From Bristol to Fish and back again

i have been on the TSG (Textile Study Group) annual summer school at Farncombe in the vale of Evesham. Since last year the hotel has re branded and is now The Fish Hotel. Strange name but it's all to do with fish, monks and hills.
This year I chose to work with Jan Miller who was a great inspiration and a lovely tutor. the course was called 'in and out of the landscape' and our starting point could have been 'from postcard to photo; map to novel; JMW Turner to Richard Long; Norman Ackroyd to Hockney; reflection to shadow; inside to outside; images to ideas; your choice' so basically wide open!
i have been working for a while with bus journeys, wet ones in particular ending at the sea, so i went with that. 
we were asked to bring foraged items and things that had been used before. i am not a great forager of natural products(except beach finds) but i love picking up man made discarded items. 

some of my collection of foraged items

 we were able to work on a number of things so initially i made some 'tools' from foraged/found items that i could use as drawing implements.

flint, lolly sticks, plastic and metal tools

we also used tea and other things to colour fabric and papers. again this is something i have never done because i am always concerned about light fastness. Why?

binding a wooden fork with ramie and fishing line

items bound and dipped in tea and ink

some of the papers i dyed were then printed/marked with the tools i had made

abaca, ink, paint and graphite

 i am very keen on making things that will then themselves be made into something else. so i used this paper to make some thin strips that were folded and then waxed.

the strips with added graphite

i then put these aside and learnt how to twine. Jan has used twining in her work to great effect and as i had never done any i was keen to learn. as usual i went small and worked with some foraged pine needles and then the wax strips themselves.

twining

i made the paper threads on the right hand set and then wondered about working with twining 3D items in the middle. these are waxed strips wound into tubes and twined with wire.

i then thought about my 'precious' little tools and decided to make some 'pockets'/'envelopes' to house them in. these were made with various papers from the course and other re-used pieces from previous work.

my group of 'pockets' plus a piece of metal given to me by Helen

i am really pleased with these and hope to use them in the future for something or as inspiration.

collection and samples

there was much discussion about 'collections' of items and how you 'curate' them or place them together with other things. a discussion we were having at work recently is that everybody seems to be a curator now and why not?
it was great to catch up with Helen, another Distant Stitcher and to meet Ali a new Distant Stitcher.it is always an anti-climax coming back down to earth after summer school but it always leaves me with lots to think about and plenty of inspiration.
Last sunday i was back in bristol looking at the Richard Long exhibition in the Arnolfini, particularly enjoyable were his fingerprint pieces which are always a source of wonder and inspiration.

 

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