Last night, October 26th, LongHouse
Reserve held
the first of their Larsen
Salon Series;
a Manhattan-based series of talks on design. “We owe it
to the great Jack
Lenor Larsen,
the preeminent textile designer of the 20th century and
founder of LongHouse, to carry on the tradition of talks
about craft, design, architecture, and textile”, said
Director Carrie
Rebora Barratt as
she welcomed guests. “We chose this space, 180 The
Store, because its owner, Denise
Wiliamson,
travels the world like Jack did, but in her case looking
for natural fabrics, extraordinary clothing, and other
treasures on display here.”
Contemporary multi-media artist Liz
Collins shared
about her life and career, working
fluidly between art and design, with an emphasis on
textile media, including the transition of fabric into
multi-dimensional forms. Her method varies the scale of
her pieces to make them architectural and inviting
rather than object-based. “I’ve had eras throughout my
career where I felt loyalty to certain mediums. Some of
the ways to make fabric are so complex that if you try
to do too much you can’t go as deep. I wanted to go
deep. I wanted to learn… Being in an environment at RISD,
teaching and advising students about how to do all these
different methods - not just my own expertise - I
learned deeply how to do so much more. Going from a RISD
student then to a teacher and being exposed to all these
possibilities, I segwayed to a place of being less loyal
to a medium and more open to the possibilities of all
tools to accomplish my visions.”
Matilda McQuaid,
Curatorial Director, Cooper-Hewitt Museum concluded the
discussion saying, “Jack would have loved this event. He
was a great supporter of young artists”.
Guests included Lynne
Cooke, E.V.
Day, Judy Galloway, Cristina Grajales, Christina Kim,
Ted Lee, Ron Lense, Bastienne Schmidt, Almond Zigmund, as
well as LongHouse
President Nina
Gillman,
President Emerita Dianne
Benson,
and Board Members Sherri
Donghia, Anne Erni, Gael Towey, James Zajac and
special guest, architect Calvin
Tsao,
from Tsao
& McKown Architects,
as he prepares to be the Larsen Salon Series’ finale for
2023 on March 20th. Salons in January and February to be
announced.
More information at www.LongHouse.org.
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