Please join us for “Artists Up Close,” a dynamic series of virtual studio visits and artist conversations featuring Nastassja Swift, Ai Kijima, Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, and José Santiago Pérez. These live events, a continuation of TSA’s long-running series “Textiles Close Up,” let us engage with artists’ ideas, studios, and in-process work.
These events are part of TSA’s 2024 Symposium, Shifts and Strands. Early bird registration rates end on Nov. 1!
About the Speakers
Artists Up Close: Virtual Artist Studio Visit with Nastassja Swift
Tuesday, November 12th, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Moderator: Olivia Valentine
Nastassja Swift’s work span’s mediums and processes, existing in fiber, performance, film and installation. During this virtual studio visit, she will demonstrate the needle felting process, the primary process used to create her work, and take viewers through her creative space, detailing how she pulls inspiration and begins each project, and portions of the new body of work she’s working on currently. Nastassja has spent seven months researching the topic of hoods, exploring the garment across cultures, geographies, time periods and subjects. She has now arrived a six new figurative sculptures that are informed by that research, and will share a bit about that process, and the many layers she’s interested in exploring beyond the three-dimensional works (to include two forms of printmaking!).
Artists Up Close: Virtual Studio Visit with Ai Kijima
Wednesday, November 13th, 4:30 PM – 5:30 PM
Moderator: Isaac Facio
During the studio visit, Kijima will present her latest works, including pieces from Wanderer’s Tales, where she hand-stitched traditional textiles like Uzbek ikats, Japanese kimonos, and Indian silk sarees. She will also share insights into her upcoming art residency in Udaipur, Rajasthan, where she will be immersed in learning a wide range of traditional crafts, including those of the Bhil community. This presentation will be held during her residency. It will offer a behind-the-scenes look into her creative process, demonstrating how cultural aesthetics, spiritual insights, and environmental consciousness shape her contemporary textile art practice.
Art, Threads, Truth: Consuelo Jimenez Underwood in conversation with Kira Dominguez Hultgren
Thursday, November 14th, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Join us for a personal journey exploring the work of Consuelo Jimenez Underwood. The artist’s authentic voice is influenced by her childhood origins as a seasonal farm worker, traumatized by the politically imposed border between Mexican and the US. Seeing her undocumented bracero father subjected to the perpetual threat of deportation spurred her mission to “enlighten” the world to the distress, pain, and sorrow borders inflict on families and individuals. Jimenez Underwood produces work that conveys both the tragic drama of the borderlands and introduces us to the divine presence that still exists in this troubled area. Life persists despite/in spite of the daily adversity that challenges the borderland ecosystem. Our discussion will explore how Consuelo’s threadwork creates fiber work imbued with content and context which results in an object that is metamorphosed into Art. By creating beautiful threadwork, Consuelo is empowered by the divine to create meaningful artwork that hopefully will affect the universal spirit that resides in all of us.
Artists Up Close: Virtual Artist Studio Visit with José Santiago Pérez
Friday, November 15th, 2:45 PM – 3:45 PM
José Santiago Pérez will share their recent project Shine/Shrink, a series of floor and wall-based works that encircle the pulse of queer desire. Referred to as “embellished voids”, these hand-knotted needle lace membranes, with bead and mylar elements, radiate outward from silicone rings. Pérez will contextualize the project, share documentation, and works in progress.
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