ARTIST TALK: TEXTILE SOCIETY OF AMERICA SYMPOSIUM

This weekend, fiber lovers in Los Angeles were aplenty: the Textile Society of America convened its 14th Biennial Symposium here, at UCLA and other venues including LACMA.

On Thursday, Craft in America’s very own Emily Zaiden, Director of the Center, delivered a talk on the history and impact of UCLA’s large-scale fiber show Deliberate Entanglements. Some of the 1971 exhibition’s attendees were present in the audience, as were its featured artists. It was a poignant convergence of past and present— not to mention on the same territory as the original exhibition, which was held at the UCLA Art Galleries.

Emily also moderated a panel she organized, Masculine Mystique: Men and Fiber Art, which brought together some of the most influential names in fiber, along with its innovators: Jim Bassler, Ben Cuevas, Joe Cunningham, Gerhardt Knodel and Michael F. Rohde. After each artist shared examples of their work (and some entertaining stories), they had a discussion with the audience about the gender politics of fiber and their own personal experiences as males working in fiber.