Mirka Knaster – October 7-9
Website: www.mirkaart.com
Mirka Knaster creates 2-D and 3-D pieces in a non-representational style using textiles, paper, and other materials in a studio overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Her award-winning work has been exhibited internationally and is in private collections. As an independent curator, she has highlighted artists from other cultures and such issues as immigration and plastic pollution. Born along the Adriatic Sea and educated in the U.S., she earned degrees in three cross-cultural fields. Worldwide adventures deeply inform her sensibility and exploration of art. Nature, East Asian aesthetics, 20th-century abstract art, and meditation practice are her most significant influences and inspirations.
Mirka approaches the creative process as an open-ended improvisation. Pieces emerge intuitively, even serendipitously, as a communication through color, texture, line, shape, space, and pattern. Whatever materials she works with, it is the process of composing, making, and marking that ignites her curiosity and joy. Along the way, she embraces and celebrates the surprises.
Mirka is one of the founders of Korean Textile Tours, a former board member of the Textile Arts Council, Fine Arts Museums, San Francisco, a member of various fiber art groups, and has taught in the U.S. and Korea.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT:
Environment exerts a profound influence as I witness, with awe, how the ever-changing light transforms the colors and textures of land, sea, and sky from dawn till nightfall. The movements, sounds, and hues of water are integral to my sensibility. I’m drawn to the simplicity and universality of geometric shapes and flow lines wherever I look. I observe that space is as important as form, if not more so.
Art offers us moments of now, in which we let go of the past and the future, let go of the constant stream of data rushing through us. It offers an opportunity to pause and be still, leaving behind, even if only briefly, the tumult and busyness of everyday life. Whether we’re viewing or creating, art has the power to provide not only an experience of aesthetic pleasure, but also a refuge where it’s possible to be fully present and know the timelessness of serenity.
IN-PERSON and VIRTUAL LECTURE: Tues, October 7: 9:30 am (CT): Family as Creative Inspiration
Creativity often feels like such a mysterious process. How do ideas emerge? Where does inspiration come from? How does an artwork begin and then unfold into a series? And how does what we create take on meaningfulness?
Mirka will speak to these questions through the various experiences and challenges that have led her work to become more and more personally and universally relevant over time. She is now at the point of focusing on what she considers will likely be the most meaningful project of her life—her family’s history—and thus her most fulfilling endeavor.
The presentation will include examples of how the creative process can evolve and invite the audience to consider what is meaningful for them to pursue and how they might go about it.
In-Person Workshop: Stitching Your Passion: A Fiber Accordion “Book” of What’s Important to You
Tues, October 7: 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Wed, October 8: 9:30 am – 4:00 pm
Thurs, October 9: 9:30 am – 4:00 pm
What piques your interest: Playing with color and patterns? Preserving memories? Telling your family’s history? Recording your travel adventures? Addressing important causes? An accordion “book” made with textiles is a fun way to creatively pursue those interests.
We will turn 2-D pieces into 3-D artwork that will showcase what engages your attention. We will make “pages” (panels) using a stiff interfacing onto which we fuse the fabrics and embellishments that best narrate the themes we explore.
The front of the panels can be enhanced with stitching, beads, buttons, photos, bits of lace, ribbons, yarn, small twigs, leaves, coins, and other mementos. Fusing fabric or handmade paper to the back of the panels can hide the stitches. Machine- or hand-sewing joins the panels together so they can fold closed or open like an accordion. Bamboo skewers, fine dowels, knitting needles, or chopsticks will make them stand on a shelf, table, mantel, window sill, or pedestal in various configurations like a fiber sculpture. Let your imagination roam freely among the possibilities.