Why you are paying for failure when you buy a work of art
Potential buyers of art sometimes complain about the high prices. Part of the reason for steep prices is that you are paying for failures. At the heart of artistic creation is experimentation, trying out things that haven’t been done in that exact way before. Ideas…
Is it a tapestry? Yes.
It makes you want to scream. If you type ‘tapestry’ into Amazon, you find that a tapestry can be yours for £4.99! Often they are described as ‘hippie’ or ‘mandala’ and may be 100% polyester. One site states, ‘Hang your tapestries up, use them as…
How to put together a tapestry show
In about two weeks, a big exhibition of tapestry will open at the City Art Centre in Edinburgh. Four years in the making, Tapestry: Changing Concepts is a collaboration between the venue and Scottish Tapestry Artists Regrouped (STAR*). Why does a show need four years…
Scam Alert!
In the digital world, it is commonplace for images to be stolen and repurposed for someone else’s gain. Apparently on Amazon Marketplace and elsewhere, it is buyer beware, since unscrupulous people take an image and flog an inferior product that looks nothing like it. I…
9/11 and my exhibition
About twenty years ago, in September 2001, I was excited that my solo touring show, Unmarked Lives, was about to open at the New Jersey Center for Visual Arts in Summit, NJ. I had spent decades researching my ancestors, who were Jewish-Lithuanian, Jewish-Ukrainian, Japanese and…
Miniature Tapestries
Featured image, Flying, miniature textile by Joanne Soroka, 20 x 20 x 9 cm, cut Japanese paper, exhibited at Miniartextil, Como A large tapestry is a major commitment for an artist to embark on, since it may be three months or even more in the…
Art in the time of coronavirus
With the current pandemic, we are in a life-and-death situation, all feeling isolated and scared. Most of us are doing our best to comply with medical advice and government regulations. We are practising social distancing by staying at home and minimising contact with others. Tapestry…
Foraging for Tapestries
I have loved collecting wild food all my life, starting as a small child with wild strawberries and blueberries. When I discovered the books Stalking the Wild Asparagus and Food for Free in the 1970s, I broadened my searches to include plants such as wintercress…
What’s So Funny?
Tapestry is thought of as a serious discipline, historically used to impress its audience by showing the might, taste and prestige of its owners. Or it could cow viewers into submission by frightening them with images of the Apocalypse, suggesting that they should turn from…
How to make a tapestry about Islamophobia
I wanted to respond to Islamophobia, one of the great evils of our age. Along with everyone I know, I was horrified by the Christchurch mosque shootings on 15 March, and the following day I was at the Cordis Prize for Tapestry conference, where Lesley…