Imagine walking into a colorfully immersive environment made entirely of fiber, exploding with vibrancy and texture. As you walk from room to room, new adventures await you in art installations you can’t help but sink your hands, and mind, into.
The Craft Yarn Council is excited to announce a new partnership with Dallas’ premiere experiential art exhibit, Sweet Tooth Hotel, to bring an immersive fiber experience to audiences across the country. The new installation, titled “Intangible,” opened June 2020.
“Intangible” showcases an all-female lineup of some of the top fiber artists from around the United States, including yarn-bomb extraordinaire London Kaye (Los Angeles, CA), Fiber Artist Niki Dionne (Dallas, TX), Muralist and Illustrator Alli Koch (Dallas, TX), Fiber Artist Jackie Lawrence (Denton, TX), Installation Fiber Artist and Yarn Bomber Hannah Busekrus (Austin, TX), Crochet Designer Twinkie Chan (San Francisco, CA), Textile Designer Molly Sydnor (Dallas, TX), Dallas Yarn Bomber Co-Founder Sally Ackerman (Dallas, TX), Knit Artist Joanna Lin (Dallas, TX) and Embroidery Artist Kara Herman (Denton, TX). Each artist has been given a dedicated space to create their own whimsical world completely made from fiber and are the first cohort for #CYCAIR (Craft Yarn Council Artists-In-Residence program).
In March 2020, right before Covid-19 shut down the world, CYC sat down with the artists to film a new round of Yarn & Such interivews. We filmed both group and individual interviews that touch on a plethora of topics relating to art and fiber. Over the course of two days, we filmed four group interviews with the artists to dive deep into the topics of their earliest memories of yarn, what it's like being told no vs. yes as an artist, the art of discipline, and finally, the power of women taking up space. Below you can watch each of the four interviews to hear what the artists have to say about these topics! You can also view the entire playist on YouTube. This playlist will house all of the #CYCAIR videos!
Yarn crafts have been around for a long time and skills like knit and crochet often get passed down in families for generations. We sat down with the #CYCAIR artists to have a conversation about their earliest memories of yarn. Some talked about learning from family members or friends, while some picked up their craft(s) through sheer coincidence.
Have you ever asked for something you wanted, something really important to you, only to be told no? For artists, this can sometimes happen more often than not. We asked the #CYCAIR artists what's it's like to be told no vs. what it's like to be told yes, especially when it comes to creating art, and why being told yes for their Intangible installations was so empowering.
Discipline is a skill that is necessary to master, but also really difficult to master. The #CYCAIR artists specifically had to be disciplined and manage their time well to complete their large-scale installations on deadline. We sat down with the artists to talk about how they stayed disciplined while creating their installations and what they learned along the way. The advice they gave is helpful not only for artists, but for anyone looking to practice the art of discipline.
One of the really awesome things about the Intangible installation at Sweet Tooth Hotel is that all of the artists are women. Even though women work in all different mediums of art, the world of art is often dominated by men. For our last group conversation, we asked the artists of Intangible to talk about women taking up space, whether in the realms of art, large-scale installations, or just in life. Watch the video to hear their empowering conversation!
Videos by Audrina Streeter, @drinastreeter_