After more than ten years of public service, FiberScene.com, the website I co-founded with Myra Block Kaiser went into archive mode. Prior to creating this site, there was nothing in cyberspace devoted to Fiber Art. Working with Myra was fantastic; she is passionate about Fiber Art and will continue to play a significant role in promoting fine art with a textile sensibility.
FiberScene’s initial goal was to enhance visibility for fiber artists, especially those who lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, once a Mecca for fiber art. The website contained individual pages of local artists, a resource page, an event calendar, and a virtual gallery. The gallery provided a comprehensive overview of new work by an international group of artists through rotating exhibitions. Each virtual exhibition, along with a brief commentary, helped define and shape the field as it furthered the dialogue about the significance of fiber art. Visitors could also view past exhibitions in the Archive section of the site which presented a visual timeline of developments in the field.
Despite the obvious challenge of conveying the tactile nature of textiles through low resolution digital images, FiberScene.com evolved into a valuable resource for academic institutions, museums, curators, and designers, who frequently requested visual materials or used the site as a teaching tool. Now that many artists, galleries, and museums have their own websites we have moved on to other activities.
While FiberScene.com no longer posts new work, all of the previous virtual exhibitions and artists’ pages remain archived and available to the public.
Myra has already moved on to exciting new activities: she founded the Brady Craft Alliance which supports Oklahoma fine craft artists (http://www.bradycraftalliance.org), and she continues her freelance curating and art consulting work through http://www.mbkfinearts.com.
As to me, well I'm trying my hand at this blog stuff, we'll see if I can find time to make a few posts now and then! Right now, I'm off to Wuhan, China for a three week visit to Wuhan Textile University.
