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Rania Hassan, Pensive I, II, III , 2009, oil, fiber, canvas, metal wood,  Each piece is 31"h x 12"w x 2-1/2"  It's currently on view at Greater Reston Arts Center. There's a revival of status and attention given to traditional, highly-skilled arts and crafts made of yarn, thread and materials. "Stitch," a new show at Greater Reston Arts Center ( GRACE ), proves that traditional sewing arts are at the forefront of contemporary art, and that fiber is a forceful vehicle for expression.  Meanwhile, the National Museum of Women in the Arts puts the historical spin on traditional women's art in " Workt by Hand ," a collection of stunning quilts from the Brooklyn Museum which were shown in exhibition at their home museum last year. Bars Quilt , ca. 1890, Pennsylvania; Cotton and wool, 83 x 82"; Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. H. Peter Findlay, 77.122.3; Photography by Gavin Ashworth, 2012 / Brooklyn Museum Quilts are normally very lar...

Photo courtesy of Rachael Matthews from the UK Crafts Council "High fiber" usually refers to a type of diet, but High Fiber at the National Museum for Women in the Arts demonstrates how "high art" integrates with the everyday world of a Folk Art.  In the multi-media world of contemporary art, Fiber Art has gained recognition as a serious art form over the last fifty years.  Like the art of glass making , fiber art was invented milleniums ago for utilitarian purposes. Knitting, sewing and weaving developed to meet basic needs of warmth and clothing, but as soon as pattern and design were involved, the process of making art began. Knitted objects are often in Matthews' work When the ancient artists/crafters knitted, knotted, wove or stitched to follow patterns or innate designs in their heads, they tied together movements between the left and right hands, bridging the creative left side of the brain with the analytical right side of the brain. Contemporary fiber ...

National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, DC, is hosting a ground-breaking exhibition, From Royalists to Romantics : Woman artists from the Louvre, Versailles and other French National Collections . The exhibition celebrates the 25th anniversary of NMWA and will continue to be on view until July 29, 2012. It features 35 woman artists who worked between 1750 and 1850. The women who worked as artists in France at this time went through difficult times of the Revolution and its aftermath, the governments of Napoleon and Napoleon III and uncertainties in between. They reveal themselves as extraordinary talents, able to overcome so many odds. Many of those who painted and were the subject of portraits reveal themselves as the Renaissance woman of their days. The cover of the catalogue has an alluring portrait of Madame Juliette Récamier, by Eulalie Morin. Madame Récamier, by Eulalie Morin, late 18th century, is on the cover of the NM WA ground-breaking exhibition. Morin's Mm...