There's a new art show in town, one that shines a spotlight on a medium that has had to prove its place in the art world: textiles.
At the Best of New West: Textile Exhibition show, you will find eco-printed fabrics, handwoven tapestries, quilted wall hangings, intricate bead work on textiles and more.
An art show that's focused exclusively on textiles is uncommon; and the reason has a lot to do with how fabric art was perceived in the past, according to the participating artists.
“Traditionally, fabric art was seen as women's work, so it was not valued,” said artist Terry Rammell, whose eco-printed fabrics are part of the exhibition.
“In the past, galleries saw it (textile art) as popular art, not fine art,” added Judy Villett, a participating artist and the organizer of the event.
“So we (textile artists) fall in the cracks there, because we're art people that work with textiles. That doesn't always go down well with, maybe, classically trained gallery people."
Though there have been significant changes over the years in the fabric world (“we are moving from traditional techniques and materials to plastics, fibre optics, digital printing on fabric and more”), Villett, a quilt artist for 40 years, said it’s still a struggle for fabric-working people to find galleries that want to display textile art.
Which is why, for Rammell, Villett and the other three participating textile artists — Terry Aske, Trish Graham and Judy Leslie — the ongoing show at the I Heart New West space is a special one.
Evolution of textile art
Raised in a family of three generations of quilters (including a grandfather), as her website reads, Villett has seen the art of quilting evolve — from being considered a “woman’s handiwork” that stays within the four walls of a house to one that gets displayed at galleries and museums.
Though from a quilting background, Villett's pieces now combine a series of techniques, “beginning with commercial prints, my own digital photographs printed on fabric, or hand-dyed fabrics.” The base is then worked on using stencil, paint, or appliqué, and finally machine quilted, as described on her website.
Having worked in the field for decades, Villett also found other similar artists weaving the seemingly-disparate worlds of art and textiles together — proving what she always believed: “fabric can be art.”
The exhibition, a brainchild of Villett, includes “a wonderful hodgepodge of different techniques” by textile artists, all of whom know each other through a Lower Mainland textile artists group called FYBR 2RT.
Though there are about 50 members in the group who meet monthly for workshops, Villett decided to contact the ones from New West for a textile-only exhibition featuring local talent.
Now, their works rest in the gallery as a window to the breadth of textile arts — beyond traditional quilting and knitting.
And as a testimony that textile art is, in fact, honoured in New West.
The Best of New West: Textile Exhibition is open at the I Heart New West (Unit 103, 78 10th St.) till Sunday, June 18, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. All the works at the show are for sale, starting from $10 to $3,800 and more.
