Adam and Eve Dress, Felicity Brown
Sashiko Workshop, Carolin Kropff
Adam and Eve Dress, Felicity Brown
"You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have."
- Maya Angelou
"Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
- Mother Teresa
As a Textile Art Workshop the studio is a collaborative studio space that aims to foster relationships between people through open meetings, workshops and workshop talks. We meet to work together on our creative projects and to extent our experiences. We support each other and exchange ideas.
We learn about marginalized craft techniques as creative and artistic methods, understand textile as a material and explore construction processes. We find relationships between pigments, thread and surface design. In doing so, we take the freedom to let intuition run wild and allow thinking through making. We talk about creative possibilities, utility, decoration, and 'making mistakes'. We experience our doing in coordination with the material in community with others.
Bild: Adam and Eve Dress, Felicity Brwon
Textilkunst Workshops - Quilting Bee - Slow Stitching - Patchwork - Sashiko - Visible Mending - Nähen mit der Hand - Sticken - Schablonendruck in Frankfurt am Main
Textiles and their methods of manufacture have a special place in the visual arts. What particularly fascinates me about the subject of textiles are the diverse possibilities of making and shaping them, their socio-economic and social aspect, and their history. The forms of expression are manifold. They range from the transformation of animal and plant fibers into threads in the meditative process of spinning, the abstract language of weaving and knotting, to dyeing, printing and painting, cutting up and reassembling, appliqué, embroidery, goldwork and quilting, from undershirt to haute couture, from utilitarian object to art.
Working with textile material dates back to one of the oldest cultural techniques of mankind and textiles were - and we still are - made for and with each other. In their history, women are the protagonists.
It is the social aspect of textiles, their casualness and their utility value, that lowers the threshold for entry into the development of one's own artistic procedures. They seem to be less charged with 'meaning' than, for example, painting in art.
Making things ourselves is a powerful tool - it can build communities, increases well-being, and can empower us to reimagine our lives. Working with materials can help us in difficult life circumstances to strengthen our self-confidence and rediscover a sense of empowerment.
FABRIC & RE-USE.
Textiles speak of our everyday life, of our self-image, our origins, of craftsmanship, slow and fast fashion. They contain personal memories and value. They are an expression of our culture.
In the Textile Workshop we work with love-worn textiles and fabrics and create new things from already existing textile materials.
As long as there are clothes, there are also mended and reused fabrics (darning, patchwork, rag rugs, etc.).
When we wear our clothes, they become naturally imbued with the stories of our lives. Memories become part of the experience we have with our clothes. This is the difference between used fabrics and impersonal, mass-produced fabrics.
Since fabrics are cheaply produced in unimaginable quantities, we have lost sight of mending and reusing, In the process, we have also lost the skills it takes to make our own clothing, blankets, cords, ribbons and lace. But with growing awareness of the enormous negative impact on the environment and the often deplorable working conditions in textile mills, reuse and DIY is experiencing a modern renaissance.
With the Quilting Bee, Love Your Clothes and the workshops I create an opportunity to develop confidence in one's own creative abilities, to get to know each other and to actively participate in shaping a sustainable future based on solidarity and awareness.
Applying traditional techniques to a contemporary context:
The Workshop Talks are an intersection of artist talk and workshop.
MACHEN is a collaboration with the Frankfurter Kranz.
In jourUNfixe we present different methods of making in art that can be tested while participating and make references to contemporary positions, art history and strategies of artistic work processes. We invite guests with a special thematic focus, such as textile as a material, embroidery in art, social aspects in dressmaking, and color in painting.
craft and artistic work in a small group
Every first and third Friday of the month
from 11am - 1pm.
Recurring Workshops:
Introduction to Sashiko
English Paper Piecing
Improv Quilting
Love your clothesFrom mending, patching, patchwork and sashiko.Extend the life of your cherished textiles and learn new skills that will last you a lifetime!
First and third Wednesdays from 6 - 8 pm.
The Textile Art Workshop is suitable for everyone who likes to work in groups, is open to experimentation, finds recycling and exchange essential, and wants to make something with their hands. Everyone is welcome. No previous experience is necessary.
I also work on mobile workshop models and am happy to visit you at your facility or at home.
The idea and implementation of the textile workshop continue to develop organically. Suggestions, ideas for improvement, collaborations are always welcome. Write to me: carokropff@gmail.com or via the contact form.