On Wednesday, January 29th from 7:00 to 9:00 pm, please join us for Mindful and Meaningful: Exploring the Synergies Between Textile Waste and Fine Art Practice, Textile Arts LA‘s inaugural session of practiceLAB, featuring talks from artists, architects, designers, and creatives.

In this session, we are treated to a discussion of how artists and designers can work together to create a more sustainable future. Three Los Angeles based artists share their diverse practices and individual experiences, creating responsible objects that honor the past and endure in the future.

If you attended the October Textile Slam you were treated to a sneak preview of this talk. We’re thrilled to invite the trio back for a longer form discussion of this critical topic: questions of sustainability, reuse, and upcycling are necessary considerations. Please join this lively presentation and discussion showcasing how three artists are responding.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Renae Barnard is a multi-disciplinary artist interested in exploring the network of interactions between environment, perception, and well-being. Using found materials and waste from the furniture manufacturing industry, Barnard received her Master of Fine Arts from Claremont Graduate University and her BA from California State University, Los Angeles. Barnard has recently completed projects in cooperation with the National Immigration Law Center and the City of Santa Monica Department of Cultural Affairs. She is a recipient of the Sue Arlen Walker and Harvey M. Parker Memorial Fellowship, the Armory Center for the Arts Teaching Artist Fellowship, The Ahmanson Annual Fellowship, Lincoln Fellowship Award, and Christopher Street West Art and Culture Grant.

Chuck Hohng is a Korean American artist, born in Long Beach California. Chuck spent fourteen years of his early life in his family’s native South Korea. He received his undergraduate degree in Fine Arts from the University of Southern California and received his Master of Fine Arts degree from Art Center College of Design. His early childhood exposure to Catholic practice and a bicultural household furthered interests in vanitas, identities, symbols, and rituals. Chuck makes a range of fiber artworks from teddy bears to haute couture hanbok. Exploring salvaged textiles connections to love and loss, Chuck’s artworks give a physical body to intellectual and emotional experiences. He believes we can always grow out of the mud, lift ourselves above the murky water and bloom.

Aneesa Shami received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees in both Fiber and Art History from the Kansas City Art Institute. Aneesa’s work speaks to a broader understanding that we are all fundamentally human. She tries to utilize universal themes that are inclusive, referencing the sublime, and an otherworldly sense of the human conscious and subconscious. A love for repetitive mark-making drives her practice. Multiple strands of yarn, strips of felt, and even pen strokes build depth and density in each piece. Layers of material and process combine to lend the impression that there is more than what the eye sees. She recently completed a residency at the Helms Design Center, is currently researching textile and fiber history and is completing large sculptural pieces in her current body of work, Syndication.