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This past mid-September, I spent some time in San Jose, CA to attend the 2010 Zero 1 Biennial Festival, which is a combination of art, live music, tech, and so on.  While I wanted to share more photos of the various exhibits going on, I’m getting so behind on my posts that I’ll keep it to the primary reason I went, that was to see ITAB: International TECHstyle Art Biennial, an exhibit at The San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles.

On route to San Jose, I could not resist taking photos out of the plane’s window.

I stayed at the Saint Claire Hotel, which is in downtown San Jose and is in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.  My room had a great view.

The outside of the Museum.

I’m very happy that my book is being featured and sold in the museum’s bookstore.  Being the goal of the the Zero 1 Festival is to explore “the intersection between technology, digital culture, and art,” the bookstore seems a great venue for it.

ITAB is an exhibition of work by artists combining fiber with various forms of technology.  I cannot find my notes with the names of some of the artists, but a few of my favorite works include a large airy grid created entirely out of twisted cassette tape that has the word Obsolete woven through it.

Another is a large piece that at first looks like a traditional sampler embroidered in large letters in an outline stitch.  It was a letter.  My first thought was why such a traditional-looking piece was a part of the show.  I read the letter.  It was about a woman whose husband died; how she inherited money; how she was now ill; how found religion; why she wanted to donate her money to a church since she only had months to live.  It then requested a bank account to hold the money.  I  broke out into a large smile when I realized it was actually a spam letter, complete with the email address and all.  Apparently the artist collects actual spam to create her artwork.  I got such a kick out of how her piece drew so many in to read it, all of whom eventually also broke out in smiles and even laughter.  While most of us immediately trash spam, especially the pitches for money, her meticulously and time-consuming stitched piece managed to captivate people to stand and read it in full .

There was a weaving created with fiber optic thread that seemed to change color and pattern depending on the angle viewed , and a coiled basket created with video tape.  If I didn’t read the basket was created with that material, I never would have realized it.  Very clever.

Also showing is TECHstyle SoftWEAR, which is an artwear installation that explores Silicon Valley life.

I’m standing with Deborah Corsini, the Museum’s curator, in front of my piece “Circles Collide.”  I had the pleasure of working with Deborah in 2008 when she curated my solo show at the Museum.  I am incredibly flattered by her write-up of my work: “Gloria Hansen’s Op-Art piece is a beautifully complicated and intertwined image of overlapping layers of circles.  She skillfully uses Photoshop to manipulate her digital drawings in her continued exploration of geometric shapes, color and illusion.” Nice, huh!

For more information on the show, which continues through the end of October, vist SJ Museum’s website.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 6th, 2010 at 5:23 am and is filed under Exhibitions & Quilt Shows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.