Exhibition at last!

it seems a long time coming but it will soon be here and then it will be over!

please come along if you can and support us; you can even meet us on 1st August but please note the gallery is closed on Sundays.

Getting there but still a long way to go

i have to decide on my hanging mechanism for the piece I am submitting for SWTG exhibition 'Imprints' at Taunton Museum in October so i was playing around with what i have completed so far. to recap i am making lace braille from newsprint and other relevant materials related to Joseph Neal Sewell's shoes in the museum.

paper, textile and leather spots stitched to newspaper. 

after stitching the newsprint removed between the stitch lines.

the piece will be the height of Joseph, approximately 7' 4" and 2'6" wide when finished. because his life story in braille will amount to four of these sizes i will have four hanging one in front of the other to give some idea of body size.
as it was too difficult to make one piece all in one i am making four pieces and joining them for each large panel but to see what it will look like i have been playing with the four smaller pieces first.

four pieces hanging together

its great having a room that is in the throws of being decorated with no furniture or pictures on the walls. ladders are useful! originally i was planning to attach each panel to an acrylic rod but the one at the back i have was bowing so i am thinking of stainless which is more in keeping with the shoes which have metal buckles.

a scattering of dots

once the four panels were joined i played around and quite like this mess of dots. i have now finished one panel - three more to go!

Working towards 'On the Edge' exhibition

my posts seem to be monthly now although i would prefer it if they were more regular. i have had Easter week at home to myself so i have got down to some serious work that theoretically needs to be finished by next weekend when i meet up with the rest of the group.
the exhibition in July at Ilminster Arts Centre will come in two parts. the main exhibition 'On the edge' and the cafe area where we are showing framed items that we have all made from paper. before i joined the group they had had a weekend of paper making so my work is based loosely on paper that i have made and/ or recycled.

'chocolates'

the chocolates were made of paper pulp and moulded in a chocolate box packaging. the frilly chocolate holders are newspaper and machine stitch.

for Christmas i was given a book called 'Heavenly Bodies: Cult Treasures & Spectacular Saints from the Catacombs'by Paul Koudounaris. it is an amazing book with wonderful images of saints bones wrapped and clothed in magnificent attire and jewels. i have been inspired by the book for these pieces.

Lent

 the second piece is still on the chocolate theme. for lent i gave up chocolate and collected all my bus tickets for the endurance. each day i folded up the ticket and put it in my bag. they have been given a make-over with black spray paint, silver leaf and labels. i realised when i was typing out the word chocolate that the more i typed it it looked wrong! something trying to tell me how bad chocolate is?
just waiting for frames now

More new work

Oh dear it really is a long time since my last post. I have been working on a piece for South West Textiles Group to be submitted for an exhibition at Taunton Museum later this year. The exhibition called 'Imprints' uses items from the displays as initial inspiration.

I was fascinated by a pair of large shoes reputedly worn by Joseph Neal Sewell, the Lincolnshire Giant who is buried in Taunton. His story is fascinating but in short. 
Illegitimate and over seven feet tall , to make a living he exhibited himself around the country fairs. He died in 1829 suddenly and was brought to Taunton for burial. Some years before he died he lost his sight.

I have looked at the shoes which are on display and thought about the materials they were made from,the man himself and his story. it is the story i am concentrating on and the fact that he was blind so have been looking into Braille.

my son's old school shoes

i am using materials found in shoes, paper used for the stories and textile such as wool for the Braille dots.

sample of Braille worked on newsprint

Hello Kitty box of dots

 so today i have been cutting dots and going dotty in the process. i have an old leather punch for the fine tissue (from a shoe box),leather from my son's school shoes and textile. other papers can be cut with a mechanical hole punch. 

you can see other work from this project on South West Textiles Blog

Getting there

i have been wading my way through wet starchy collars and tiny letters. almost finished now so here are a few images so far. there are a total of nine collars all in varying states of deconstruction.

alternative, misfit and outsider

 i found the easiest way to unpick them was wet as dry they are rock solid with starch. surprisingly for a conservator i found it rather therapeutic to unpick them; perhaps its time to change jobs!

small bolts and nuts hold pieces together like the 'nuts and bolts' of society

each letter was individually made from various recycled bits and bobs based on the typeface 'ransom note'

misfit

 i have thought carefully about each collar and how it should be re-formed depending on the image it is to represent. i need to think now whether to add more to the collars working with the numbered laundry tags but that's for next week.

Happy New Year everyone, I like the look of 2015 something about the 5.

As the image says, I hope it will be a good one

i should really be posting work but in a way this is work as all the letters have been taken from my current project.

i hope one and all have a great Christmas and wonderful 2015

 

New work, a start

it has taken a time but one weekend retreat and some new found enthusiasm has motivated me. 'STA' are having an exhibition at Ilminster Arts Centre next year. Theme is 'On the Edge' so i have been looking at people and in particular people on the edge of society.
sometime ago i bought a box of men's white collars, beautiful things in their own right but all together they create an interesting mass.

Box of 'Summit' collars

heavily starched they don't feel like textile, more like cardboard and the idea of wearing them - no thanks!

 i am using them as my metaphor for society and white collar workers however i found them too rigid and straight so decided to deconstruct them. this was easier psychologically than i thought it would be, the fun creative side winning over the accredited conservator. it was actually highly therapeutic.

this is still very much work in progress. as before i am using text and building up individual words but you can see how exciting the collar has become now it is deconstructed, like deconstructing society to find those on the edge.