Lieve Smets

It is with great joy that we welcome Lieve Smets to our team of instructor lace artists.

In my work lace is a metaphor for transience and fragility. The more holes a material gets, the more it touches the essence of lace, namely transparency. Iron with rust holes is less than the object it once was, but also more. Forms that were not there arise. Textiles can be luxurious, but also worn-out. This gives it an extra meaning. After all, there is a story attached to it; it has 'lived'.

Lieve's quietly unassuming and delicate art lace shows an interest in the aesthetics of decay, which she uses to elaborate on repeating themes of memory, loss, the body, and nature. It is her acute awareness of how materials, techniques, concept and intention are interwoven that put her on our radar as a perfect candidate to help you take your lacemaking to new heights. We are delighted that Lieve will be joining us with a new lacemaking design and creativity course later in 2023.

Lieve is no stranger to the international lace and art world. She achieved a Masters in Fine Arts degree at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp in 1998 and has since then been actively exhibiting and teaching art and lacemaking. Her most recent solo presentation "Raaklijnen" was shown at the Stedelijk Museum Aarschot: an opportunity afforded her for winning the Aarschotse Cultuurraad Prize in 2022. Her work has appeared in numerous group exhibitions and publications, notably "Moderne Gründe", Deutscher Klöppelverband, 2013, "Lace in Flanders/Kant in Vlaanderen" by Martine Bruggeman in 2018, and "La Dentelle dans l’art contemporain" by Blandine Pouzin in 2021. Lieve lives and works in Rillaar.

Lieve's website is worth a visit if you're not familiar with her work:
https://sites.google.com/view/lievesmets

Denise Watts

Denise Watts’ love affair with bobbin lace started with the doing, but quickly became a fascination with what it could do, and through this process became a language for self-expression. Exploring simple techniques and investigating what they can achieve is her adventure, and using it to make lace that is relevant to today is imperative too. Denise has taught, (to exam qualification standard), lectured (including the National Gallery in London), exhibited (including international juried Exhibitions) but her magnum opus was experiencing women’s change in perspective on how they viewed their lives during her 2019 Exhibition ‘The Little Women” shown in London and Dublin.

Jane Atkinson

Jane Atkinson has spent half her life pursuing a dream – that bobbin lace could establish a place in modern life. She sees it not as an arcane hobby but as real currency – on the wall as Art Lace, around the house as a colourful furnishing, or as Wearable Art. She has taught lace design around the globe, exhibited across Europe, and counts as her greatest achievement that she persuaded Arts Council England to back her solo show, Ebb’n’Flow, in Dorset in 2018; With Dagmar, Denise and Pierre, she exhibited in ‘Lace, not Lace’ at the Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton, New Jersey in 2018, and shared ‘Fils Comuns’ with Denise Watts for Arenys de Mar Lace Museum, Catalonia, the following year. She has also written three books.

Pierre Fouché

Pierre Fouché trained to be a sculptor, but he fell in love with thread early in his art career. Crochet was a gateway drug to bobbin lace for him around 2009, and today he introduces himself as a lacemaker. His work has been shown in Cape Town and beyond, forming a part of the exhibitions Women’s work (2016) and Materiality (2020) at the Iziko South African National Gallery, Crafted: Objects in flux at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (2018), as well as the touring exhibition, Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community, first exhibited at the Leslie + Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, New York (2015). His work is represented in the public collections of the Iziko South African National Gallery, The Norval Foundation (Cape Town) & the Artphilein Foundation, Switzerland. Fouché lives and works in Cape Town.

Dagmar Beckel-Machyckova

Dagmar Beckel-Machyckova fell in love with lace as a nine year old girl in the mountains of Slovakia. While she grew up in Prague, Czech Republic, where she also attended the Institute of Art Manufacturing, earning a degree in lacemaking, she now lives and works in Wisconsin, USA. She is equally fascinated by the historic peasant laces of Central Europe and the potential of contemporary lace. She has taught lacemaking across the United States for local guilds and since 2012 has been regularly invited to teach at the International Organization of Lace, Inc (IOLI) Annual Convention. Dagmar’s articles have been published in both European and American magazines. She has also participated in local juried exhibitions: Arts West, 38 (2017), Confluence of Art (2018); statewide exhibitions: On Wisconsin Fiber Arts Biennial (2019-2020), as well as international ones: Lace, not Lace (2018).

Please note that Dagmar is currently on a Sabbattical, her teaching slot for 2023 will be fulfilled by Lieve Smets.