The Academy of Visual and Performing Arts’ Visual Art Department will hold an art opening reception and exhibition Saturday April 20.
The exhibit for Strategic Crafting will include the student artwork in association with the Craft and Folk Art Museum.
“My art piece symbolizes how the consumerism of technologies such as Apple devices have transformed us into a much more fast-paced society. This has stifled the way we communicate and relate with one another,” said Junior AVPA artist, Brittany Smith.
AVPA Art students have been working with fiber artist Carole Francis Lung (AKA Frau Fiber) and her Cal State LA student assistants: Lidia Alvarez, Christin Disi and Amy Arendt for six weeks, in a process of examining contemporary fiber and textile craft processes as a tool for social change.
Through skill sharing, lectures, readings and discussions, students have explored existing systems of fiber and textile craft hand production: rope making, crochet, weaving and embroidery.
These technical skills coupled with methodologies of performances of labor, public actions, collaboration and display, students will exhibit projects, which consider ways of re-coding materials, systems and mechanisms of fiber and textile craft.
AVPA visual art students were also inspired by the work of other fiber artists whose work can be seen in the current CAFAM exhibition, Social Fabric. Themes from Social Fabric include consumerism, identity, war and beauty.
Each art student will focus on a particular genre of art making called, social practice and create original fiber sculptures, clothing, installations with the goal of spreading a message for social change.
“Our artwork is a piece about isolation created in a social environment through our own interests and materials used to express these ideas.” said collaborating sophomore art students, Camille Clair and Kira Kishi.
The opening reception will be held from 3 to 6 p.m. , April 20 at the Craft and Folk Art Museum located at 5814 Wilshire Blvd. The event is free and open tot he public.
Strategic Crafting is an unprecedented collaboration with the Craft and Folk Art Museum made possible by the generous support of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
