Dear Members,
I hope that the return of longer daylight hours and the slow passage out of deep winter has treated you well as we reach the mid part of the Winter semester. Here at the cluster we have had a flurry of activities, workshops, and student-led initiatives.
ALL CLUSTER MEETING: We will have our All Cluster Meeting on Friday March 8th from 12-13h at the cluster commons (EV 10.730). We invite new members, and members who have not had an opportunity to do so yet, to bring slides of their research to share with the cluster. We will also have research-grant presentations, updates from our esteemed directors, Miranda Smitheram and Kathleen Vaughan, and a workshop report from our technician/magician Gen Moisan. There will be a zoom option, and the link will be sent out the Monday prior to the meeting. Light refreshments will be offered.
STUDENT GRANT WORKSHOP: Kathleen Vaughan and I will conduct a student grant workshop on Tuesday March 19th from 18-19 1/2 hr, at the cluster commons, in anticipation of our individual and group project grants for 2024 submission deadline of April. Attendance is highly suggested. Tea will be offered, as well as insights into how to successfully write a grant application and what the stages of the grant award period entail.
Tori McBeath and I have started up a close reading group centred around themes of Care, Ethics, and Craft, meeting irregularly on Wednesday evenings, we started off the semester by reading, on Wednesday January 31st, the editorial from decorating dissidence’s 11th issue on Care, Craft, and Community. We had some great discussion and the next meeting will be on February 21st at 16h. Our readings will be Sherry Farrelle Racette’s “Kitchen Tables and Beads” please email for the pdf. Tea and cookies will be provided.
Gen Moisan, our research technician, has made a wonderful program of technologically entwined textile workshops, working on an array of processes on the Tajima embroidery machine, and learning the ropes of working with the software for the Jacquard loom. On February 2nd, we offered “Drawing with Threads” a workshop introducing participants to the Tajima embroidery machine’s functions through freehand digital drawing converted into the embroidery software. On February 16th, “Haptic Images” introduced participants to to the Pointcarré Textile CAD software for the Jacquard loom. Learning the first steps of transforming an image into an intricately woven piece of cloth and how to turn a digital file into a haptic piece of art: an image you can touch and feel. The next workshops are scheduled for March 15th, Merit of Making or “MoM” and a second run of Drawing with Threads. We are pleased to also offer two advanced Tajima workshops “Sequencing of Sequins” (March 22) and “In the Loop” (April tba). We encourage student members who would like to work on either the Tajima or Jacquard to take our workshops prior to working on their own projects in the cluster!
Molly-Claire Gillett and Pramila Choudhary continue their program “Moving Mending Circle,” where peer-to-peer mending skillshares, conversations around mending abound. If you are interested in joining their circle, follow them on instagram @projecthandstitch @making.text.and.textile
Finally, we will have our next Craft Cafe’s on March 29th, and April 19th from 3:30-5:30 PM. We will provide refreshments (gluten free cookies and tea). If you are interested in giving a skill-share, a talk, or any other activity to the cluster, please email me and we will arrange it! Otherwise as always, Bring Your Own Craft (BYOC).
Best regards,
Morris Fox,
T&M Research Coordinator
textiles + materiality research cluster 