Practical Basketry Techniques
Published by A&C Black, due out February 2012

Co-authored with Stella Harding, this publication introduces six main techniques in basketry. Coiling, twining, stake and strand, plaiting, interlacing and assemblage projects with step by step instructions are included in the book, familiarizing readers with the use of traditional as well as non traditional materials, with a focus on sourcing materials from your local environment from natural fibres to recycled materials. A book launch will be held at Siobhan Davies Studios on February 24th, accompanied by basketry displays and demonstrations, and the opportunity to create your own basket.The first five visitors will receive a free copy of the book. For further information on the event click here. For other basketry related projects, click here.

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Drawn to motion, written in space, stitched over time
Siobhan Davies Studios, London
12 January - 11 March 2012

An exhibition of new works specially designed for Siobhan Davies Studios which explore the realtionship between textiles and dance, making and performance, objects and their recordings. Using stitching patterns, dance notation and the building itself as inspiration, new works will be developed with dancers and members of the public, including using the building as a loom to weave on and creating site responsive installations.

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Intelligent Trouble @ The Festival of Materials and Making, Kings College, London
Helen Carnac, David Gates, Katy Hackney, Shane Waltener
7-11 November 2011

Using the staircase at the river-end of the main axis of the Strand campus as site and inspiration, the artist-led collective Intelligent Trouble will draw on rope-making as a way of working with spaces, materials, processes and people. The staircase moves through the vertical height of the whole building and will be used as a vast studio space. The artists will respond to the space, working over the course of the week to make a constantly evolving and growing intervention. Intelligent Trouble are a London-based collective of makers and artists, one of the founder-members is a PhD student in the humanities department at KCL.

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Outdoor Weave-In, 2011
Mixed fibre yarns, cotton and jute twine
Powerhouse Museum Discovery Centre
13 August through to April 2012

A site specific installation by Shane Waltener with participants at the Powerhouse Discovery Centre.

Created over the course of one day (Saturday 13 August 2011) during Sydney Design, the installation consists of a series interconnecting woven pathways inspired by ‘desire lines’, paths that are developed by erosion caused by footfall. In this case these paths were stitched rather than created by footfall, and instead of describing the shortest way from a point of origin to a destination, the artist and the participants meandered through the grove, joining other paths as they stitched their way through it. The work is not in any way a mechanical reproduction of a pre planned design, but a physical manifestation (in stitch) of the participants’ negotiation between their own making, and the environment they found themselves in.

The result is a large web like piece of fabric, that links, and appear to support, a number of trees in the grove, and prompts the visitors and passers to take a fresh look at the historic eucalyptus plantation as they walk alongside it.

Thank you to the Discovery Centre visitors who participated in the creation of this work and to the Baulkham Hills and Hills College of TAFE Event Management students who worked as artist assistants on the day.

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Another World Wide Web
Love Lace Exhibition, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney
30 July 2011 to April 2012

The installation piece Another World Wide Web will be part of the exhibition Love Lace at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, which features 130 works by 134 international artists, until April 2012.

For more information on the exhibition, see link below:

http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/lovelace/

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Knitted and Looped
Sydney Design Festival 2011, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney
30 July - 14 August

A growing lace installation commissioned for the Turbine Hall at the Powerhouse Museum, part of Sydney Design 2011.

The installation will be shown in conjunction with Another World Wide Web, a large scale installation on three levels of the museum, part of the Love Lace exhibition featuring 130 works by 134 international artists.

For more information on either projects, see links below:

http://www.sydneydesign.com.au/2011/
http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/lovelace/

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Encounters, Journeys through Language and Landscape
Fermynwoods Contemporary Art
6 August - 18 September 2011

A series of site specific installations entitled Desire Lines, commissioned by Fermynwoods Contemporary Art for their exhibition Encounters at Fermynwoods Country Park. For more details, visit www.fermynwoods.co.uk.

Click here to read a review of the show.

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Stitching Revolutions: Shane Waltener with Craftspace and Husqvarna Viking at the Stitching and Knitting Show 2010

Encounter craft as a performance. Shane Waltener works live with participants on six Husqvarna Viking overlocking machines in the Palm Court Foyer at Alexandra Palace.

Reworking fabric from old clothes, a group of stitchers act as one to create Stitching Circle #1, a new piece commissioned for the Palm Court at Alexandra Palace, during the Knitting and Stitching Show. They simultaneously pass and receive their continuous creation negotiating the pace of the stitching to keep the work flowing. The stitched installation will evolve forming an ever growing suspended circular display over the course of the four days of the exhibition.

You are invited to join the circle of stitchers and celebrate the histories and memories of cloth by joining the circle of stitchers and making new conversations through fabric and stitch.

Craftspace and Husqvarna Viking present this exciting event.
The event links to the touring exhibition Taking Time: Craft and the Slow Revolution.

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Sweet Celebrations: An exhibition that's a piece of cake
Swan Room, Swan Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon
9 April – 24 July 2011

To mark the Royal Shakespeare Company's 50th Birthday, the RSC has invited artist Shane Waltener to transform the Swan Room in the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon into a large birthday cake.

As part of Sweet Celebrations, which runs between 9 April and 24 July, Shane will work with members of the public to make a frieze around the walls of the room using combined sugarcraft and graffiti techniques. Participants will use sugar paste, royal icing and sweets to decorate the walls and contribute to the creation of a large-scale installation.

During a number of hands-on sessions led by Shane, participants will be guided through a range of processes for making decorated sugar tiles or tags. They will be encouraged to think about developing designs inspired by the architectural details and motifs from within the building. Outside of these sessions the public can visit the exhibition to view the work in progress.

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Stairwell Weave-In, Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh
15 January - 20 March 2010

Please see link below for images and details of the recent site specific installation created for Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh, and the touring exhibition Taking time: Craft and the Slow Revolution, curated by Helen Carnac and Craftspace.

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Tibby Place, Greenman Street, Islington N1
5 July 2010 - 31 July 2010

The Hanging Garlands of Tibby Place was an interactive and participatory installation at Tibby Place using the existing iron framework that remains of old Tibberton Baths as a loom.

Tibberton Baths were built in 1897, known to locals as "the Tib", they were popular swimming baths until 1982. Now all that remains is the iron framework which stands as a curious monument to the former pool, and became the temporary framework for Waltener's performative and participatory installation. Web like patterns were woven in and around the structure over the course of the month by participants and dancers physically created the woven interventions through a contemporary twist on the traditional "maypole" type of performance. See the events page for more information.

This art work is one of a series of Secret Garden Projects commissioned by Islington Council.

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Garland #21 (step and stitch), a new piece commissioned for the exhibition Taking Time: Craft and the Slow Revolution will be kick started with a performance on Friday 23rd October at 7pm, at the Waterhall, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

Garland #21 (step and stitch) is the latest in a series of interactive installations started in 2006, involving members of the public in weaving and stitching. With this new piece, a series of choreographic sequences have been developed linking movements associated with (dance) steps ands stitches. The performance stands as an invitation for members of the public to contribute to the piece and while doing so, reflect on crafting as a ritualised and communal activity. The piece was devised by the artist in collaboration with dancer and choreographer Cheryl McChesney Jones.

For more information on the exhibition from Craftspace, curated by Helen Carnac, see www.takingtime.org and www.craftspace.co.uk

For opening times at the museum and the events programme see www.bmag.org.uk

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