Edgeing and details.

I have been working on some small samples which I can layer together in different combinations to see how they look and how they would work in different contexts. I make them individually and keep them fairly neutral as a way of giving me various permutations, its an easy way of visualizing the 'what if' concept without actually tying it to a specific piece of work.

Tacked folded triangle edging layered into a seam, ric rac and felt balls with embroidery.

Buttons, decorative stitch and paper.

Additions of patchwork and knots.

Making samples and trials in this way generates ideas about how they can be used in a piece of work. By changing the colours, layout , textures and stitch, the additions can be delicate, bold, folksy or contemporary dependant on your need. Mixing and matching techniques is fun and interesting.

 Using this method have a go and see what you can come up with, all of these images are made up using the same set of small samples, I think they all have a different feel to them and that's without changing the fabrics!

Beautiful Boro

Welcome to Friday, the weekend beckons, and for me I will spend it sitting stitching some samples for next weeks workshops. I will post them for you to see at the end of the week, before all of that here are some wonderful images of Boro cloths. I hope that these images will be as inspirational to you as they are to me.

A patched and pieced kimono.

Imperfect Beauty.

The constant patching of this piece of cloth to keep it in use and the randomness of the layout gives it an imperfect beauty that could not be achieved by any other method. Imagine the memories that are tied up within it, each patch probably had another use before it became part of the soul of this wonderful cloth. For me peoples lives and journeys are recorded here for us to wonder about, amazing.

A detail of the patching process.

A few months ago I managed to track down and purchase a copy of the book Boro: Rags and Tatters from the far north of Japan by Yukiko Koide and Kyoichi Tsuzuki.  Its rather expensive but a delight for those who love this subject and well worth the money.



   

To complete this lesson in thrift and early recycling, a saying that came to me via my grandmother,

'Theres no shame in a patch my girl,

the shame is in the hole!'

Midweek meander.

More from the collections of Guy Selz.

'collectors, more than others, experience the nostalgia of a world

that is disintegrating and they need, each in their own way and

as far as possible, to save pieces of it that they may serve as testimony'.

Francois Mathey.

Reliquaries.

Birds and animals.

Figurines.

Beasts.

Aren't these wonderful yet again, and, they make me feel so much better about my own hoarding habits. Maybe one day a museum will want my stuff-well maybe not!

Enjoyably random!

Hi again, well believe it or not its snowing here, the little signs of spring seem to have tricked me into thinking that winter was over but I should have known better! Well my workshop business has started and the first session is done and dusted. What I worried about I have no idea, as usual the students are a great bunch and the creative buzz was wonderful, so onwards and upwards the learning begins.

I'm not telling you it's going to be easy,

I'm telling you it's going to be worth it.

Guess that this must be my quote of the week.

I thought that I would show you some images of the storyteller embroidery that I stitched a while ago. I often use it when I work with children to get them to make up stories of their own, what story would you make up, how does it speak to you?

This storyteller was all hand stitched using simple stitches, mainly running stitch and couching, I wanted it to be strange, magical and fun to prompt the imagination into action. It was difficult to photograph but I hope that you enjoy the concept.



Gee's Bend quilt.

During the imperfect beauty workshop I was talking to the students about Boro, the imperfect beauty of world textiles in general and the quilts of Gee's Bend, for those who are interested and have not seen the  Gee's Bend quilts before here is the link, enjoy.

http://www.thequiltsofgeesbend.com/

For the child within.

This week I've picked up a piece that I began a while ago and started stitching on it again, I like the way that the work evolves over a period of time. Perspectives change and new ideas form by coming back to things. I intend to use more embroidery and to bring out the theme of magic which has been in my mind from the start.

I find that working with naive images of things which exist and things that exist only in the mind helps to bring out the child within, it gives us permission to play and explore. From my perspective its almost as if I am working on something which has its own story within it and my only task is to be the one who releases the tale.

The universe is full of magical things

patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

Eden Phillpotts.



Midweek meander.

Here are some images of work from a few of the many textile artists  that I admire, I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. I have followed the work of  these artists for many years and watched their practices evolve and grow into the wonderful work that they are making today. Feast your eyes!

Dorothy Caldwell.  Fenceline 1990.

 wax resist and discharged cotton with stitching, applique, gold leaf. 18x22ins.

 

Dorothy Caldwell. An Island / A Pond. 2002

wax resist and discharge cotton with stitching and applique. 120x96 ins.

Dorothy was born in Bethesda, Maryland, USA, 1948. She currently works and lives in Hastings, Ontario. http://www.ccca.ca/

  

Tillke Schwarz. Play with me. 2006. 71x65cm.

Wonderful hand stitching from this dutch artist, to see more of her work, http://www.tillekeschwarz.com/

Joan Schulze. Sunnyvale, California, USA

Scent of Red 2002. the tea bowl series. 25x25ins

Tranquility 2005. The tea bowl series. 15x17ins.

See more of Joans work http://www.joan-of-arts.com/

Why quilts? The question for me could as well be

'Why breathe?'........ Improvising during the painting,

image-transfer processes and collaging of materials,

while chasing an idea at hand creates adventure

in the studio - Thought are made visible.

Joan Schulze

  

Small signs of spring

Valentines Day.

 Take care of your heart.

The first signs of spring on my windowsill. At last!

I planted these bulbs way back in September and gradually, silently, they began to grow, breaking the soil with the promise of a new year. I watched the flower buds in anticipation and finally they have their moment of wonder. How does something so simple fill your heart with the promise of the year to come?- natures secret I guess! It's still cold and grey here but it won't be long now before the garden will be filled with colour, these little plants show me the season is changing and my life moves forward.

Layering for contemporary Boro.

Stitching and layering.

I am much more comfortable working with these types of fabrics than with the pretty ones. There is something about the roughness of the cloth that I enjoy, they have a 'work a day' feel to them and a lack of fussiness. To me they talk of everyday folk and working lives. 

This is the week that my workshops start, already I have had some nice emails from the students who have enrolled saying how much they are looking forward to them. I am too so fingers crossed, I guess that I can only be myself! Wish me luck.

New cloth, old cloth.

I've been working on several different pieces this week all of which are totally different visually but use the same layering techniques. I really enjoyed this one, putting together some fabrics and bits of vintage lace to make a quiet gentle cloth that has a nostalgic feel to it. I don't generally make pretty things but I wanted to use the vintage handmade lace that was in my collection. I think that it has a restful feel to it with the soft colouring and the stitch rippling the surface.

Like a lot of people with an interest in textiles I have many bits and pieces of old cloths, they are from a time gone by when women made, and used doilies, tray cloths and other pretty things. The work that went into making some of them is amazing, handmade bobbin lace, drawn thread work, cutwork etc. I tend to just get them out every now and again, enjoy their beauty and then put them away again. I wanted to find a way of using them and honouring the women that made them.

The slow process of hand stitching leads to a different result.

Tilleke Schwarz.

Midweek Meander

This week I'm thinking about collections, I collect anything and everything, a magpie comes to mind! I enjoy seeing things grouped together and gather lots of ephemera for collage and assemblage. Last year we took the students to Barcelona as part of their  personal development, visiting galleries, private shows and small businesses. From the Museu Del Joguet de Catalunya there was a small (unexpected) exhibition on the ground floor and there I discovered the collections of Guy Selz, for me it was like hitting a seam of gold! Here are just a few of the photographs , please excuse the quality of the images as the collections were all in glass cases.

The 'Collection of Collections' of Guy Selz.

The collection is of a series of collections that Francoise and Guy Selz put together over a half a century (1925-1976) it was donated by Philippe and Dorothee Selz who have themselves gone on adding to it.

Shoes.

Dolls.

Clay pipes.

This text is a quote was from the press release of the exhibition.

Now being presented in Barcelona, the inventive universe of this 'Collection of Collections'-scraps, crepe paper, reliquaries, crosses, votive offerings, birds, dolls, animals, masks, lead soldiers, popular prints, albums of stickers,toy boats, etc-reflect the spirit of the collector who seeks to capture the energy of the past in groupings of objects..............

Masks.

Every passion borders on the chaotic,

but the collector's passion borders on

the chaos of memories.

Walter Benjamin.

A new venture.

I have enjoyed teaching in colleges and universities for many years and have learned as much as I have taught. The whole creative exchange that goes on between tutors and students is in my experience, stimulating, interesting and enlightening and I thank them one and all for sharing their creative journeys with me.

In this economic climate that we find ourselves in, more and more arts courses are being closed down as being uneconomical. Making a living as an artist becomes ever more difficult. As part of my practice I have decided to start a new venture running private workshops and ( I hope in some small way) to address the needs of creative people to get together, learn and share ideas.

Detail of development work for contemporary Boro.

The first of these creative workshops is called Imperfect Beauty and is about recapturing the love of cloth, the relaxing rhythm of stitch and a mental escape from the pace of modern life. I hope to share this new venture with you in some small way. 

Textures from old remnants of fabric.

Boro is  Japanese for tattered clothes that are patched or mended. The beauty is in the fabrics imperfection and asthetically becomes more appealing over time.

Inspiration on a winters day.

I've been busy clearing out my studio this week and it really needed it, its been a while! The good thing about sorting stuff out is that you come across all sorts of things that you had forgotten about. A few summers ago a friend of mine went to Morocco and gave me these wonderful photographs, just the sort of thing you want to find on a cold, gray winters day. 

What an interesting back view of these women, it makes me feel quite boring in my jumper and jeans!

Dye powders and print blocks at the market.

More things for colouring cloth.

These images are so uplifting, what I wouldn't do for a market like that! When you think of the quantities of dye stuff that we can purchase in this country, well need I say more.

I found I could say things with colour and shapes

that I couldn't say any other way.......

things I had no words for.

Georgia O Keeffe. Artist.

Photography Jane Eastwell

Midweek meander.

Take an image. Do something to it.

Do something else to it.

Jasper Johns.

I've been surfing around the Internet and thought that this week I would share some of the images I've found with you.

I found this beautiful and strange image whilst using http://www.stumbleupon.com/ I can't credit to anyone I'm afraid, but for me it's enchanting.

Land of the giants. Concept design by Choi and Shine architects.

 Aren't these fantastic I can just imagine them striding out over the hills where I live, if we have to have pylons lets make them interesting! This is what the designers say about their design.

 The pylon-figures can be configured to respond to their environment with appropriate gestures. As the carried electrical lines ascend a hill, the pylon-figures change posture, imitating a climbing person. Over long spans, the pylon-figure stretches to gain increased height, crouches for increased strength or strains under the weight of the wires.

Wow sounds good to me!