Textiles and tea, Elizabeth Morisette

This week's Textiles and Tea was great fun. Morisette is a serious artist with a great sense of fun.

She weaves, primarily with found objects, often plastic castoff items or donated materials. Her techniques are meticulous. No glue ever, items all securely stitched or wired, and woven on an upright loom.

She has occasional  "please touch" shows, particularly pleasing to children, who can experience her art the way they like, by literally being in touch with it.

To people who challenge the notion that these materials can be made into art, or considered art, she draws attention to the meticulous craftsmanship, not random at all. 

She jokes that nobody's as random as they like to think they are. There's always a painterly sense of design, color, balance, harmony, even if it's unconscious, if you've ever studied and grasped design principles.

Here's a "please touch" show in progress.

Here she's making a serious and exaggerated point about masks, how they are comic as well as necessary.

Here's fun, recognizable, familiar objects presented in a way that changes your perception of them.

 

Here she's in the studio, showing her loom with work on it. She has used floor looms but prefers the upright because she can see better how the work is progressing.

She tends to start with materials then work into a concept once she's started using them, rather than having a concept then finding materials to express it.

Like many modern textile artists, she's very conscious of our impact on the earth, and the need to reduce it and avoid art materials which drain the earth of resources.

She's a cheerful presence as well as a serious artist. It's fun to be in her company!

In the course of watching, I got some unrelated ideas about what I'm working on, a sure sign of a good artist, sparking ideas off what she says with such energy.

Another good HGA offering. You can see this eventually on YouTube when they upload it.