Lenka's Way of LaceReframed: Lost Art I & II
Posted on November 14, 2017
Reframed: Lost Art I
Material: Bronze wire Technique: Milanese tape lace
Size: 56 x 56 cm (22 x 22 in)
Reframed: Lost Art II
Material: Bronze wire Technique: Concentric continuous lace
Size: 56 x 56 cm (22 x 22 in)
In North America, handmade bobbin lace has been often called “a lost art”. I could not agree, because the lace I have known was very much alive – present, vibrant, breathing and growing. I followed her intricate patterns and looked for materials and forms that could carry the lace forward. In one of my many projects I explored pattern connections between various craft disciplines – wood work, stone carving, tile work and lace work – and set out a testing ground for new connections. Two pieces that remained from the project were put away, and literally, lost in my studio storage.
When I found them this summer I realized how much has changed in the last 10 years. The lace craft as I knew has been almost lost. The gossamer lace weave is getting weaker as the threads are ageing. Traditional schools closed, lace museums activities were reduced, and major international events abandoned because of lack of funds. At the same time, more and more independent artists started to use lace techniques in their work, creating imaginative lace art. As if lace had left the past and entered the future…
I decided to re-frame these two works to reflect the change. I covered painting canvas with silk fabric and cut the centre out to expose black background. As the lace stretches over the opening, it casts shadows, and the illusive pattern is dissipating into the black hole of the passing time. Lace remains, but only very few people can connect it to the history.
Can lace live detached from her own history? Can we?
Only time will tell…
These artworks are for sale in my WAYofLACE shop on Etsy.
Lace | Heart | Art Updates
Posted on September 9, 2017
We are happy to report that the lace|heart|art international challenge has been embraced by a worldwide lacemaking community. We have received many supportive comments via this blog and our facebook page, some questions, and YES … the FIRST ENTRIES!
Our sincere thanks go to the editors of the following magazines for featuring info about the lace|heart|art challenge:
Vuelta y Cruz (Twist and Cross) – Spain (published in Spanish and English)
Australian Lace Guild Magazine – Australia
Canadian Lacemaker Gazette – Canada
Lacemakers and lace groups who have promoted our event on social networks are too numerous to list – we send a big THANK YOU! to all of you and ask you to keep sharing ❤️ !
We are excited for making a special connection with many lacemakers around the world via Barb’s Heart. It is just what we wanted to share – her love and our gratitude.
To encourage more of you to participate and to make it easier for you, we updated our lace|heart|art support page with some helpful hints and tips on how to understand the pattern and make it your own. Please peruse and start working on your lace|heart|art!
PS: Do not forget to share the lace|heart|art with your lace friends!
Lace Heart Art
Posted on June 6, 2017
New School of Lace is pleased to announce a launch of the ‘lace | heart | art’ – 1st international challenge and online exhibition of handmade bobbin lace in colour.
Our new project offers one simple heart pattern and invites lacemakers around the world to fill it with colours and love.
We welcome everybody, and especially young lacemakers, to participate, get inspired and transform our first heart pattern into original lace art.
In the inaugural edition, we offer one pattern that can be worked in fibre as well as wire medium. Our lace|heart|art pattern #1 is open to interpretation, and lacemakers are encouraged to fill the given pattern with colours of their choice. The heart design is open ended, and the trail can be finished in many imaginative ways.
The pattern, and the whole challenge, follows the New School of Lace principles of respecting the tradition and encouraging creativity in the field of handmade lace.
Learn more about the ‘lace|heart|art challenge’ and share the news with your lace friends!
Victorian Black Lace Brooch
Posted on May 8, 2015
Bobbin lace in wire workshop #4 is coming soon, and since it will happen on a Canadian public holiday weekend that is celebrated in honour of Queen Victoria’s birthday, the theme of the workshops is a Victorian Black Lace Brooch.
Join the class to learn how to make fine black lace, embellish it with jet crystals and finish it as a brooch. The workshop is design to suit beginners as well as lacemakers with some experience with wire. Instruction will cover braids, picots, leafs and basket weave cloth stitch with a special attention to handling fine enamelled copper wire, adding crystals and finishing.
The poster shows just a draft of the design as I am eagerly awaiting a shipment of brooch pin backs to finalize the design and make the first samples 🙂
Victorian Black Lace Brooch – Bobbin Lace in Wire #4
June workshop, on Saturday the 27, 2015 will celebrate arrival of summer with a bright happy “Sun” theme.
There are many ways how to create sun in lace. Numerous patterns had been developed by many previous lacemakers and lace designers, and we can find a lot of inspiration in traditional laces. It is hard to choose which one to start with, and I have not decided, yet it is going to be plaited bobbin lace design or needle lace Retticella in gold plated copper.
Lace Art Show and Workshop
Posted on February 6, 2015
Treat yourself to a double lace event on Valentine’s Day!
Bobbin Lace in Wire Workshop #2 concurrent with a Lace Art Show will offer a special opportunity for students to see and learn from displayed lace art. Objets d’art – metal lace wall art, sculpture and wearable art – will offer an insight to possibilities of wire medium in handmade lace and motivate students to further their skills and free their imagination.
Lace Art Show is open to lacemakers, lace lovers, neighbours and friends from 11am to 4pm.
Bring your Valentine!
‘It’s OK to be a snail!’
Posted on January 9, 2015
A new workshop for new lacemakers – designed with love and understanding, how difficult it can be to leave a comfort zone and start something new… such as lacemaking with wire. I remember clearly my excitement and fear many years ago, when I left the shore of the Old World and its beautiful, delicate fibre laces and ventured into unknown territory in life and lace. I also remember that the beginnings were sometimes hard and frustrating. I am happy to share things that learned along the way and I strive to present them gradually, in accessible and enjoyable form. Slowly, one stitch at a time – because lacemaking nowadays really is about the process. I look forward sharing the joy of creative lace with some of you in Ocean Park!
Silver Chantilly Pendants
Posted on March 29, 2014
Traditional Chantilly lace designs are the embodiment of delicacy, refinement and beauty. Their floral compositions offer an endless inspiration. I love Chantilly, it is my favourite lace. It always invites me to create. Projected into the three-dimensional space, the flowers and bouquets become alive in pendants, rings and necklaces. A difficult technique to master in metal, Chantilly also constantly challenges my skills and my patience. Each piece is a long journey, and at the end there is no better reward than to see how Chantilly lace jewellery accentuates the beauty of women who wear it.
Material: Silver, swarovski crystals
Silver Chantilly Pendants
Silver Chantilly Pendant
Photography: Kenji Nagai
Copyright © 2014 Lenka Suchanek. All rights reserved.
Earth Amulets
Posted on February 27, 2014
These amulets celebrate the Earth and our life on it. They remind us that we are interconnected with everything – air, water, stones, plants, other animals… and that we should strive to understand and accept our existence as a part of the whole living system.
The aim of each amulet is to hold the energy of a focal object, so it could be consciously received and directed by the wearer. Lace design follows simple rules of sacred geometry, guiding the concentration inwards or outwards. While the Amulets can be perceived as a beautiful jewellery, their main function lies in the realm of invisible.
Gaia Amulet
Material: Enamelled copper, turquoise, carnelian
Technique: Plaited lace with leaf tallies
Dark Earth Amulet
Material: Enamelled copper, serpentine, calcite
Technique: Plaited lace with leaf tallies
Wind Amulet
Material: Enamelled copper, peacock feather, swarovski crystals
Technique: Tape lace
Thunder Amulet
Material: Enamelled copper, 14kt gold, labradorite, onyx necklace
Technique: Free-form tape lace
Copyright © 2014 Lenka Suchanek. All rights reserved.
Genoese Scallop Pendant
Posted on February 23, 2014
Genoese Scallop Pendants are inspired by bold and beautiful patterns of the Genoese laces.
Lace made in Genoa was very popular in the Renaissance fashion. Wide scalloped patterns were firmly rooted in a sacred geometry of the early Renaissance, which gave them a mysterious strength and rare beauty. This was lace of choice for the famous standing and falling collars that supported many royal heads of the European courts of the 17th century.
Genoese lace is uniquely suited for original lace jewellery. The patterns, which did not loose any of their magic and still evoke a regal connection, bestow the quality of one-of-a-kind heirloom.
Material: Fine silver, gold plated with 24kt gold, with garnet (left) or fresh water pearls (right).
Gold Genoese Scallop Pendants
Material: Enamelled copper with onyx (left) or labradorite (right)
Black Genoese Scallop Pendant
Material: Fine silver with watermelon tourmaline (left) or moonstone (right)
Silver Genoese Scallop Pendant
All but one in private collections.
Photography: Kenji Nagai
Copyright © 2014 Lenka Suchanek. All rights reserved.
Large Black Chantilly Necklace
Posted on February 23, 2014
Large Chantilly Necklace
Material: Copper – enamelled and gold-plated, swarovski crystals
Technique: Chantilly lace
Size: 48cm x 25cm x 2cm
This necklace was created for the International Lace Award Competition organized by the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Australia. It was selected among finalists and was exhibited in the Powerhouse Museum “Love Lace” exhibition in 2012 – 2013. The Chantilly Necklace as acquired for Powerhouse Museum Jewellery Collection and exhibited in a prestigious exhibition A fine possession: Jewellery and identity, from 24 September 2014 – 20 September 2015.
“The Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences is delighted to present its most ambitious jewellery exhibition ever staged. Spanning millennia of jewellery history across continents and cultures:
A fine possession celebrates the central place of jewellery in our lives, from antiquity to the present-day, through a sumptuous selection of jewellery made, worn and collected in Australia, displaying over 700 rarely seen treasures.
“This stunning exhibition brings together objects from the Museum’s own rich collection that have rarely or never been seen, alongside prized possessions from a range of private and public collections from Australia and overseas,” said Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences Director, Rose Hiscock.
A fine possession Curator Eva Czernis-Ryl says the exhibition will appeal to anyone with “an interest in creative jewellery from different periods and cultures, and in objects of intimate beauty that enchant, surprise and stimulate the imagination”. …. read the full article
Artist’s statement:
“I fell in love with Chantilly lace at the first sight. The black lace took my breath away and became my ‘dentelle fatale’. I love the irregular free-flowing patterns and shading of fine black silk. I love the feminine beauty and sensuality of the designs.
I consider this lace to be one of the finest achievements of the French fine crafts. It symbolizes the maturity, independence and refinement reached by the French in the Age of Enlightenment. A spirit of that era lives on in Chantilly lace – in preserved antique pieces as well as their modern reincarnations of contemporary machine-made lace. Chantilly’s timeless beauty keeps inspiring artists and designers, generation after generation.
In my own work, Chantilly lace continues to be the most difficult technique. The traditional patterns were designed for extremely fine silk, and it is a true challenge to adapt them for metalwork. I use very fine black-enamelled wire to re-create the delicacy of lace in a three-dimensional form. Following simple outlines and filling the shapes with an open half-stitch weave often poses technical questions that have to be solved creatively. Inevitably, not two pieces are the same, as they grow rather organically. Completed lace is layered, shaped and finished as jewellery.
Chantilly lace technique is rare in jewellery making. Nevertheless, it is highly suitable for creating unique, one-of-a-kind wearable art pieces. As a lacemaker, I find it highly rewarding to participate in the continuous progress of Chantilly lace.”
Photography: Marinco Kojdanovski, MAAS, and Peter Flynn Niznansky
Copyright © 2014 Lenka Suchanek. All rights reserved.
Lenka's Way of Lace 