|
|
| |
From her Studio on Clinton Street, Jeanette continues to work on commissions for theatre
projects, teaches privately & displays
her work in open evenings, usually together with a chosen co-artist. She
commissions & sells hats, scarves & accessories.
She teaches at Edinburgh
College of Art, several community & private schools & speaks
at meetings of interested groups including, Scottish Costume Society
& various embroidery & spinning groups. In 2007, Jeanette’s & her Millinery Summer School students at Edinburgh College of Art beat 10 other Summer Schools (photography, sculpture etc) to win joint rosette for Millinery sharing the prize with Graphic Design. The last time Jeanette took a Summer School at the college in 2005 it too won the rosette for Millinery.
|
| The latest first... |
In March 2007 Jeanette started a year long residency in the wonderful Tayside town of Newburgh, on the North East edge of the Kingdom of Fife. After 6 months Jeanette permanently relocated there. Newburgh has a vibrant arts scene with Fife Arts Coop, the new WASPS Artists studios at The Steeple, Twist Fibre Craft Studio & the Sun Gallery.
|
| She continues to teach at Edinburgh College of Art & ran scheduled summer schools at her studio & at the Art College. She ran 4 week long Summerschools: Edinburgh College of Art, her private studio, Kilmarnock Academy & Rensselaerville, USA. |
|
 |
 |
In
2006 Jeanette moved direction yet again to work
with something one might think was a thing of the past – the
knitting machine. Almost the first of her mind blowing creations to
come off the needles were shown in an exhibition at The Museum of
Arts & Crafts. Itami, Japan, & Crescent Art Gallery Scarborough, North Yorkshire. She collaborated
with Barbara Ridland of Shetland
in this new field in summer 2006 |
 |
|
photography
Dave J Ford
|
| Along
with the 'serious' installation art she was able to come up with
some more playful designs.... |
|
|
|
| |
| |
In 2005
Jeanette had residencies in Shetland
& Drummond.
She also joined a felt research trip to Mongolia.
She continues to teach part-time at the Edinburgh College of Art,
Drummond Community Centre & her private studio in Dublin
Street. Again commissioned by the Adam
Smith Theatre, Kirkaldy, this year the pantomime was Babes
in the Wood.
In 2004
Jeanette managed to execute
4 residencies: Prestonpans,
in East Lothian, Wick,
in Caithness, Broellin,
in Germany & started Drummond,
in Edinburgh. |
 |
an iconic
creation of Jeanette's in her world of felt
photo:
Joanna Kane
|
|
| Research
and Residencies
have recently taken Sendler to Finland, Lithuania,
Kazakhstan and Kirgizstan. The impact of these travels is evident
in her new found commitment to a variety of educational
projects directed to furthering public knowledge of the ancient
craft of felt making. |
|
|
all
in italics: Jessica Hemming: Selvedge
textile magazine issue 3 Sept /Oct 2004 |
 |
Sendler’s
arrival in Scotland over a decade ago may have been more fortuitous
than she initially realized as the region seems to have offered
much in the way of inspiration and resources for her interest
in felt. She now teaches part-time at the Edinburgh College of
Art and has been invited to lecture at numerous institutions in
Scotland and Northern Europe.
Her work is included
in Filz
Felt by Peter Schmitt, likely known by specialist books shop
goers for its particularly appropriate felt cover. |
|
|
| |
| The
landscape, architectural spaces and the voids of ghostly forms
are Sendler’s subjects. Large scale sculptures are often
evocative of interior cavities, both of the human body and organic
forms such as the cavities of rotten tree trunks. |
 |
| This
playful image combines the project life-line (Feast
of Salt) with Trees (Decay
of Life into Death) |
|
During
a residency at the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens and Arboretum in Sussex
Sendler created “Decay and Life” a series of felted skins
that cover several of the parkland’s trees. The trees were subsequently
undressed and the felt installed at the Beatrice Royal Gallery in
Eastleigh, Hampshire. The gallery installation resulted in the project
taking on two lives. During the outdoor installation, the cycles of
growth and decay underwent constant change. Installed in the museum
setting the project took on a new identity as a static record of the
moment when decay was halted and put on display. Perhaps most evident
in this project is one of Sendler’s trademarks techniques: the
incorporation of other fibres such as bark, grasses and moss with
felted wool. |
 |
|
This broad definition of “fibre” is also evident
in Sendler use of hand made paper in several installations.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
| Paper and felt
are possibly more closely related than the other fields that come under
the wide umbrella of textile art. Pulp and wool eventually arrive at the
uniform surfaces we recognize as commercial paper and felt. Both belie the
original hand making processes that Sendler chooses to explore. |
| |
| Both the Life-line
& the Tree-skins were hand made by Jeanette |
 |
|
| Ghost
Letters: |
| |
|
 |
| Other works
of performance art address the relationship between language and textile
art. Working in collaboration with Nicole Dahlinger “Ghost Letters”
is a piece of performance art based on works by the American poet
Richard McCann. A series of performances in London and Berlin describe,
in Sendler’s words, “the journey of two friends into the
world of death; one dies and the other one returns to the real world.”
Similar to the earlier “Decay and Life” the costumes for
the performance were intentionally subjected to the elements. Exposure
to weather caused the fibres on the exterior surface to break down,
while the performer’s body heat and movement encouraged a similar
interior decay. Jessica
Hemming: Selvedge |
| In Broellin,
Germany, in the summer of 2004, Jeanette helped to close the final
chapter of the 'Ghost Letters' series. |
A
Form of Patience
the last of the 'Ghost Letters'
(2004) |
 |
|
| |
| Hats: |
 |
|
|
 |
Jeanette
teaches hat-making regularly in workshops & her annual
summer-school |
|
|
 |
The art of hat
making or millinery, to be precise, was Sendler’s early
passion. From this interest evolved her current commitment to
fibre and performance art. Resident in Scotland since 1991 Sendler
studied at the Edinburgh College of Art, earning a BA (Hons) followed
by an MA completed in 1997 both in Theatre Costume Design.
Alongside costume
production Sendler continues to create a line of felted hats that
teeter between the functional and the theatrical.
|
|
|
| Over the past decade
Sendler’s interest in costume design has moved from the theatre stage
to performance art and much of her recent projects now involve large-scale
installations rendered in felt or paper. |
| |
| East Berlin artist Jeanette
Sendler’s background in theatre and costume design is evident in the
large scale works she now creates as performance art pieces and installations.
After training as a tailor for women’s clothing Sendler worked in
the costume departments of various theatres including the Bertolt
Brecht Theatre and Comic Opera in Berlin, the Scottish
Opera, the English National
Opera and the Australian
Opera in Sydney. |
| |
| |
 |
Sendler’s
considerable commitment to the worlds of fibre and performance art
is evident in the several organizations she is associated with founding.
In the same year, 1997, that she completed her studies at Edinburgh
College of Art Sendler co-founded Metacorpus,
a company that aims to increase the awareness and appreciation of
costume art through the organization and support of performance art
production. |
|
| Sendler
was also involved with the co-founding of Emerging
Properties a second performance art company based in Berlin that
is committed to projects that combine poetry and fibre art. |
 |
In addition
to these organizations, Sendler’s business Costume
Construction handles special commissions for costume projects.
|
|
 |
| Sendler’s
solo exhibition “Threads of Red and White” at the
Medaliu Gallery in Lithuania reinstalls a version of the above
piece along with “Chorus of Ancient Souls” and “Chorus
of Living Souls” from “Ghost Letters”. |
|
| |
|
Skin is a
recurring theme throughout Sendler’s work to date,
be it the vein-like thread of her architectural installations
or the shedding and decomposition that takes place in many
of her performances. With the popularity of deconstructed
and unraveled textiles in fashion, this invocation of decomposition,
rather than merely unraveling, signals the fundamentally
different possibilities that felt offers as a medium over
other textile materials.
|
| |
|
|
|
|
The French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari use woven and
felted textiles as examples of two inherently different notions of space:
the smooth and the striated. As a textile smooth space relates to felt
as “a supple solid product [. . . which] implies no separation of
threads, no intertwining, only an entanglement of fibres obtained by fulling.”
Such philosophising, at the very least, is acutely aware of the fundamental
differences between felt and various other textile structures. Sendler
too seems aware, and inspired, by these differences.
all
in italics: Jessica Hemming: Selvedge
textile magazine issue 3 Sept /Oct 2004
|
| |
Jeanette would like to thank
the Scottish Arts Council
for their help & support in many projects over the years
|
|
 |
Textile Centre of Excellence
3 Clinton Street
Newburgh, Fife
Scotland KY14 6DP
|
email: Jeanette
landline: 01337 841004
Hat Shop: 01738 624213
mobile: 07813 023607 |
|
|
|
