Leisa Rich Fibre Arts Residency Award Recipient: Timothy Manalo

Shannon Smith, October 2024

The Contemporary Textile Studio Cooperative is pleased to introduce the second recipient of the Leisa Rich Fibre Artist Residency Award 2023/2024 in collaboration with Craft Ontario. Timothy completed his residency earlier this year. 

Timothy Manalo is a sculpture and installation artist born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from OCAD University, majoring in Sculpture and Installation. Following his undergraduate studies, he worked extensively in the fabrication industry as a studio assistant and in-house sculptor for various companies specializing in art and design fabrication that included, outdoor commercial sculptures, mascot costumes and props, interior wall finishing and custom art.  

In 2019, he completed a Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art from the SMFA at Tufts University in Boston, with a Certificate in Museum Studies. Following his studies, he was awarded a Post-Graduate Teaching Fellowship, teaching 3D Foundations for a full academic year. Manalo has exhibited in galleries in Canada and the United States that include the Canadian Sculpture Centre in Toronto, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, and was an artist-in-residence at Franconia Sculpture Park in Shafer, Minnesota. He is also a Researcher at The After School with the Center for Arts, Design and Social Research.

By the time you came to the studio you had already completed multiple degrees, artist residencies and had a variety of design experience. How has your residency with the Co-op changed or shaped your work going forward?

When I first started the CTS residency, I was really focused on continuing to develop my weaving practice, which I saw as an extension of my sculpture practice. What I found were artists with a wealth of knowledge in the area of natural dye who were very open to sharing their skills and encouraged me to experiment. By being here, it lit the spark of learning natural dye, which wasn’t necessarily my initial intention, but became essential to expanding my explorations in the language of materials and how they equate to a time and place. I became much more conscious of the language of material and how textile communicates. I also took Jason Logan’s Natural Ink Making workshop at the studio, which was another launching point. I have to say that having a routine really opened up possibilities. I came into the residency with the intention to build structure into my weaving practice which enabled me to learn new skills. I really looked at this Award a prize worth money and to use every penny to the last drop.

Which elements of natural dye did you learn most about and incorporate in your weaving practice?

Indigo is a fascinating cosmological process of geography, climate, weather, and bacteria that is also culturally significant and has archival qualities. Also simple things like annatto and onion skin. I also made a mud bath from clay foraged at a previous residency in Spain. I dyed mainly cotton and linen yarn, which was then incorporated into my weavings. 

What have you been working on since completing your residency? 

I attended the first of two residencies as part of The After School, a worldwide community of artists and researchers. We spent 10 days in Turkey where my previous exploration into the communication of materials through natural dye helped to inform that experience. The everyday events and rituals of waking up, eating together, talks at the house and engaging with that space, going to the spice market, eating the walnuts we purchased, then making the husks into a dye bath, also making dye from crushing bricks we found—these all connected to the time and place and the creating of a material archive. 

Next, Timothy is off to Nairobi, Kenya to complete the 2nd of his two-part residency with The After School.