Uncommon Threads Symposium Feb. 18-19 Features Lectures, Luncheon, Learning
Two-day Event in Conjunction with ‘Reimagined’ Exhibition at Ruth Funk Center
MELBOURNE, FLA. —Florida Institute of Technology and the Ruth Funk Center for Textile Arts present Uncommon Threads: Reimagined, the annual textiles symposium, on Feb. 18-19.
Now in its 11th year, Uncommon Threads is offered to the community as part of Florida Tech’s expanding focus on the textile arts. Featuring lectures and talks from renowned scholars and industry insiders, as well as gallery tours and more, the event allows arts patrons to expand their understanding and appreciation of textile scholarship.
For 2016, Uncommon Threads will host Elissa Auther, the Windgate Research Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design and Bard Graduate Center in New York.
Most recently co-curator of the retrospective exhibition of painter and photographer Marilyn Minter, Auther also has two new publications on the fiber-based work of artist Josh Faught. She co-directs Feminism & Co.: Art, Sex, Politics, a public program at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver that focuses on issues of women and gender through creative practice.
Previously, Auther co-curated the Denver museum’s West of Center: Art and the Counterculture Experiment in America, 1965-1977 and edited the accompanying catalog.
And her 2010 book, String, Felt, Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art, focuses on the broad utilization of fiber in American art of the 1960s and 1970s and the changing hierarchical relationship between art and craft expressed by the medium’s new visibility.
As part of the symposium, which is being held in conjunction with the Ruth Funk Center’s feature exhibition, Reimagined: Innovations in Fiber, Auther will present a free public lecture, “Miriam Schapiro’s Unheralded Legacy,” at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 18, in the Gleason Performing Arts Center on the Florida Tech campus. This illustrated lecture examines the pioneering work of Schapiro, an artist who passed away at age 91 in 2015, and considers the legacy of her practice in art today.
Reservations are not required for this lecture. Free parking is available.
At 10:30 a.m. on Friday, Feb. 19, Auther will present, “Josh Faught: Fiber and Feeling,” followed by a champagne reception, three-course luncheon and an Artisan Showcase highlighting local artists featured in the Ruth Funk Center’s gift shop. This event is in the Hartley Room of the Denius Student Center on the Florida Tech campus. Tickets, with limited availability, are $75 per person. Valet parking will be available.
Uncommon Threads: Reimagined is sponsored by Nita Grisham of Wells Fargo Advisors. The honorary chair of the event is Midge Dunn.
For more information or to make luncheon reservations, contact the Ruth Funk Center for Textile Arts at 321-674‐8313 or http://411.fit.edu/threads/.
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