Coded:Decoded

Last night was the Private View for Prism’s latest exhibition Coded:Decoded at The Mall Galleries, London. The exhibition is on from the 27th-31st May 2014.

There were five artists whose work particularly stood out for me.

Beverly Ayling-Smith
Mendings
The work explores small tears and mends – a metaphor for emotional repairs, healing in increments, make a person whole again.

 

Celia Stanley
Constrained
Clothing choice conveys to the outside world a person’s location in society; it becomes a code for viewers to interpret and place them in a recognisable position in their community.

 

Jacqui Parkinson
In Memory
From 1865 to 1930, nuns gave a home and laundry training to destitute giles at Devon House of Mercy in Bovey Tracey. The girls had to keep their identities and pasts a secret – often using pseudonyms. But in 1911 their real names were made public in the census.

 

Tansy Blaik-Kelly
Please Do Not Touch I-IV
Exclusion. Divisions. Obstacles. Perceptions. Misunderstandings. The boundaries between the sighted and visually impaired worlds, is never more apparent than within the domain of the visual arts.

 

Peta Jacobs
Entangles Alchemy
Using both digital and physical technologies, the piece offers different readings dependant on viewpoint. The film (a curious exploded and fragmentary view of red threads) is primordial but ambiguous, allowing the viewers to interpret what they see and create their own narrative.

PRISM
Tue 27 – Sat 31 May 2014
Tues – Thurs 10 – 6pm, Fri 10 – 5pm, Sat 10 – 4pm

www.prismtextiles.co.uk

Wet and Wild – Weekend 3

This weekend was the third Wet and Wild weekend at Committed to Cloth. We introduced high and low water immersion dyeing and breakdown printing. Students were also able to carry on with pieces they had started in previous months.

I think the photos say it all – enjoy!

Breakdown Printing

  

Mono Printing

Tray Dyeing

Freezer Paper Stencils

Flour Paste Resist

Screen Printing

Interfacing Stencils

Mark Making

www.committedtocloth.com

 

New Beginnings

I spent a very enjoyable Saturday down at the Committed to Cloth barn this weekend working on my latest piece for the zero3 exhibition at Knit and Stitch this year.

I have to admit that I didn’t get much work done whilst I was down there but I spent time thinking about the piece and had some very thought provoking conversations with my good friend Sara. I often feel guilty when I haven’t worked on a piece as much as I planned but I think spending time discussing ideas can often achieve so much more than just frantically making and never reviewing the work. It can open you up to new possibilities or changes in direction, which fits very aptly with this piece.

I have decided to start working with maps. This is a subject I have wanted to explore for a while as my mum worked from home as a cartographical draughts woman, so I grew up surrounded by maps and plans.

This piece is provisionally called ‘New Beginnings’ and explores the idea that our lives can take many different paths. It is still very much a work in progress but I am working directly on pages from a map book and enjoying the process of stitching the roads and choosing my direction as I come to a junction. Sometimes I stitch quite quickly and race around the page, other times I stitch slowly and contemplate the roads I am travelling along and the journeys and decisions I have made in my own life.

zero3 will be exhibiting at Knit and Stitch London, Harrogate and Dublin.
www.zero3textileartists.com

Site Responsive Work at Newark Park

There are thirty artists showing at Newark Park as part of the Stroud International Textile Festival. I think that it would be fair to say that Newark Park is quite an eccentric National Trust Property and the last tenants Robert Parsons and Michael Claydon have definitely put there own stamp on the property and clearly made it their home.

As part of the research for my own site responsive piece I visited the Gloucester archives and was able to see and read some of the letters that were sent to Robert and Michael from the many people that came to stay. I found it fascinating to read insights into their lives, such as ‘I hope your curry turned out as you would have wished………’ and ‘Unfortunately I am not writing to tell you that you have been made Lord Robert of Newark – although everyone agrees you should be’.

I find producing site responsive work an exciting yet nerve racking process and I am sure the curator of this exhibition Lizzi Walton would agree with me. I think it takes a certain amount of trust on both parts as in my case neither of us knew until quite late on what the outcome would actually be. I was inspired by Robert and Michael’s collection of damaged swans and I made 41 different sized origami swans out of various papers before deciding one swan would be more impactful.

Amicitia

Caren Garfens work really interested me because of the level of research she has done into the previous owners, Sir Thomas Dyer and Dame Joan Berkeley. Joan’s eldest son described Dyer as ‘a monster’ and he did not provide care and medicine for Joan when she became ill. Caren carefully researched the Dame’s illness and the medicines that would have been used in the 16th Century to treat this.

The three apothecary bottles shown above which accompany a sampler, hung on the wall above, have hand stitched labels giving details of the medicines that Dyer may have withheld from his wife.

There are no words to embroider that single desolating fact.

Caroline Bartlett’s work leads on beautifully from the site responsive piece that she produced for the Cloth and Memory exhibition at the Salt Mills, West Yorkshire, last year. Drawing on ideas of the fabric of the building Caroline’s collection of porcelain pieces hint at cycles of life lived in the house, at its foundation as a hunting lodge and its construction from stones retrieved from a former monastery.

A Stitch in the Fragment of Time

I am also intrigued my Jane Ponsford’s work. Jane is a maker concerned both with matter and the stories that the material tells. Her work is often ephemeral and delicate and involves repetition. For Newark Park she is showing work responding to both the surrounding outer landscape and to the indoor ‘landscape’ of the house. Talking about paper on her website she says ‘when I stain it with mud it becomes part of the walk that I took and if I dye it, working with it is like drawing in the air with pure colour.’

A Landscape in Ten Parts

I find this description fascinating. Artists used to produce ’site specific work’ but the terminology has changed over the year and we are now asked to create ‘site responsive work’. I wonder if there is time for a new category ‘site inclusive work’ as there are so many exciting artists around now working in this way?

Selected at Newark Park, Gloucestershire is on until the 8th June 2014.
www.sitselect.org

Shadow and Line Exhibition, Stroud

I have just come back from a hugely enjoyable weekend at the Stroud International Textile Festival.

I visited Newark Park to see my work in situ and the work of the other artists for the first time, but I want to start with the Shadow and Line exhibition that is on at the Museum in the Park. The exhibition consists of nine artists predominately working with textiles.

I felt honoured to attend the Private View on Saturday night spending the evening with so many talented artists and like minded people. I find it hard to define the thrill of discovering new artists whose work I have not come across before. It always gets my pulse racing when I see something new that makes me think, ask questions, and want to push my own practice in new directions. There were two particular artist whose work stood out for me at the exhibition Joy Merron and Jilly Morris.

Joy’s work was in the foyer of the gallery. I was struck by the simplicity and delicacy of the piece and yet the powerful presence it had within the space. I was also fascinated with how the density of the piece changed as you walked around it and the boundaries and division that it created.

I was moved by Jilly Morris’s piece Eighteen Thousand Holes… Approximately! which are hand drilled holes on waxed paper. As Jilly stated ‘drilling extensively transforms the nature of the paper, resonating with a delicate material; exchanging a ‘hardness’ into an organic ‘softness’’. I just loved the contest of the matt black scratched surface with the fragility of the holes.

Finally, I would also like to mention three artists whose work in the exhibition is inspirational, who I greatly admire, and who have all had a huge impact on my practice to date: Linda Brassington, Hilary Bower and Caroline Bartlett.

Linda taught me many years ago at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design. Her work in the exhibition is a collection of ‘living’ cloths – a series of organic surfaces that change over time, through drawing, dyeing and print.

Hilary Bower mentored me whilst I was producing my first piece of site responsive work for Pitzhanger Manor House. For the Shadow and Line exhibition Hilary explores the idea of silence, stillness and waiting as substance and matter.

Caroline Bartlett runs the year long textile course at City Lit and I would never have had the confidence to return to textiles after spending 10 years working in graphic design if it hadn’t been for that course. It re-engaged my passion and love of textiles. Caroline’s ‘mappings’ are created through digital scanning and redrawing of previous work. They respond to the original and reinterpret them as residue of memory, a deposit of activity, a retracing of experience.

Shadow and Line is on at the Museum in the Park, Stratford Road, Stroud GL5 4AF until the 26th May.

www.sitselect.org

Selected at Newark Park

Just got back from a 5 hour round trip delivering my work to Newark Park for the Stroud International Textile Festival. The exhibition is on from the 23 April – 8 June 2014.

Set in the stunning setting of Newark Park, Ozleworth Gloucestershire GL12 7PZ. The exhibition consists of work from leading international makers as well as emerging new talent and includes textiles, glass, ceramics, willow, paper, paintings and prints.

More details can be found at the following websites
blog.sitblog.co.uk
www.sitselect.org
www.stroudinternationaltextiles.org.uk

Here is a sneak preview of my work.

Amicitia, 2014

Robert Parsons’ and Michael Claydon’s collection of damaged ceramic swans provided the inspiration for creating a piece around a single swan.

Situated within a bell jar the swan represents the remote location of Newark Park and the isolation Robert inevitably experienced moving from America to Britain. However, the house was a very social place whilst Robert and Michael lived there, and extracts from the many letters from friends and family inspired the template for the swan. The unfolded origami template created the quilt block used for the waxed paper piece and symbolises the many people who helped make Newark Park what it is today and the warmth they have brought to the house.

Alter Ego – Hand Dyed Fabric

I had a busy day down at the Committed to Cloth Studio yesterday, tray dyeing fabric for next couple of shows.

Now for all the washing, ironing and folding.

If you would like to see the end results this fabric will be on sale at the following shows:
20-22 June 2014 – The National Quilting Championships 2014, Sandown Exhibition Centre KT10 9AJ
7-10 August 2014 – Stand P8, Festival of Quilts, Birmingham NEC

Or, if you would like to have a go yourself, I am running the following workshops this year:
29-30 May 2014 – Art Van Go, Knebworth, Hertfordshire SG3 6AN
18-19 August 2014 – Committed to Cloth, Betchworth, Surrey RH3 7DF

More information about shows and workshops is available from my website.
Alter Ego – Hand Dyed Fabric and Threads
www.handdyedfabric.co.uk

Four Friends

I am afraid I only managed to dash down there hours before this exhibition finished but here some photos of Four Friends at Chequer Mead Gallery, East Grinstead. Jude Kingshott, Amelia Leigh and Jules McConnell all attend Independent Study classes at Committed to Cloth run by Leslie Morgan.

You can see more of their work on the following websites:
www.judekingshott.co.uk
www.amelialeightextiles.co.uk
www.julesquilts.co.uk
www.committedtocloth.com

Boro – Threads of Life & Abstract Drawing

If you are London over the next few days there are two amazing exhibitions on at the moment but they are about the finish, so you need to be quick. Both appeal to my love of surface, patina and grids and I am sure are going to have a huge impact on my work over the next few months.

Firstly, Boro on at Somerset House until the 26th April.

Translated to ‘rags’ in English, boro is the collective name for items – usually clothing and bed covers – made by the poor, rural population of Japan who could not afford to buy new when need required. They literally made ends meet by piecing and patching discarded cotton onto existing sets, forming something slightly different each time they did so. Generations of Japanese families repaired and recycled jackets and futon covers, handing them down to the next and weaving their own sagas and stories through the threads.

There is more information and a great gallery at www.gordonreeceabstractart.co.uk but to whet your appetite here are some of my photos. They don’t do the exhibition justice you really need to see the pieces up close to appreciate the work that has gone into them.

The second exhibition I highly recommend is one that I have mentioned before but been back to so that I can study the pieces in more detail. Abstract Drawing is on at the Drawing Room in London SE1 5TE and is on until the 19th April.

A number of the works inspire me and make we want to draw just for the pleasure of drawing. There is a catalogue that accompanies the exhibition and below are examples of some of the work on show but like the Boro exhibition you cannot really get a feel for the pieces without seeing them up close and spending time with them. The quality of the surface and line on so many of the works needs to be seen to be truly appreciated.

I know I am lucky to live close to London and have such a rich source of inspiration and wide choice of exhibitions on my doorstep, so if you are unable to visit I hope the images above and the links below will give you an insight into these two stunning exhibitions.

www.gordonreeceabstractart.co.uk
www.drawingroom.org.uk

David Lynch: The Factory Photographs

I went to see the David Lynch: Factory Photographs exhibition at The Photographers’ Gallery, Ramillies Street, London yesterday. If like me you love derelict industrial buildings then I highly recommend this exhibition.

David Lynch: The Factory Photographs
17th Jan – 13th March 2014

Anyone familiar with David Lynch’s (b. 1946, USA) enigmatic visual language will identify similarities between this series of photographs and his iconic films. Featuring black and white interiors and exteriors of industrial structures, the exhibition exudes his unique cinematic style through dark and brooding images.

Shot in various locations including Germany, Poland, New York, New Jersey and England, the works depict the labyrinthine passages, detritus and decay of these man-made structures – haunting cathedrals of a bygone industrial era slowly being taken over by nature.

The Photographers Gallery