Art by Tina Tse. Photography by Sierra R. Aguilar (IG: @seastatic)

Environment + Microclimates was my very first time being a part of a show as one of the artists. Now that I’m almost a full month removed from it, I’ll like to revisit my experience and remember all that I’ve had the opportunity to be a part of.

Environment + Microclimates was an immersive art experience showcasing environmental- and fiber-based art. It explored art that engages the senses in a dynamic collaboration between botanical artist Lisa Waud, curator/artist Sarah Rose Sharp, and Fiber Club*, a collective of fiber artists based in the Detroit area, supported by the Detroit Design District along side Detroit’s Month of Design. It opened Friday, September 6, at the Boyer Campbell Building and ran the whole month through to September 29.

I got into the show because I am a part of Fiber Club*. I want to express my deepest gratitude to Fiber Club* for allowing a little artist like me, someone who has never been a part of an art show, to be a part of this amazing group show. Being a part of the Fiber Club* has been one of the best things I’ve done in the 8 years I’ve lived in Michigan. The Detroit art scene is truly one of the most unique experiences, to witness and to be a part of. As a lover of art (like the old Murals in the Market), to creating art, Detroit feels like it has a place for anyone to create community, culture, and home.

In being a part of Fiber Club* and the Environment + Microclimates show, I heard a few times about how this club and the show is about not waiting: not waiting for institutions to give us opportunities to share our art, not waiting for gate keepers of the art world/industry to allow us to share art, not waiting for anyone else to determine our art is worth showing. There is a side of the art world that I still witness as being pretentious, privileged, exclusionary. What industry isn’t, in a capitalist, patriarchal society we still live in… All of this to say, it’s a rarity to be a part of something that hasn’t been stripped of it’s pure purpose, that hasn’t been tainted.

For the show, each space within the Boyer Campbell Building were transformed into little microclimates. The one I proposed was called “Waste(not) land”. Funny enough, I had submitted this concept for Detroit Month of Design back in 2021. It wasn’t accepted then. It was an idea that was not fully developed, a work in progress. It wasn’t perfectly laid out in a presentation for a panel of people to judge. I presented the same under-developed concept to Lisa and Rosie and was met with much more openness for me to express my vision. It was a little nugget of an idea and they still believed in it. Truly, grateful and blown away by the trust.

Another thing that Lisa, Sarah Rose, and Fiber Club* opened up for the Environment + Microclimates show was an opportunity for artists to create activations and performances throughout the month. I had the pleasure of assisting in the scheduling of the programs. Fiber Club* and this group show was truly a culmination of artists volunteering their time to make it all happen. Artists in Fiber Club*, in the show or not, can submit a program. Artists in the show could create activations in their microclimate. I hosted some small craft gatherings throughout the weekends, where visitors can bring a project or pick up something from one of the other interactive microclimates to make something with their hands.

In my microclimate, I decided to be in the space every weekend to show the process of my craft. I spent the time unraveling mass-produced sweaters to reuse the yarn. I then took the yarn and put it through my manual knitting machine to make thicker yarn, yarn roving/tubes if you will, so they were stockinette/jersey knit strips that curled in on itself to create a “tube”. With this new form, I finger knit and finger crocheted it into a sculpture, much like the pieces I had created for the show. It was a great experience, talking to art viewers, chatting about my process, explaining what I was doing, great conversations about textile waste. I had a little community sweater drop, where visitors of the show can drop off their unwanted sweaters to be repurposed.

I guess, what else am I missing in trying to recollect a month long experience into a blog post…

At the end of the day, I am so grateful for the connections, new and old, that was sparked from this experience. There was a lot I learned about myself and about my art that I will carry with me forward into my next projects, whatever they will be. I want to keep making art for the sake of creative expression and telling a story. AND I want to keep making clothes and knitting patterns that empower knitters to make stuff too. This show was the push that I needed after a whole year of feeling a very huge lack of designing. I’m always making but this year, I almost felt like I was out of ideas, like nothing I was thinking about to design was original or a representation of me. Creating art for this show reminded me that I do still have a vision and I do have something to contribute in this world through my art or knitting patterns. AND that creating for no purpose is also part of it too. Play, guessing, not having a plan, it’s all still okay. Can’t wait to create the next thing.

My First Fiber Arts Show