to own any Roy Starke artworks that Fibreworks owns, you may take them at no charge. You would only pay shipping / mailing charges. Please contact Helga for images & info.
Helga sent a letter to Christo Rabie to see if they want any of his works.
Hello Fibre Artists
Ever heard of Fibreworks?
Do you love the feel of textiles and love working with them?
And do you love making art with textiles, fibres and stitching?
Have you thought of joining Fibreworks?
Fibreworks is a group of people passionate about textiles and fibres.
The members live all over South Africa, Africa and abroad.
Fibreworks is 24 years old!
A members' exhibition is held every 2 years and this provides a platform to exhibit our work.
See the current Fibreworks online exhibition, Passage: http://www.fibreworksart.com/Virtual2022.html
To apply for Fibreworks membership see the Fibreworks website http://www.fibreworksart.com/Membership.html
Kind regards
Sarojani Naidoo
Finally, thanks to everyone who do what they can to help promote and run our organization.
- A special thanks to Helga and Rod Beaumont this time, who have dedicated hours and hours to the professional and sophisticated appearance of our first online show, called Passage. Thank-you for all your time and expertise, that you have given to this important part of the Fibreworks website. The online exhibition is a dream to navigate and shows the artwork so well. I salute you two!
I have once again had a look at the online exhibition and note that once again Fibreworks has succeeded in distancing itself from being construed as just another type of quilt group, and while some of our roots do lie in this domain, certainly not all our roots do, and we ought to continue to cut these powerful ties to the craft world.
Thanks
Jeanette
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