Seeing Ourselves Artist Talk
Join photographer Allen Clark, Andee Rudloff of the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, and Nicky Nash of Safe Haven for an artist talk in the studio!
Learn about Safe Haven and the Seeing Ourselves project!
(Refreshments provided)
Seeing Ourselves: Photographs of Safe Haven
October 3 – 31, 2009
Artist Talk: October 10; 1-3pm
For more info about the Seeing Ourselves exhibit and Safe Haven:
http://blendstudio.wordpress.com/exhibits/seeing-ourselves
http://www.safehaven.org
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Seeing Ourselves opens this Saturday, October 3rd, during the First Saturday Gallery Crawl!
Learn more about the Seeing Ourselves project here:
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Tags: art, awareness, camera, children, collaboration, Community, exhibit, gallery crawl, homeless, nashville, photography, photos, poverty, shelter
These Small Things at Blend Studio
Photo Philanthropy
Jack Silverman
NEWS FLASH: Art isn’t some expendable luxury, like private corporate jets or shaved truffles on your pasta. In fact, it’s the very thing that, for a large segment of the human race, gives life meaning and makes our existence worthwhile. So when the government and school systems of our ass-backward nation slash away at art funding like Jason Voorhees on a Friday night bender, they’re basically helping to suck our souls right out from under us—which is why grassroots efforts like These Small Things are so important. Local photographer Eric Denton has taken four promising young photographers under his wing to teach them the techniques, secrets and joys of fine art photography. Chad Gocking, Caroline Howard, Ethan Howard and and Haddie Salchow, ages 10 to 14, have worked with Denton to co-curate and create the work for the exhibit, and all proceeds from the sale of the art goes to buy digital cameras to be donated to the Sumner County School System. (For info on how to donate money or cameras, visit blendstudio.wordpress.com).
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Tags: art, children, collaboration, Community, donation, exhibit, fundraiser, gallery crawl, help, nashville scene, photography, photos, school
Saturday, August 29 from 11am – 3pm
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Tags: art, artist, clothing, collaboration, Community, donate, donation, exhibit, fiber, fundraiser, green, landfill, nashville, recycle, repurpose, reuse, textile, trash, upcycle, waste
These Small Things: A Photography Show & Fundraiser
Featuring Eric Denton
September 5 – 26, 2009
Opening Reception: First Saturday Gallery Crawl; September 5; 6-9pm
FORE MORE INFO ABOUT THIS SHOW AND THE CALL FOR DONATIONS VISIT:
http://blendstudio.wordpress.com/exhibits/these-small-things
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Tags: art, camera, children, Community, donation, exhibit, fundraiser, gallery crawl, kids, photography, photos, school, teach
We are very excited about the Wasted Thread opening this Saturday, August 1st (6-9pm). Please come by and share in the fun during the Gallery Crawl.
Small recycled items will be for sale! So, bring your cash and checkbook! Proceeds from the sale of these items will support entrepreneurs in developing countries through KIVA.ORG
Still Want to Help???
Tiffany is still accepting textiles. We will be asking those of you who bring textiles to the opening reception to unload them right there in the gallery throughout the evening. Please contact us beforehand about large amounts of textiles (more than a bagful).
MORE INFO ABOUT WASTED THREAD:
http://blendstudio.wordpress.com/exhibits/wasted-thread
For more info about visiting the Arcade, parking downtown, and the First Saturday Gallery Crawl, please visit our Contact page: http://blendstudio.wordpress.com/contact
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Tags: art, clothing, Community, donate, installation, landfill, nashville, repurpose, reuse, textile, thread, trash, upcycle, waste
Wasted Thread on Talk of the Town TODAY! Check it out!
Talk of the Town’s Tuwanda Coleman visited us in the studio to help spread the word about Tiffany’s project, Blend Studio, Art at the Arcade & the First Saturday Gallery Crawl.
How & Where to see it:
1. ONLINE: Click here for a pop-up video player!
2. TV: Tune into Ch. 50 for reruns of the program today at 4pm & 2:30am
3. ONLINE: Visit TOTT website and scroll to the 4th video on the right (pg. 2)
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Tags: art, artist, clothing, Community, donate, fiber, green, installation, landfill, news, press, recycle, repurpose, reuse, talk of the town, textile, thread, trash, upcycle, waste
Nashville City Paper July 30, 2009 – Link to online article
Tiffany Denton is helping save the planet one sock at a time. While many are focusing on recycling paper and plastic bottles, Denton, a local artist, is collecting tired, worn out pieces of clothing from around the world to use in her framed collages and in projects she makes with her students as an elementary school art teacher.
After creating a blog to spread the word about her “Wasted Thread” project, Denton started receiving donations of worn out fabric from around the world.
Her latest installation, opening at Nashville’s new Blend Studio on Saturday, was created using a sewing machine to stitch individual fabric segments into one long piece that will pour out of a trash can suspended from one corner of the ceiling. People will be able to walk in, around, and under the flowing piece.
The fabric she doesn’t use will be recycled at a textile recycling facility, and any proceeds from her artwork sales will be donated to Kiva.org, a popular Web site that connects donors to people looking for micro-loans.
Blend Studio in the downtown arcade is the creation of artists Samantha Callahan and Ben Vitualla, and it’s fast becoming a home for artists who work on community-based projects.
— Bennett Davidson
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Waste Not
Wasted Thread at Blend
Waste Not
Joe Nolan
Link to Nashville Scene Article
Local fiber artist Tiffany Denton will be combining her love of textiles with a bit of environmental awareness for her new show at Blend, premiering at this month’s Gallery Crawl. Wasted Thread is an installation composed of recycled clothing and fabrics that Denton has collected by soliciting donations from several states. Each element in the piece is labeled with the name of the donor and their location. A number of local businesses participated in the project, serving as drop-off sites. Once the exhibit runs its course, the piece will be disassembled and remade into clothes and other items that will be resold at boutiques and galleries all over Nashville. Proceeds raised from the sales will go to support Kiva, an organization that addresses world poverty issues.
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Tags: art, collaboration, Community, donate, installation, landfill, nashville scene, recycle upcycle clothing textile earth landfill wasted thread green, thread, waste
Link to Tennessean Article
Wasted Thread saves planet one sock at a time
Fiber artist collects, recycles textiles for an installation at Blend Studio
By MiChelle Jones • FOR THE TENNESSEAN • July 26, 2009
Tiffany Denton spent part of her summer vacation on a road trip through Minnesota, Wisconsin and Chicago. Though she and her husband logged an impressive number of miles while visiting his family, that’s nothing compared to the distance covered by some of the pieces in her upcoming installation Wasted Thread.
A fiber artist, Denton says she always tries to use recycled materials in her framed collages, as well as in the projects she makes with her students in her day job as an elementary art school teacher. But this is the first time she’s attempted something of this scale, collecting pieces from across the country. The installation opens at Blend Studio in the Arcade during next weekend’s First Saturday Art Crawl and remains on view through Aug. 29.
Give me your tired, worn out pieces
“Our goal was to get 500 pieces,” she says, “I have no idea how many I have, but I definitely have 500.”
After posting about the project on her blog (www.wastedthread.blogspot.com) and on her Facebook page, the project just took off, she says, as it was picked up and reposted on friends’ pages. It was also the subject of a feature on the Cool People Care Web site. After that, donations started coming in from the West Coast, the Ohio valley and even Turkey. Denton hopes to label each donation with the city and state from which it came.
“Basically, I wasn’t necessarily looking for clothes that could be donated to someone who needed them or (that could be) resold, but more things that you would normally throw away,” she says.
Single gloves or socks, clothing with holes or stains, worn-out towels — this is what she was looking for. She says these are the kinds of things thrift stores can’t use and that end up being shipped out of state for recycling — the practice of large operations like Goodwill — or simply thrown away when smaller stores can’t afford to ship them out.
Going green to make green
But exactly how are textiles recycled? Denton gives two examples: In some cases, the items are run through what is essentially a fabric shredder and then rewoven into rugs. At other facilities, the textiles are torn to bits and the fibers reused in a various ways.
This may very well end up being the fate of some of the material in Wasted Thread, but Denton also has other ideas about that. First, she’d like to show the installation in other cities before dismantling it. Once it is taken apart, she plans to create new products with the fabric and then sell them locally and farther afield.
Proceeds from those sales will be donated to Kiva.org, a Web site that links donors to people seeking micro-loans. Denton has already selected a large family in Cambodia to receive any money raised through Wasted Thread. “She’s a weaver and he’s a recycler, so I thought they were the perfect family to connect with this project.”
But first, Denton has to create the installation. She’ll use a sewing machine to stitch individual segments into one long piece that will pour out of a trash can suspended from one corner of the ceiling. This will drape into each corner of the space and then go back to the ceiling. People will be able to walk in, around and under the maze-like piece so they can read the labels she’s hoping to include.
While color and texture won’t dictate the arrangement of the segments, she is aiming for something “pleasing to look at, with patterns that flow together,” she says. “I’m thinking it’s going to be fairly random, I don’t want one whole section to be baby clothing or one whole section to be men’s clothing.”
Art and community
Blend Studio is only a couple of months old and is the brainchild of artists Samantha Callahan and Ben Vitualla. Callahan says they wanted to create a space for artists who work on community-based projects, and Denton’s idea was perfect for their mission.
“As an art teacher, you do not have the funds that you necessarily need and I learned that week one of teaching seven years ago,” Denton says. “There’s rarely a week goes by that we don’t do something with random recycled things that somehow show up. People have learned that you can eventually make something out of everything, so they give me bags of all kinds of things.”
One of those random things Denton re-purposed is the trash can in this installation.
“That came with my house,” she says. “It has no bottom and is very much falling apart.” It’s shown in the promo photograph with piles of material spilling out of its top. All that material was one donation and was really the start of the project.
Denton is also encouraging people to come to the gallery with textiles they want to donate to Wasted Thread. “It’s going to be an ongoing thing, it’s not going to stop with the exhibition.”
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Tags: recycle upcycle clothing textile earth landfill wasted thread green, recycle upcycle trash landfill clothing reuse donate help
