LongHouse Reserve Held First Larsen Salon Series

LongHouse Reserve held the first of its Larsen Salon Series — a Manhattan-based series of talks on design.

“We owe it to the great Jack Lenor Larsen, the preeminent textile designer of the 20th century and founder of LongHouse, to carry on the tradition of talks about craft, design, architecture, and textile”, said Director Carrie Rebora Barratt as she welcomed guests. “We chose this space, 180 The Store, because its owner, Denise Wiliamson, travels the world like Jack did, but in her case looking for natural fabrics, extraordinary clothing, and other treasures on display here.”

Contemporary multi-media artist Liz Collins shared about her life and career, working fluidly between art and design, with an emphasis on textile media, including the transition of fabric into multi-dimensional forms. Her method varies the scale of her pieces to make them architectural and inviting rather than object-based.

“I’ve had eras throughout my career where I felt loyalty to certain mediums. Some of the ways to make fabric are so complex that if you try to do too much you can’t go as deep. I wanted to go deep. I wanted to learn… Being in an environment at RISD, teaching and advising students about how to do all these different methods – not just my own expertise –  I learned deeply how to do so much more. Going from a RISD student then to a teacher and being exposed to all these possibilities, I segwayed to a place of being less loyal to a medium and more open to the possibilities of all tools to accomplish my visions.”

Matilda McQuaid, Curatorial Director, Cooper-Hewitt Museum concluded the discussion saying, “Jack would have loved this event. He was a great supporter of young artists”.

Guests included Lynne Cooke, E.V. Day, Judy Galloway, Cristina Grajales, Christina Kim, Ted Lee, Ron Lense, Bastienne Schmidt, Almond Zigmund, as well as LongHouse President Nina Gillman, President Emerita Dianne Benson, and Board Members Sherri Donghia, Anne Erni, Gael Towey, James Zajac and special guest, architect Calvin Tsao, from Tsao & McKown Architects.