joelewis Weaver & Writer : Joe Lewis

Showing posts with label Joe Lewis. Show all posts

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Itinerant weaver on the road. Joe Lewis East Cost Pop Up

Joe Lewis Itinerant Weaver

With 10 jacquard woven wall hangings in a suitcase and picking up sticks and yarn to make a back strap loom to string up in a near by tree, or lamppost I will be wondering around the east cost of Canada in August into the fall. With a PowerPoint and the gift of gab (a genetic trait of my Scottish via the east coast roots).i am looking for invitations to hang my work, give a talk and meet guilds and other textile artisans. ( a couch to sleep on, a cup of coffee and ride to the next town perhaps.

Itinerary bookings as of April 26 2015

Bonavista, NL, Church St. Festival, July 27th to August 02. Location Rayns Premises National Historic Site with the Art Walk taking place Friday July 31 2015

Reality as of August 2 2015. My first east coast Pop Up exhibtion has come to an end and if likes and shares facebook and Twitter are to be interpreted in a positive light the show or at least my presence in Bonavista was noted. The location in which I exhibited was rather amazing. Like the former Joseph Simpson Knitting Mills. (1861 – 1947) on Berkeley Street in Toronto and the Canadian National Railway Station in Brantford Ontario (built 1905) it has a history of industrial/ mercantile use and as such has a high ceiling and a large amount of floor space with windows enough to let in adaquite quit light in a per-electric era.

Rayns Premises National Historic Site, Bonavista NFLD


This a photo of me by Bonavista based photographer Loretta Landres at the Fish Store

The rough hew whitewashed in interior of the Fish Store did set of my work

While my exhibition was a Pop Up the interpretative presentation of the processes involved in catching and processing cod is foremost in this space. While unmanned unless a tour group is coming through or a talk or some other presentation is being made I did have the chance to speak with visitors on the days before the official Art Walk event that was scheduled for the Friday evening of the week long Bonavista Church Street Festival. I sat in on one talk giving by a Parks Canada employee for a group of American tourist. She spoke from first had experience of how the moratorium on cod fishing and closing of the Cod Fishery in 1992 effect the local economy, her own her husbands job loss and subsequent leaving to find employment in Ontario and eventual return and becoming an employee of Parks Canada. The audience was extremely receptive and while there was a lot of personal information it was the "workers" voice inserted into the longer history of the Newfoundland and Labrador industry and the specific of the Ryans family business.

I need to thank a bunch of people for making my trip to the Bonavista Church Street Festival possible and the first would be Ruth Weller-Malchow of Bonavista Living & Bonavista Creative for inviting to participate in the Art Walk in the Town of Bonavista and these individuals without who's continuing support of my art it wouldn't have been possible for me to go. Mary Alton David Bateman Doubledee Barnes Lou Ann DeLong Mary French-Pace Kris Lewis Becky Kelley Julie Kirkpatrick Piers Knight and Lana Rottenberg Barb Mcilquham Elaine MacNeill Jeremy Podeswa Michelle Walker and i know I am missing many others who have subscribed to the concept that buying art keeps artist alive and making.Next for me is "Strata-graphic Evidence::the textile work of Joe Lewis” interactive exhibition tour,, catalogue with on-line only component. Cheers until the next time I Pop Up..

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While curated exhibitions in professional galleries add to ones resume the spontaneity of a Pop Up show is an equally viable way of building a reputation. Having been a painter who has become a weaver the portability of textiles makes this approach much easier if truth be told. With a one week exhibition scheduled in Bonavista NL the end of July beginning of August and friends scattered through out the maritime I thought I might as well see if I can arrange other exhibition opportunities.

Piecework , Gladstone Hotel on Queen Street West in Toronto Ontario, October 11 - 14, 200f

I have shown in bars, cafes, restaurants, beauty parlours , libraries, train stations, church halls, empty storefronts, old factories, summer kitchens, garages, a former Orange Man's Hall a Quonset Hut, (Guild Hall, Whitehorse) in other artist studios, peoples living rooms and on a clothesline in a back yard.

3Hangings on backyard clothes line Brantford ON

The "Joe Lewis Itinerant Weaver" trunk show consist of 10 jacquard works woven at the Montreal Centre for Contemporary Textiles between 2003 -2011, it is 34 running feet/(10.3 meters) and easily hung. While my PowerPoint ramblings are as much story telling as "lecture" they have a thread of 5000 years of technical developments in weaving, a wide look at contemporary fibre arts or a an up close look at weavers / artist working with Jacquard looms to make their work'

Lia, Cook, (california) Kathy Schicker London England and me (Toronto) in front of Kathy's "Sisters" piece at the opening of "Telling Tales: Narrative Woven Textiles by Joe Lewis and Kathy Schicker" Berkeley Castle, Toronto (tin the former Joseph Simpsons Knitting Mill 1861 – 1945.
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Schedule TBA

I f you are interested in inviting me to show contact me via e-mail.

fibre_quarterly@yahoo.ca put "Joe Lewis Pop UP in the subject line

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Joe Lewis Press:

Joe Lewis rides the Jacquard Wave by Christoffer Jones, Live With Culture April 8 2010

Telling Tales, Textile Forum 2/2010 June pg.10

"Beyond the Studio, Joe Lewis: Holding the Torch High". by Graham McCracken pg. 29 Fibre Focus Autumn 2010, Volume 53, Number 3

'Joe Lewis Jacquard Weaver' by Graham McCracken: http://www.ohs.on.ca/members/fibre-focus-magazine/ is a download from the website,

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Paintings for Days and Days and some quilts an on-line auction of a selection of my early works

#JoeLewisArt you might want to know ...On the other hand I am / my work is in one of the two competing art collections (father and son's) in Canada's richest family.

"Wanted Not: portrait of a Timothy Findley Biography" mixed media on canvas 24" X 18" 1994 . Private Collection. Sold at Middlemarch, Arts and Letters Club, Toronto, On. Organized by the Literary Press Group April 1994 photo provided by the Literary Press Group.

SOLD

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In an attempt to my attending the European Textile Networks next conference in May 2015 I have started to have spur of the moment on line auctions on facebook. The first "8 Paintings in 8 Days" was organized by David Bateman and featured Landscape Sketches and Paintings from / inspired by Water Valley Alberta and Gore’s Landing Ontario done in early 1990s . It took place from October 24 until November 2, five of the eight paintings met the opening bids some exceeded them. three are still available as of November 11 2014

SOLD

Small Islands in Rice Lake in Gore's Landing, watercolour 11” X 15” ©1995 - SOLD

Update January 19 2015. Sold on Facebook

'Approaching Drumheller and some Hoodoos,'

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Works on Hold

The above two works did have what I assumed were firm offers made on them but no payment has been forth coming. If they have not been paid for by the end of January they will be for sale again

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Works for Sale

The three remaining paintings are available and more small pieces (including textile works will be coming on sale over the next few weeks.

Gore’s Landing Storm 2,

$ 125.
If you would like purchase this please cut and paste this title into an e-mail to velvethighway@gmail.com

$ 100
If you would like purchase this please cut and paste this title into an e-mail to velvethighway@gmail.com

If you would like purchase this please cut and paste this title into an e-mail to velvethighway@gmail.com

Double Landscapes College
Six more landscape works now available as December 10th 2014

Payments can be through PayPal or money order, if you are in Canada an e-transfer can be used

If you are not in the market for a small Painting Sketch or Quilt you think about buying a copy of my e-poerty book: And I Do Sing for $10.00

To purchase And I Do Sing through PayPal follow this link

What others are saying about And I Do Sing..

“Reflecting on the rage of having a lover torn away, Lewis envisions all tomorrow’s parties ended. A personal snapshot of the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, And I Do Sing expresses the visceral intensity evoked by the loss of a lover, journeying forward to re-embrace life and memory. “

Catherine Jenkins

Catherine Jenkins has written two books, a poetry collection blood, love &; boomerangs and a novel Swimming in the Ocean, both published by Insomniac Press.

“Like the very best rock songs that refuse to stop playing in your mind, the poems in And I Do Sing are powerfully musical and fiercely intelligent. They are helpless, tender, sometimes funny and lit by a rage akin to prayer. Lewis sings not just for himself but for all who have lost someone important for all the wrong reasons.”

Ursula Pflug

Ursula Pflug is author of the novel Green Music and the story collection After The Fires http://ursulapflug.ca/index.htm

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About : David Bateman is a poet/ play write/ painter and cultural worker, he wrote the introduction to the E-edition of And I Do Sing, as well as organizing the first 8 Paintings in 8 Days event on facebook.

You can read his latest reviews on his Blog here http://batemanreviews.blogspot.ca/

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Reflections on The Man in the Moon, MCCT June 2010

Following obsessions is one way of describing contemporary weaving practices regardless of what methods are used. In my life as a painter there were flowers, landscapes, male figures, portraits, in my life as a quilter there were flowers, landscapes, male figures, portraits, and in my Jacquard woven textiles all of these have made an appearance.

Here is one of my painting of flowers being held by a figure

standing in a landscape (Saltspring Island)

Here is a painting transitioning itself into a quilt with landscape flowers and figures

This is a landscape mural I painted painted in a bedroom in a house in the country, the bedding , the tufted duvet and pillow case are also made by me.


A jacquard woven self portrait made during my first visit to the MCCT

One thing does lead to another and a line can be drawn from my earliest drawings of flowers as a child in terms of shapes and colour to what I do today.

Can you find two things that are wrong in this photo* see bottom of page for correct answer
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After doing a workshop on the TC-1 in Austria in July 2009 I got back to the MCCT in June 2010 to continue exploring what I had started in Haslach. There I had decide to explore white on white damask but it was more about texture it is hard to limit yourself when working with the complex weaver structures that can be woven on a jacquard looms. As I have built a vocabulary of weave structures over the past ten years my concerns in making cloth have changed and given that this time in Montreal I would be designing for a 6 colour warp I still wanted to see if and how to bring as much white onto the front of the cloth while including the other colours.

Expanding last summers flower garden and combing a previously used landscape I began to work on a two coloured shuttle design.

This is one of the weave structures I created [I call it peek -a-boo, it as an eyelet look ]

Working with a structure i had created three years ago to produce a rich red, I liked the effect and then shifted it to bring each colour to the front and made one piece using only this structure.

Three shades of blue and two reds using the same structure.

This is a detail of the different shades of white, distance plays an important part helping the eye recognize what it is seeing on the surface of a jacquard cloth much like Georges Seurat's pointillist paintings

This detail of "white" floats on a backdrop of colour which is a garden siting under a big sky

Sky Detail

Earth detail

Reflections on The Man in the Moon, 2010, six colour repeated warp; black red green blue yellow and white yarn, woven with a two colour weft; black and white, 48.26 cm wide X 1.42 meters High (19 “X 56”)

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Cows can not lay down with their legs in front it is physically impossible and "W" is missing from the alphabet

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"Desire in shades of Purple" Scanned of woven photocopies

This the first DIYJOE, downlaod this image make an 8. x 11 thermal transfer of it and iron it on a T-shirt and Bobs your Uncle! your very own DIY Joe Lewis T-shirt

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