January 2015

The Red Thread by Rania Hassan, 2013, 180” x 102” x 5”, Amazon collection, Photo by Pete Duvall

Starting 2015 strong with some art! Here's my upcoming schedule:

January 10: Knitting as Contemporary Art at The Textile Museum: I'll be doing a talk with Jennifer Lindsay at the Textile Museum [2320 S St location!] this Saturday, January 10 at 10.30am. Jennifer will be speaking about Knitting as Contemporary Art, then I get to talk about me! Details here.

January 12–30: Soft Lab at Gallery 102: I'll be part of this exhibition at Gallery 102 curated by Eames Armstrong. Opening reception is Monday, January 12, closing reception is Friday, January 30. Details here.

Crafty Bastards

It's that most wonderful time of the year, Crafty Bastards is this weekend! Walk in the entrance and turn right to find me, booth #23/goshdarnknit. I'll have a great selection of notebooks, prints, and even some artwork from my Dream Catcher series.

Click here to buy tickets in advance, and use code VENDOR2014 for a $6 Weekend Pass.

Crafty Bastards Arts & Crafts Fair
Saturday and Sunday, September 27 and 28, 10am-5pm
Union Market
1309 5th St NE, Washington DC 20002

Threads.

My biggest exhibition ever is up at the Montpelier Arts Center in Laurel, MD. And there's just one week to go! The show will be up through Tuesday, May 27.

'Threads' is an exploration of connecting knitting and painting with fiber and wood.

Rania Hassan: Threads 
Solo Exhibition
Montpelier Arts Center
9652 Muirkirk Road
Laurel, MD 20708
301.377.7800

Exhibition Dates: April 5–May 27, 2013
Gallery Hours: 10am–5pm, everyday

Bloomingdale Holiday Art Market 2012

Get your Art! Drink your Rum and Cider! The Bloomingdale Holiday Art Market is back for another fantastic event. Saturday, December 22, from 5-8pm, at Big Bear Cafe in Washington, DC.

A small sampling of local Artists, Artisans, and Crafty Bastards alumni will be setting up their work to sell. Vendors include Sean Hennessey, DeNada Design, Andrea Haffner, Rachel Pfeffer Designs, Sweet Pepita, Leafyhead Lotions & Potions, and goshdarnknit. Big Bear Cafe will be open, Special Holiday Drink will be served, and on the last Saturday before Christmas, you know you'll want to do all of your gift shopping here.

Details:
What: Bloomingdale Holiday Art Market
Where: Big Bear Cafe (First and R St NW, DC)
When: Saturday, December 22
Time: 5-8pm

Invite your friends!

printing up a storm.

During Hurricane Sandy, the time I didn't spend looking at this wind map, or fretting over what was happening outside and in far away places, I was in my printmaking studio late into the night of howling wind, printing up a storm. In some cases, very literally a storm. So many gocco screens were burned, the photo above shows just some of the bulbs that fell victim to my printing frenzy.

I drew this lighthouse a week after a trip to Chincoteague this past summer over pony week. The walk to the top of the lighthouse was one of my most favorite parts of the visit. When we reached the top, in the far away distance we could see the ponies swimming.


All of the artwork I screenprint onto the covers of Moleskine notebooks come from pages of my own notebooks. What a coincidence that I'd selected my drawings of crazy weather, underwater adventures, and then end up printing them during the worst storm ever.

Crafty Bastards is this Saturday, November 10, from 10am-5pm at Union Market in DC. My super talented husband Sean Hennessey and I will be set up side by side, booths 108 and 109. Special 2-for-1 tickets are still available here. I hope to see you there!

countdown to crafty bastards.

Saturday is Crafty Bastards, the most fantastical day of the year. It'll be my 8th time participating! This year is very special, as not only am I participating as a vendor, I also helped curate the show as a judge!

My whole house is pretty much an art studio, and over the past few weeks there's been art making going on in almost every room and it's the most amazing thing ever. So what does the weekend before Crafty Bastards look like? Let me break it down into two parts of what I do: Painting and Printmaking.

My Painting Studio:
A lot of magic happened in here this weekend. As usual, one week before is the perfect time to come up with a whole new direction for artwork! But first, on Friday I snuck out and got my already short hair trimmed even shorter.
Then I dove into painting all day. On Saturday, while my canvases were drying, I printed up a storm in...

My Printmaking Studio: This is where I screenprint all of my notebooks by hand. I printed four whole layers that day. That's a crazy amount! By the end of the day, every part of me was aching. But there were so many pretty notebooks on the drying rack! Some complete, some left to dry for more layers. Here is one of my newest drawings, forever gocco printed on the cover of a notebook. Still not sure what to title this one. Sometimes that's the hardest part! Crafty Bastards is this Saturday, November 10, from 10am-5pm at Union Market in DC. My super talented husband Sean Hennessey and I will be set up side by side, booths 108 and 109.

*While cats figure heavily in this post, this is just one cat, and she's just posing for the camera. As soon as work starts, she's done!

knit dress: dancing [fancy]

My latest mixed media fiber installation, Knit Dress: Dancing [Fancy], was inspired by Eadweard J. Muybridge to show moments in time of a tiny dress suspended in air. The day after I made the decision to go in this direction, I learned it was Muybridge's birthday. I knew then I was on the right track.

 A friend, and fellow artist, Andy Cleavenger wrote this about the work:
...Her pieces have always shown an element of interaction between them, but that interaction was usually physical, such as a knitted element that stretched between two painted canvases. Well, with these the element that connects them is the implied passage of time, as though we were looking at individual film stills displayed in sequence. Each one is strong enough to stand on its own, but it is as a group that they start to tell a story. And I love the sense that I am seeing the passage of a moment all at once.

To fully appreciate the sequence, I put together this stop motion animation:


The piece was installed at Artomatic, and will be on display through June 23. Prince George's County Parks and Recreation purchased the whole bottom row for their permanent art collection. There are still some panels of the upper row available in my shop.

There are only two days left to see the full installation in place on the 9th floor [space 140] at Artomatic 2012:
May 18–June 23, 2012
1851 S. Bell Street | Arlington, VA 22202