Curriculum Vitae July 2016

As I do not run a web site at present it would seem that this is the place I need to post a copy of my CV in case anyone is "looking" for that kind of information.


PERSONAL DETAILS

Name: Vivien Joy Davy. MA&D, BA, AOCA.

Residential Address:
     18 Halse Place
Opunake
Taranaki 4616
New Zealand

Mailing Address:
     18 Halse Place
Opunake
Taranaki 4616
New Zealand

Telephone:
     64-6-761-8134 Home
64-21-407-424 Daytime

Email:
rob.viv@ihug.co.nz:
silktangles@me.com

Blog:      
     silktangles.blogspot.com


TEXTILE EDUCATION

2015 Masters of Art and Design, Visual Arts. (1st Class Honours) AUT, Auckland, N. Z.

2012 P.G.Dip. Art and Design, Visual Arts, AUT, Auckland, N. Z.

2008-     Tapestry Advanced Techniques – American Tapestry Alliance Distance Learning
2010

2001 BA Auckland University. Major: Geography.

2000 Damask Weaving, Handweavers Guild of America Distance Learning.

1986       Diploma - Associate of the Ontario College of Art. Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
              (Textile Design.) Major Specialties - damask weaving, tapestry weaving, colour theory,                       design theory.
1985 Rockford, Michigan - Individual Tuition on 30 harness Swedish Drawloom.

1983       Richard Landis - Colour Patterning in Multi-Harness Doubleweave, The Banff Centre                         School of Fine Arts, Banff, Canada.
1982 Diane Mortinson – Fashion Design for Handwovens, Regina, Canada.

1982 Ken Weaver – Rep Weave, The Banff Centre School of Fine Arts, Banff, Canada.

1981 University of Regina, Canada. Introduction to Art, 3-Dimensional Form.

1976 C. Kellin – Spinning, Auckland, New Zealand.

1976 E. Spalding – Rug Weaving, Auckland, New Zealand.




EXHIBITIONS
Open Artist Studio. Taranaki Arts Trail 11-12 June 2016
Percy Thomson Gallery. Stratford. Taranaki Arts Trail Exhibition 27 May -22 June 2016
"Connections" Percy Thomson Gallery. Stratford. Group Exhibition 2016 April 2016
"Liminal Sites: Materialising an Everyday" Percy Thomson Gallery. Stratford. Master of Arts and Design Examination Exhibition September 2015
"Chester Burrows Exhibition" Bowen House, Wellington. 2015
Open Artist Studio. Taranaki Arts Trail 14-15 June 2015
"Connections" Percy Thomson Gallery. Stratford. Group Exhibition April 2015
"Weaving Waverley - Artists Open Studios" Invitational display and workshop. march 2015.
"The Third Dimension." An Invitational Sculpture Exhibition. Eltham Village Gallery July 2014.
"Tapestries and Damasks." Solo Retrospective Show. Lysaght Gallery. Hawera, June 30th - July 26th 2014
Open Artist Studio. Taranaki Arts Trail 14-15 June 2014
"Home Work. Taranaki Art Now" Puke Ariki, New Plymouth 6 June -31 August 2014
"Angels in the House" Percy Thomson Gallery. Stratford. Solo exhibition Jan 31-Feb 23 2014
"Connections" Percy Thomson Gallery. Stratford. Group exhibition Jan 31-Feb 23 2014
"Taranaki National Art Awards. An Event Not To Be Missed". Opunake, Taranaki. 1-9 November 2013.
"AD12. Unexpected Spaces" Solo Exhibition of "Angels in the House". Representing Off Campus Strand of Visual Arts School. Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand. 7-11 November 2012.
“Travelling Suitcase Exhibition. Within the Square” New Zealand Tapestry Network.
 “From Our Gardens.” Tapestry Exchange Exhibition. New Zealand Tapestry Network “Shore to Shore.”  Estuary Arts, Orewa, New Zealand.
“Tapestry Blues.” New Zealand Tapestry Network.
“Tapestry Sounds.” New Zealand Tapestry Network
“Childhood Memories.” New Zealand Tapestry Network
 Creative Fibre National Exhibition 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008. New Zealand
"150x150." Art Upstairs, Kerikeri, New Zealand
"Our Private Talents.” New Zealand College of Design, Auckland, New Zealand
 Atlantic Provinces Craft Council Trade Show
 Inter-mode Trade Show, Toronto, Canada
"By A Fine Thread.” HGA
"Small Expressions.” HGA
"Eclectic Excellence." Crafts Council Ontario, Canada
"6x6x6." Cartright Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
Craft Fair, Harbourfront, Toronto, Canada
The Artist’s Colony, Group Show, Ontario, Canada
Christmas Show, Toronto Spinners and Weavers, Canada
Saskatchewan Craft Council Commission Artists Show, Regina, Canada
Bazzart, Regina, Canada
Park Art, Moose Jaw, Canada
Creatisphere, Regina, Canada
The Kowhai Festival, Warkworth New Zealand


AWARDS

2013 Fibre Art Award 2013. "An Old Friend" at "Taranaki National Art Awards - An Event Not                   To Be Missed".
2008 Creative Fiber Festival Merit Award – "Life Form, a tapestry". New Zealand
1986 Best Garment Award – “By A Fine Thread” Toronto, Canada
1986 Silver Medal Award for Overall Excellence - Ontario College of Art, Toronto, Canada
1986 Ontario College of Art, Faculty Purchase Award
1986 Madelline M Field Award for Excellence in Textile Design, OCA, Toronto, Canada
1985 SAMO Textile Scholarship, OCA, Toronto, Canada
1984 Deanne Swan Memorial Scholarship, OCA, Toronto, Canada
1983 Tuition Scholarship, Banff Centre of The Arts, Canada.

CONFERENCE PAPERS

2015 "Keeping Up Appearances: The Cost of Being Acceptable." CTANZ Annual Symposium. Dunedin, April 2015.

PUBLISHED ARTICLES
"Keeping Up Appearances: The Cost of Being Acceptable." Context. dress/fashion/textiles.  Costume and Textile Association of New Zealand. Context Issue 31. Summer 2015/16. p                    14-25.



RELEVANT WORK EXPERIENCE

2007        Workshop teacher –“Beyond the straight and narrow – Loom shaped tapestry                                         techniques." Creative Fibre Festival.

2006         Relief Teaching at Kerikeri High School, Bay of Islands

1996 -

Current   “From Out Of The Blue Studios” owner. Fibre Art studio producing one-off  handwoven                        tapestries and damasks, production run hand-woven domestic textiles and rugs.
1995-
1996 Principal at New Zealand College of Design, Auckland.

1995         Tutor at New Zealand College of Design, Auckland. Colour theory, life  drawing,                                  design history, art history.

1986-
1994  Owner/Operator of “Morphos Studio” in Ontario and New Brunswick Canada.

1983-
1984 Jinx Studios, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Piece good weaver


1982        Workshop leader for Regina Weavers and Spinners Guild.
Special Projects facilitator at Mackenzie Art Gallery Regina, Canada

1976-
1982 Owner/Operator of “Gecko Craft Studio” in Auckland, Vancouver

"Days - A Liminal Site" 2015

"Days - A Liminal Site" was completed in 2015 as part of my Master's of Art and Design research into The Domestic Mundane. This research sought to understand what happens in a domestic situation as mundane activity and why it happens. Using my own domestic situation as the site, I explored how choices are made about the uses of time as a reflection of value.  In this 21st century home influences constantly come into the environment especially with digital penetration of the public sphere into the private and personal realms of the home. The research disclosed how my mundane actions reflect a value driven process of sifting, selecting, rejecting, modifying or incorporating these possible elements into everyday life.

This is a woven and assembled metaphorical piece representing this process as it "creates" the fabric of a domestic mundane.

There are three spheres in the domestic everyday - the personal, the domestic (private) and the public (worldly or political).These realms are not discrete from each other but rather engage with each other holistically. The home is the site of actions and engagements that result in liminal transfers through the boundaries of these realms. These transfers result in the threshold synthesis of something new - receiving from both the outside or public realm and the inside or personal realm. In my research it was apparent that my home operated in this sense as the site where each act was unique, newly evidencing a restating of inner values. A site of continuous decision making. 

"Days - A Liminal Site" is a material realisation of this subconscious process, a liminal transfer evidencing the creation of my domestic everyday from the enclosing cultural and physical environment. The wefts used for the hand-weaving of "Days - A Liminal Site" have been assigned symbolic significance. The newspaper is the locally produced daily news, which was selected to locate the work - in time, and place. This is the current geography of her existence. It also stands for the media - both print, and non-print. 

There is a strip woven of recycled courier bags and plastic supermarket bags which references the dependence my household has on a global, transported network of supply and the positioning of this domestic mundane in the mainstream of societal supply chains. 

Reclaimed enviro-bags symbolise my attempts to support ecologically friendly, locally produced options wherever possible. The woven cabbage tree fronds acknowledge the huge role the native natural world has in my everyday life, while the woven barley straw stalks speak of the agriculturally and culturally altered environment that this domestic situation is located within. The assorted electronic cables speak for themselves. The weft threads for these panels are ones usually used for creating fine clothing or domestic textiles - a choice made to reflect the intimate personal nature that holds my values and that makes the ultimate selections informing my everyday life.

"Days - A Liminal Site" detail of central intersection . 

Pea Straw and Phone Cable

Recycled Courier and Supermarket plastic bags

Recycled enviro-bags

The Taranaki Daily News as weft

Native Cabbage Tree fronds used for the weft material

"Return I" 2016

Overview of "Return I"

Detail

Detail

I have a long term delight in the transfer of natural pigment onto papers, fabrics and yarns, by slow methods.  My fascination with the cycles of life and the richness of my geographical location are combined in this series "Return" which uses these dyed materials. I think of the layering of the pigmented filmy tissue papers  and various fabrics as evocative of the painterly method of building layers of colour washes, creating depths in the colour. For me this aligns with natural layering processes where sediments are geologically deposited and then overlaid with finer detritus and plant matter, creating our "earth" - our place in the cosmos. There are no two iterations that are the same, ingredients always subtly altering over space and time. Nothing is geometric or regular, there is a creative organic shape to the outcome of the process. This is what I strive to reference with this series of works. 

"Captured Loyalties". 2002.

"Divided Loyalties"

Detail of "Divided Loyalties" Left Hand side.

Detail of "Divided Loyalties" Right Hand side.

Detail of "Divided Loyalties" Lower Central section.

 This work is an exploration of my personal experience of diaspora. After becoming a Canadian citizen and living many years in Canada I returned to my homeland, New Zealand to live again. It was a fraught experience for me as most of my old friendships in New Zealand had faded over the 18 year interval, the country itself had undergone huge changes, and I was embedded back into my family structure after so long as a migrant. The people in my life in New Zealand had lived a vastly different 18 years than I had in Canada and so we had huge missing sections of experience. Values had shifted with those experiences. I had come home for family reasons - my loyalty lay there but my head and heart were essentially still in Canada where I had built a totally different life. I loved that life and the richnesses of it. In this work I try to express how my heart, mind and soul were stretched by this feeling of being divided about where I "really" wanted to be, the pressure of family obligations and loyalties and the pressure and stress this position put me under.

The tapestry is woven with an internal wire structure that was used to contour the woven surface. This weaving is attached to the "tethering" structures of two "places" with wire representing the strength of the bonds while at the same time wires of all different lengths spring free from the tethers. These speak to the loss of self I experienced as I hovered, suspended between the two existences. The painted stretched canvas background references the feeling I had that I belonged neither in New Zealand nor in Canada because of the choice I had made to return to a place that was no longer as I had remembered it, and in that process surrendering the place I had come from.


Materials: Acrylic on stretched canvas, copper wire, warp: cotton, weft: cotton embroidery floss, found wood.
Size: 50 cm x 40 cm.

The Codex Series. Completed April 2015.

This blog post follows on from an earlier one which can be found on

 http://silktangles.blogspot.co.nz/2014/08/new-work-2014.html. In the earlier post I describe what these diaries are about and some of the making behind them.

Face View of one diary of "The Codex Series"

The Collection of Diaries of 'The Codex Series"

Spine View of April 2014 diary of "The Codex Series"

Open View of one diary in "The Codex Series" from Installation

Part of the Code Ribbon for "The Codex Series" from Installation

Installation View showing The Code Ribbon as well as some of the diaries of "The Codex Series"

Installation View
 

Installation View

Installation Overview.

Installation View showing "Days - A Liminal Site" and "The Codex Series"

"Tectonics I" 2016.

 "Tectonics" speaks to the earth and its movement beneath us. Natural materials have been used to convey compression, uplifts and lateral changes.

Close-up views of Tectonics. 

Tectonics 2016

This is the first in a new body of work looking at my physical world, the cliffs and rock outcrops I see in my immediate surroundings. The materials I have used are all naturally dyed with plant and mineral dyes that are also taken from my immediate surroundings. This work is exploring how I am physically connected to my surroundings and how I can use very simple natural materials transformed within my surroundings to create a visual expression of my connectedness. The work is informed by slow making methodology and ecologically sensitive considerations, aligned with the underpinning fundamentals of my practice. 

"Read All About It" (2014)

Handwoven. Wool, Cotton, Linen and silk threads; the complete contents of The Taranaki Daily News from 05/09/2014 - 23/09/2014; up-cycled Devil's Cup Coffee Bags.

Gallery Statement:
Our life's public archive is created by the daily newspaper. The record of "newsworthy"material marks our passage through society as it informs us. In response, we create the continuing society. This becomes the fabric of our lives, both private and public.

This work was undertaken as a exploratory piece during my Masters In Art and Design. As part of that research I maintained a blog diary of my making. Below are excerpts from the postings I made around creating this work. These notes go into in-depth  descriptions about the weaving as it relates to the mundane.



My Blogpost Notes:

The pattern uses 8 different colour warp threads, each colour a section of 3 inches in the reed, or 45 ends. The warp sett was established at 15 ends per inch in the design process. 

I have been using this loom for 35 years on and off. For many years it was the place I made my living. The actions and processes necessary to work on this loom are long ingrained tacit knowledge and habituated behaviour. In this aspect they reflect my domestic mundane. Although this process needs an awareness in the precision and counting involved I would suggest that this also happens to a greater or lesser extent with any habituated action in the mundane. Parts of any habituated process will be more automated intellectually than other parts, requiring greater and lesser amount of concentration. Nothing really gets done without some awareness not even the simplest of task such as repetitive sequencing.

The hands have a tactile sense of the smoothness of the threads – necessary for even tension in the weave, the eyes pick up tiny irregularities of colour pattern indicating a tangle. The knowledge of the way the threads need to ‘feel’ in the hand and against the reed to avoid breakages is both tactile and tacit. Textural differences between the yarns are felt in the hands during the sorting process. The test before winding is the opening of the shed to ensure complete separation of all the threads from each other. Tugging and positioning ensures the relaxed but even ‘tension’ on the threads as they are rested on the front beam to wind through.

The work is slow, methodical, another cyclical rhythmic sequence but while still focused on the tiny detailed aspects of the warp threads the physical space is external to the loom working around it from front to back responding to the state of the threads. It draws deeply on tacit and tactile knowledge. The awareness is of process – operational decisions are constantly made but no decisions that would change this process – they have been made and at this stage it is just a matter of progressing through the steps to the point of being able to tie onto the front roller and starting the weaving.
The technique of tearing the newspaper into strips was ineffective so I changed to using the old guillotine that was in the studio, marking out approximately 1 inch spaces across the top of the folded papers and creating the strips to weave that way. This was much quicker and could deliver a more consistent but still variable product to weave with. The weaving began with tabby and immediately the difference from working with yarn or raw wool and working with the paper became apparent. The paper tears on applying pressure, it does not roll easily for the turns which means having to make a concentrated effort on each end of each row to carefully fold the paper and manipulate it into the next row. This makes weaving slow. There is a lot of compression with the beating as well. There is no real opportunity to generate a weaving rhythm with this technique as there is when the weft is inserted off a shuttle. Every piece has to be put in by hand through the warps. These threads are fine and very tight and act like knives, cutting both the paper as well as hands. Extra care has to be taken to avoid the shredding of the paper and also to place it in a way that makes the row as smooth as possible. It is rather laborious. 

There is a sense of achievement as the weaving is advanced onto the front roller – visible evidence of energy spent, time invested. This evidence is lasting, tangible, could be defined as a permanent article as opposed to a disposable commodity. How much this resonates with the nature of the domestic mundane can be taken from two perspectives. From one perspective it is possible to say that It doesn’t as most of the ‘chores’ of the everyday are fugitive, often only leaving a trace or an evidence that is not permanent. Often the evidence is in the creation of an absence – e.g. cleaning – the evidence is the lack of dirt. From the second perspective it could be argued that all these invisible chores do leave evidence in the well being of the benefactors of the labour. From a human, not economic, value the care of people and their domestic surrounds so they can enjoy good health in a safe and enriching domestic environment is the indication of how valuable those people are – it is therefore of unlimited value to the recipients. 




Each day’s paper has been woven as a unit – marked off on the side of the cloth with a small cotton tag. Some days the paper, of course, has many more pages, especially the Saturday paper so the rhythms of the days are varying.  My first paper was dated Friday September 5th 2014. The average time spent weaving each day’s paper is 3 hours a day. 

The second week pattern is derived from Helene Bresse’s book. It is a straight draw twill. The text of the newspaper is more obvious in this pattern. The light shifts differently across the fabric. The colour shifts in the warp are clearly visible.There is a sense of movement with the diagonal pattern – it conveys a progression up the cloth that the tabby texture didn’t. The rhythm of the making is made visible.The fine details of the materials are more evident on the surface.

Reflective observations on weaving the straight draw twill.

I enjoy this pattern – it activates the surface enough to be more visually rewarding as a weaver. In this pattern I experience more re-engagement with the content of the newspaper – it triggers my memory of the stories I read when the paper arrived at the house. It therefore is also intellectually stimulating. I also find the sense of flow from the diagonal nature of the pattern rewarding. I can engage with it enough to maintain my position in the sequence, be interrupted or distracted and then easily find my correct position in the sequence. It allows for the engagement with other social aspects of the everyday without needing my complete isolation to achieve it.

Start of week three – change in pattern through altered treadling order of the same tie-up.

General observations on weaving the pointed twill

Immediate need for increased focus and concentration. Less of a rhythm possible because of the increased options in the treadle sequence. This pattern is defined as a 8 harness pointed twill- the treadling sequence goes through the pedals 1-8 in this sequence:1➜8➜1➜8➜1. It is an endless cycle. It is truely cyclical. Weaving this pattern I found required full uninterrupted concentration – distractions were very time costly. Interruptions required a recording of ‘place’ in the cycle to remove the need to retrace where I was in the sequence. The pattern produced is zig-zag. It produces an effect of repetitive backward and forward motion with relatively slow forward progress. 

Reflective observations on weaving the pointed twill.

Perhaps of the three patterns this resonates the most with the aspect of everyday mundane tasks like driving to work, school, shops etc and then coming back and doing the same thing the next day etc etc. 

Observations about the overall process.

The newspaper as a media to ascribe value to the mundane is a good resolution. Old newspaper even though it is our recent history is not valued once it is read except perhaps as fire starter or garden mulch in my domestic arena. Up-cycling this material into a labour intensive form does add evidence of value just on a purely material level. The interesting thing is the transformation into the slivers or shards of our history as each page is ribboned and then compressed. It would be possible to unweave these strips and reassemble the paper which would the have evidence of other uses embedded into its materiality. The entire paper has been woven so in another sense a hidden ‘rescue’ of the record exists now, in the creation of this ‘monument’.

Each of the weaving processes and results talk to different aspects of the everyday. The simplicity of the tabby weave is tedium, easy habituated effort – requiring attention to the finer details to achieve the best possible outcome – to create a site of excellence. Tacit knowledge operates to sense the places requiring focus – the feel of the threads, the angle of placement of the paper strips, the energy on the beater, the amount of advancing at a given roll forward etc. etc. All the differences in using a different weft material in an habituated practice are observed tacitly and concentration focused on those points. This parallels habituated tasks in the everyday if there are contextual changes.

The straight draw twill required more attention but for me it had a resonance with tasks like child rearing, nursing the sick, painting the house, making a new garden. Undertakings where through multiple small actions progress is made forward. I have a sense of the passage forward through life with this weave that I don’t have from the other two types, consequentially to me it resonates with a different aspect of the mundane. It is still a ritualistic cycle of actions to make the outcome, the site is still contained as it is to a large extent in the domestic mundane but the defined diagonal lines read as direction, movement forward – up the length of the weaving.

The pointed twill spoke to me of many things on a very personal level not least of which was the questioning of the use of labour. Over and over again – is this work going to produce an outcome that is worth the personal cost of undertaking it? This, of course, is a constant, largely subconscious, assessment we make about all our mundane tasks – is it worth cooking from scratch when there are take-aways? natural fibre clothing that needs ironing against chemically based fibre clothing that is wash and wear, walking to the shops and carrying home the shopping versus taking the car, etc. etc.  Not only was this a question of time consumed by the task but it was also an issue of physical ability to sustain the task.

The total number of day’s newspapers woven into this strip was 17. This consisted of two weeks of 6 days each and 5 days of the third week before the warp was used up. The cut off length of woven papers was a total of 7720mm.

Tabby 3860mm

Straight Twill 2130mm

Pointed Twill 1730mm.