Weaving the Wool Future
Cloth Tone has been working behind the scenes on a special project entitled, Weaving the Wool Future.
Focusing on the interwoven narrative between textiles, place and community, this project will explore what it means to create a local, handwoven, biodynamic textile. The geographic, environmental and cultural implications of using raw unspun wool sourced from the central Okanagan will guide the direction of this community art project.
While focusing on the value of sourcing locally, the traceability of materials, and paying attention to the organic and sensorial qualities of sheep's wool, this project values direct material experiences and local artisanal skills.
Weaving the Wool Future will culminate in a large, handwoven rya style weaving using raw wool sourced from local, small grazing orchards that actively implement regenerative farming practices. The sheep fleece was hand washed and dried in the sun. The initial phase of the weaving was collectively woven in public space on a custom built, upright, warp-weighted loom constructed from wood sourced from a local mill. The traditional loom weights are hand constructed in clay by Vancouver-based ceramicist and artist, Hillary Webb.
Special thanks to the City of Kelowna for funding to help make this project possible.
Winter of Wool and Biodynamic Textiles
Raw sheep’s wool reigns in the realm of the senses and has been instrumental in creating connections between nature and culture throughout the ancient history of textiles. Wool’s characteristics of malleability, density, rich textures, strong earthy scent, a greasiness to the touch and raw materiality speaks clearly to its origins in agriculture. Wool is currently at the centre of conversations around sustainable materials, regenerative farming practices, the climate beneficial wool cycle, local fibersheds and slow fashion. In the tradition of Arte Povera, making work that blurs the distinction between art, craft and life, I am engaged with reimagining slow textile futures and weaving a local, biodynamic textile using raw, unspun wool. Throughout the next few months I’ll be visiting local wool producers, sourcing local raw wool, and continuing my design work with weaving raw wool into plain weave structures and felting into dense, textural textiles.
Jannis Kounellis
(1936, Grèce - 2017, Italie)
Sans titre
1968
(Photo taken at Centre Pompidou, Paris in 2019)
Holiday Market in Okanagan Center! Saturday December 16, 10-5pm
Holiday Pop-Up, DEC 17, 10-5pm, Okanagan Centre Community Hall, Lake Country
Toque Craft Fair, Dec 2-4 2022
Many thanks to everyone who came out in support of the Western Front and all of the beautiful vendors at the Toque Craft Fair this year!! Cloth Tone is so grateful to everyone who stopped by to enjoy some handwoven textiles. Larissa xo
CLOTH TONE for CLAYOQUOT WILDERNESS LODGE : SERIES II
Throughout the fall/winter of 2021, Cloth Tone was immersed in the production of a new series of custom, handwoven cushions in organic linen and cotton for the Clayoquot Wilderness Lodge on Vancouver Island. This new series, ‘Tabis’ and ‘Parallèlle’ in an olive and natural join Cloth Tone’s previous series of wool cushions created for the redesign in 2020. This project was an opportunity for Cloth Tone to mentor two new weavers from the local community in anticipation of similar projects to come! Thank you so much to Forest @tomatodailyhalfacre and Janet @janetsteinjewelry for their contributions to the textile studio this winter. The work looks amazing and is definitely the largest commission we’ve completed to date!
xo Larissa
TOQUE CRAFT FAIR
Cloth Tone at Western Front’s annual fundraiser and community event, Toque Craft Fair!
CLOTH TONE for CLAYOQUOT WILDERNESS LODGE : SERIES I
CLOTH TONE was excited and honoured to be invited to design and weave a series of interior cushions for the Clayoquot Wilderness Lodge redesign on Vancouver Island. Using wool sourced from small fibre farms on Vancouver Island, Cloth Tone created a series of cushions inspired by the local west coast landscape. All of the work was woven and sewn by Lindsay, our assistant Amy and myself in our lakeside and ranch studios throughout the winter and spring of 2021.
Now, already late into 2021, I am completing a second commission for a new series of interior textiles in cotton and organic linen to launch in April 2022.
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CLOTH TONE at the Toque Craft Fair Dec 1-6
TOQUE CRAFT FAIR (ONLINE) - DEC 1-6 Presented by Western Front
SLOW CLOTH FOR SUSTAINABLE LIVING
CLOTH TONE is excited to be participating in the annual TOQUE CRAFT FAIR for our third year in a row!
We are weaving up several small series of cloth in cotton, merino, linen and wool to satisfy all of your textile cravings! All of our cloth is designed and woven in our Okanagan-based studios!
SLOW CLOTH FOR SUSTAINABLE LIVING.
CLOTH TONE will be donating 20% of all sales to support Western Front’s artistic programs.
CLOTH TONE at the Franklin Street Studio Sale
Join us for our most favourite sale of the year at the Franklin Street Studio.
Toque: Western Front's Annual Fundraiser & Craft Fair
CLOTH CULTURE Exhibition
CLOTH CULTURE
Oct 3 - Nov 17, 2019
CLOTH CULTURE
Oct 3 - Nov 17, 2019
Cloth Tone, in collaboration with the Lake Country Art Gallery, has curated an exhibition opening Oct 3! The exhibition, Cloth Culture, brings together six contemporary artists to explore the tacit emotional and experiential resonance achieved through the active labor of material production and bodily awareness. Works by Cloth Tone (Larissa Beringer and Lindsay Lorraine), Beth Howe, Zoe Kreye, Tiziana La Melia and Holly Ward manipulate and engage with varying textile materials and time-intensive (slow) processes to produce a series of propositional works that value an underlying investment in labor, mobility, and self-engagement. Revealing a sensitivity to the inherit value of bodily experience, tactility and form - a certain vibrancy calls attention to these artists’ relationship to our basic human needs for tactile experience, meditative movement, nature and local economies of scale. In turn, Cloth Culture challenges our relationship to cloth, craft and consumption.