The fiber community is vast and far reaching. It extends around the world. It includes all forms of fiber art both of the every day functional type and the thought provoking statement making type. It is exciting to be a part of a community that has roots which go back thousands of years. (check out Elizabeth Wayland Barber's book Women's Work) It is also exciting when this community comes together to do a collective project. Such is the case with The International Fiber Collaborative. It was started by one woman, Jennifer Marsh, who wanted to bring this international community together by doing large scale public art projects. The projects were to express social and environmental concerns. Her first project was to wrap an abandon gas station in fiber panels. The panels were submitted by fiber enthusiasts all over the world, no age limit or ability turned away. There is a wonderful article about this in Fiber Arts magazine, Nov/Dec 2008 issue.
Once that proved to be an overwhelming success, Jennifer sent out a call to all fiber artists to participate in a new project. This art installation is called "Interdependence". Participants will create a full sized tree made out of fiber leaves. Participants from around the world are to create fiber leaves and send them to Huntsville, Alabama where the tree will be displayed April 2009 at Big Springs International Park. The target number of leaves is 30,000!
Check out the website at http://www.internationalfibercollaborative.com/.
If your interest has been peaked, send in a few leaves and be a part of this project. You have until March 15 to submit your leaves.
I mailed my leaves yesterday. It was fun doing something totally out of my normal genre and so exciting to be part of a large scale international project.
Thank you Jennifer for extending this invitation. I can't wait to see the tree when it is done.
No comments:
Post a Comment