Lauren Camp’s “So Black and Blue” featured on the Hamilton All Star Jazz Band concert poster

Canadian Jazz Band
Licenses Artwork for Poster

When the Hamilton All Star Jazz Band of Ontario, Canada needed an image for their spring concert poster, Advisory Board Member Molly Shannon contacted Lauren Camp. “I was in Myrtle Beach and viewed your work, ‘The Fabric of Jazz,’ at the Burroughs-Chapin Art Museum,” she said. “It was a magnificent exhibit.”

The title of this year’s fundraising concert is “Big Band Blues.” The band selected Lauren’s portrait of Louis Armstrong, “So Black and Blue,” and the board agreed to license the image for both the poster and the concert program.

This same piece also graced the poster of the 2006 Detroit International Jazz Festival. In fact, Jazz Fest sponsor Mack Avenue Records ultimately acquired the fiber original of “So Black and Blue” for their permanent collection.

In addition to licensing opportunities, Lauren offers signed, limited-edition giclée prints of “So Black and Blue” and other works from “The Fabric of Jazz.”

The Hamilton All Star Jazz Band is a charitable, self-sustaining organization featuring three bands of different skill levels. During the past 24 years, more than 600 young musicians have participated in the bands. Many have gone on to pursue additional studies or professional careers in music all over the world.

“We do so appreciate your willingness to share your art,” said Ms. Shannon. “I think together we are doing plenty for USA/Canadian relations. I am thrilled that you will be a part of our ‘Big Band Blues’ concert.”

Civic Collection in Chieri, Italy Acquires a Lauren Camp Original

Lauren Camp’s “Sunrise”

Chieri lies in the province of Turin, Italy, a town that dates back to 100 or 200 A.D. The town rose to a period of glory in the medieval era when it became a center for textile trade and manufacture. Since then, it has played a prominent role in the international textile trade.

In 1998, the City of Chieri began honoring their history in textiles by hosting a biennial exhibit of fiber art, the “Trame d’Autore.” American fiber artist Lauren Camp was honored to have her piece “Jubilee STOMP!” exhibited at the third Biennial in 2002.

Now the City of Chieri is collaborating with the University of Studies of Turin to create a museum and lab to research the use of textiles in contemporary art. In the process, they are creating a permanent civic collection situated in the area of the “Cotonificio Tabasso,” an ancient textile enterprise located on Chieri’s main road, Via Vittorio Emanuele II, near the site of a 16th century triumphal arch.

Because “Jubilee STOMP!” has since been acquired for a private collection here in the U.S., the City of Chieri requested “Sunrise,” another work by Lauren Camp. “We think that “Sunrise” expresses the hard light contrasts of the wonderful land where you live [Santa Fe, New Mexico],” said Sheila Gibalerio, the City’s representative.

The Civic Collection will be presented in March 2008, at the tenth anniversary of the “Trame d’Autore,” accompanied by the publication of a monograph documenting the entire collection.

New Catalog Highlights Mali Embassy Collection

December 2007, Washington, DC — The U.S. Department of State has just published a catalog detailing the art collection at the embassy in Bamako, Mali. The collection, curated by Virginia Shore of the department’s Art in Embassies Program, features a diverse range of mediums, including sculpture, photographs, textiles, gicleé prints, paintings, installations and mixed media works.

What is most intriguing about the collection is the combination of artists and themes. Appropriately, Africa is the dominant theme, but its exploration ranges from Malian art to the influence of African culture in America. Sam Gilliam’s draped paintings soar from the embassy ceiling, while photos of daily life in Mali adorn the walls. Carrie Mae Weems addresses formal and political issues involving African-American culture in her Shape of Things from Africa series. Fiber artists Michael Cummings and Lauren Camp offer their interpretations of jazz.

The new catalog shows how successfully the collection in Mali fulfills the Art in Embassy’s mission to provide international audiences with a sense of the quality, scope and diversity of American art, while also reflecting a sense of the country in which this embassy resides.

New Jazz Book Features a Lauren Camp Original on the Cover

Ask Me Now: Conversations on Jazz & Literature, a new book from Indiana University Press, brims with musical insight, anecdotes, and poetry. Sascha Feinstein, editor of Brilliant Corners: A Journal of Jazz & Literature, has compiled some of his finest interviews of the past decade—conversations with pianist Fred Hersch, critic Gary Giddins, poets Philip Levine and Sonia Sanchez, and sixteen other distinguished artists who have spent a good part of their career focused on jazz.

The conversations revolve around more than just the jazz luminaries or the evolution of the music. Ask Me Now is a celebration of language and an examination of what it means to explain one art form using another. Can a poet, for example, truly convey the sense of a musical performance using words?

Fittingly, the cover of the book features “Loudest Noise,” a portrait of pianist / composer Thelonious Monk created by fiber artist Lauren Camp. Camp uses fabric and thread to create two-dimensional images that express the essence of a musical composition or the depth of sound an instrument can make. Through fiber, she struggles to depict the personality and life experiences of a particular composer.

“I chose Lauren’s piece because I have, for years, responded immediately and energetically to her imagery,” says Feinstein. “I admire the way she suggests the visual qualities of music: dynamic squares of color rising within the Monkian silence. It’s an astonishing piece, and I’m honored to have it on the cover of this collection.”