October, 2020

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Slowinski Studios News    October, 2020 Woman Made Gallery Independent curator, Juana Williams, selected only 35 out of 600 pieces submitted for the 23rd International Open at Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, IL.  My work, Wiggle, shown below, was among those selected.  It will probably be the smallest piece in the show as it measures a mere 3 in x 3 in.     The exhibition will be a hybrid:  virtual and in person, from October 30 - November 21, 2020.  Woman Made Gallery is located at 2150 S. Canalport, #4A-3; Chicago IL 60608.  Please call (312) 738-0400 or email the gallery general@womanmade.org if you wish to make an in-person visit.  Gallery Hours: Th-Fri 12-6 pm | Sat-Sun 12-4 pm or by appointment | Closed on Major Holidays.  For more information go to https://womanmade.org/ Grandmother I was also fortunate to have work included in the Grandmother exhibition at the Hannan Center Kayrod Gallery in Detroit's Cultural Center from August 21 - September 30, 2020.  This was a lovely exhibition that presented visual work together with the stories the artists told about the work inspired by grandmothers. I had three, prismacolor pencil drawings on black paper included in the show.          On the left is an image of my maternal grandmother as I remember her in her garden.  She worked wearing a worn vest sweater and her babushka/head scarf.  In the middle is a three generations drawing with my Mother reaching up to the tree of life: me, the Virgin, sitting at the base of the tree; and my Grandmother, the Crone, picking strawberries.  On the right is a dream mandala drawing.  I am lying on my side, pregnant with my daughter, Claire.  Beneath my head is another fetus, my creative imaginination.  I am protected by the arms of my grandmother below her all-seeing breasts.   Dorothy Jett-Carter, April Anue, and I talked about our work at the invitation of Kathy Bricker, who organizes outings for the Needle Work and Textile Guild of Michigan, on September 23, 2020 at the Kayrod Gallery.  It is always a delight to meet other fiber artists and enthusiasts. Marking Time   At the start of the stay-at-home order I thought I would start working on something very different and BIG BIG BIG in my studio!  But I just couldn’t do that.  BIG just didn’t seem important.  The pandemic was BIG and it was making people miserable, sick and killing them!    Then all the face mask patterns became available and I thought I would make a lot of those.  I made two and stopped.  There were so many patterns coming out almost as fast as I found them.  It was no use.  It was all too confusing.   Out of frustration, I picked up narrow strips of scrap booking paper I had in my studio and cut them in half so that they were about the size of a bookmark.  I perforated lines in the paper with my sewing machine and then stitched into the holes by hand.                       I made 30 for people I write to every month.  Some are almost blind, but these were pieces they could touch and run their fingers over the stitches.  I used bright colors too, hoping that even if the lines were blurry, at least the colors would be pleasing.                    I tore handmade paper into strips too and kept on stitching.  Soon I was putting texture between the lines.                                         Then I was covering almost the entire piece of paper with stitches.                                  I call this my Marking Time Series…as we are all marking time until this pandemic is over.  This series will be ongoing until I feel comfortable working larger...or perhaps this will remain my way of putting art into peoples' hands so that they can touch something besides computer keyboards or the glass of their smartphone screens.  One of my pen pals now addresses me as QEM...the Queen of Exquisite Minutiae.  I delight in the moniker! STAY SAFE WASH YOUR HANDS OFTEN WEAR YOUR MASK IN PUBLIC AREAS  VOTE AS IF YOUR LIFE DEPENDED ON IT! RBG-RIP

July, 2020

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Slowinski Studios News     July, 2020 I am delighted to have work selected not only for the exhibition Uncommon Threads at the Scarab Club, but for the piece to have also been selected for use in the signage for the exhibition.  It is quite wonderful to see Carnival, which measures only 3 in x 5 in, on such a grand scale in detail.     I hope you get a chance to see the exhibition.  The Scarab Club 217 Farnsworth St Detroit, MI 48202 (313) 831-1250 presents Please be aware that the Scarab Club is adhering to the guidelines provided by the State, CDC, and WHO, as well as industry best practices.  The Scarab Club has established new protocols for staff and visitors that will include: Health screening and temperature checks for all staff. Health screening of all visitors upon entering the building. Requiring masks or face coverings within the building for all staff and visitors. Allowing twenty people or fewer visitors in the gallery at a time. One-way traffic patterns and distancing segments to help maintain a safe distance. Hand sanitizing dispensers and frequent cleaning of high-touch surfaces.  Please be considerate of others and comply with these protocols..   Hours:  July 10-11-12, 2020   Noon - 5 PM Thereafter through August 29, 3030: Wed-Sun, Noon - 5 PM   If your schedule does not permit you to visit the exhibition, Jeremy Noonan has taped a tour of the exhibition which will appear on the Scarab Club website: https://scarabclub.org/ Thank you. Stay safe.

June, 2020

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Slowinski Studios Newsletter June, 2020   Thank you to Ryan Standfest for inviting me to participate in another Detroit Sequential project: The Sunday Comics, which take the full page style of old time "Sunday funnies!"  The 16 x 22 in. full page format was too large for me to be able to stitch something in time.  It required a family collaboration! I found our album of snapshots of the 1996 Olympic Torch Relay that came through Detroit in early June of 1996.  Robert D'Aoust, my husband, scanned them in for me.  I created a storyboard of the images with some text and handed it off to Claire D'Aoust, our daughter, who created the artwork that told the story of how we and our friends and neighbors greeted the Torchbearer that morning.  It is particularly fitting to recall that event in light of the postponement of the Summer Olympics to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Please click on the link to see the comic set into The Sunday Comics and to see what other Detroit artists have produced.  You can also sign up to receive the additional comics as they are published online.  Enjoy! http://rotlandpress.com/detroit-sequential-sunday   In addition to the Sunday Comic, I created a work at the beginning of the pandemic lock down that reflected my encounter with the frequent hand washing that was required.  It is called Lather Up!  It is hand-stitching done over a paper collage.  It evokes soap, water, and the subsequent rawness my skin experienced in an effort to keep the virus away. I also created a work for a project called 25 Million Stitches.  This project was originated by a group of women in Sacramento, CA to remind us of the 25 million refugees in the world.  Artists were asked to stitch a linen or muslin panel 15 x 35 in and to create a design of their choice but to count the stitches in it so that number could be added until they reached 25 million. Mine is called 8,000 Stitches.  Each star represents a community be it a family, village, city, state, or country.  As people leave their communities, the communities fall apart. Finally, as Father's Day approaches, I think of the Fathers who have died as a result of violence, particularly Fathers whose skin color made them vulnerable just being in our harsh and judgmental world.  I also think of the young men who never had the opportunity to become fathers simply because someone pre-judged them based on the color of their skin; of the young men who died because they desired companionship with someone of the same sex, or who have been denied the rights to be a father by adoption because of their sexual preference; or the young transgender individuals who identify as males but are ostracized and denied human compassion because of their identity.  We are one species.  We need more compassion for one another.   Please hold all these human beings in your heart with compassion on Father's Day as I hold you in mine.

January, 2020

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Slowinski Studios January, 2020   An Effervescent Universe of Stitched Phenomenon featured in Dutch contemporary textile zine: Textiel Plus! I am delighted that Dorothé Swinkels, a textile art connoisseur in the Netherlands, recently contacted me via email. She had read my 2013 World Of Threads interview and had perused my website.  She was interested in learning more about An Effervescent Universe of Stitched Phenomena, the body of work from my solo show of 2018 and provided a list of questions and some images she had selected from my website.    Thank you Dorothé for your interest in writing about my work and introducing it to the TxP audience! Her article:  'Thread is Dolores Slowinski's Pencil" can be read in Dutch here: https://www.textielplus.nl/artikelen/draad-is-het-potlood-bij-dolores-slowinski/ Please check it out to see the layout of the text and images. The English translation:   Thread is Dolores Slowinski’s pencil. by Dorothé Swinkels Thread is the primary drawing tool of the American artist Dolores Slowinski.  In her work, she explores its use and embroiders her abstract drawings on paper. She prefers to work on paper because it is sturdy enough to hold without collapsing.  Only when viewed up close can it be seen that her "drawings" are made with thread. Material is her motive, Dolores says: "When I see threads, pieces of paper, I want to touch them.  I want to thread a needle and get to work." The starting point of each work from the series discussed here "An Effervescent Universe of Stitched Phenomena" are the self-designed patterns embroidered on perforated cross-stitch paper she had from a previous project.  Instead of throwing it away, she challenged herself to reuse it in a creative way.  She lets it be her starting point, lets it "bleed" at the edges in the background and uses a different pattern for each new color. The sewn shapes or textures in one piece can inspire another work.   Dance "Actually, my method is a bit like improvised dance," says Dolores. "I invite the paper and the thread to participate so that the dance begins. I work intuitively, without a preconceived plan, do not use a sketchbook, correct any errors while working, certainly do not want to make a sketch in another material beforehand to execute it in thread. Thread is my line: why put a pencil first? I choose the paper, the thread in whatever color, but I never know what will appear on that sheet of paper. " That is the surprise element that Dolores likes most about her work.   Use of color   "I challenge myself to work with colors that I find unattractive" She says about her use of color: "I am attracted to bright colors, but I often challenge myself to work with colors that I find unattractive, colors that I would normally not want to work with, or sometimes just black, white and gray. I think it's a good exercise to get out of my comfort zone and when the discomfort changes into comfort, I challenge myself again. I don't want to become complacent in my work. https://www.doloresslowinski.com/ Main image: Dolores Slowinski, 'Triangles Squared'. Overview of textile artists Current exhibitions TxP Textile Plus 250 Overview Subscribe to TxP and receive a € 5, - discount or a welcome gift! Subscribe Dorothé Swinkels is a great lover and connoisseur of autonomous textile art. After a career in the field as a teacher and coordinator of the fashion and textile department of the art academy in Maastricht, she now shares her accumulated knowledge and very large network for the benefit of TxP and advises Museum Rijswijk on compiling the international textile biennales . She publishes daily on the heavily visited Facebook page Textiel Plus.