Two new hips and some new work

i realised when i went to write this post that i have not done so since last October. i hate people who don't update their blogs regularly so no excuse except that in November last year i had my second hip replacement but we are up and 'running' now!
i am concentrating on an exhibition for South West Textile Group in November at the ACE Gallery in Somerset.
'Wasted' is the title and as my mind works in strange ways i immediately thought of waists! the idea was to encourage us to use waste products or at least think of waste. for many years i have been collecting used coffee stirrers, lolly pop sticks, forks, knives etc of the kind used with take-aways, fish and chips etc. mainly wooden but some are plastic too. i have often thought that although they are wood and hence biodegradable it is still a waste. they are still only used once and then thrown away. 'what a waste'.
in my work as a textile conservator and working with costume i come across many interesting female shapes and the undergarments that go with them. so 'what a waste/waist' is where i am working to now.

i have been bending my lolly sticks etc to create 'waist' shapes in imitation of corset boning and busks (the wood or bone piece slipped in the centre front of a corset. many of these busks are beautifully decorated with domestic images of hearts, stars, dates and names so i was inspired to create similar shapes with drilled holes. to some extent they remind me of human ribs and the distortion achieved by using restriction. 

 i was also sampling ideas of covering some of the sticks and using cane as early stays would be made with this before whalebone and also playing with my beloved graphite!

i played around with many ways of linking. originally i thought of using twisted wire but eventually i decided bookbinders linen was the best and twining. above are 3 constructions still in progress as i need to decide on the best way of display and finish.

still a way to go and so many ideas and i haven't even started with the plastic spoons!
 
 

I have been doing something

at last i am near the end of the piece based on film canisters and the photos people take.

a series of 5 'films' based on some photographs i took some years ago (at least 20) on the North Norfolk Coast at Cley; a weekend with friends. i revisited Cley the year before last and was stunned to see a wind farm just off the coast called 'The Sheringham Field'. my parents lived in Sheringham and in fact i grew up for a great chunk of my youth in Norfolk so i find this whole area of great interest. i found this farm beautiful from a distance but unnerving and scary at the same time.

i have looked at how people take numerous images of the same person, item or view. the strips consist of 12 images similar to the 120 film my son uses and often hangs in my bathroom when he has developed them. each frame 6cm x 6cm.

i have used ramie with koh-i-nor pigments and graphite,removing the weft threads in certain areas.

the last two strips concentrate on the wind farm and the images produced from a study of seal visits between each pole. for those of you who know North Norfolk you will be aware of the seals on the sand banks off the Blakeney point.

hopefully this will be shown in a group exhibition with 'Stitch Textile Artists' at ilminster Arts Centre in April 2019!
 

Finished!

it's taken a while but at last i have finished apart from the framing!

all pinned in place. i decided not to add any words to this as i think the piece doesn't need more.

each piece of organdie stitched to wire and pulled embroidered areas worked with transparent nylon thread. other pieces of oxidised copper sheet. i have used entomological pins to support them from a spray painted board and rubber tubes at the back to stop them slipping down the pins.

 
 and finally lit with the flash.

Yet more new work

South West Textiles Group have an exhibition next year in Stroud called 'Ebb and Flow' so i am working towards this now. For the first time ever i have continued with my inspiration from the Textile Study Group summer school i went on with Jean Draper this year.
we were asked to choose a collection of items with strong contrasting lines. i chose a stone from a beach.

i have always wanted to work with these stones! we undertook various drawings of them and a charcoal one.

then jean gave us a sheet of black paper and told us to randomly cut across emphasising the shapes in our drawings. 

then by shifting them slightly they were stuck onto white paper and we were asked to think how you would replicate these in textile.

the samples at the top were my starting point, black organdie with a rigid wire support.

i have adapted them slightly in technique and size but just need to get on and make them!

plan is to support them all with fine pins so the shadows play a major part and you can view from above.

while working on this i was thinking about pebbles, stones, beaches and of course Virginia Woolf who used stones as an aid in her suicide! all cheery stuff but it got me thinking of 'To the Lighthouse' and the phrase i hope to use in this work (oh i love random connections).
'there it loomed up, stark and straight, glaring white and black, and one could see the waves breaking in white splinters like smashed glass upon the rocks' Perfect.



 
 

Sampling for new work

i realised that the last post was some time ago. i have been busy, mainly witha new kitchen and the upheaval that that has involved however i am just about resurfacing and continuing with something that i have started with Stitch Textile Artists at our Ammerdown meetings.
the work has sprung from my visit last year back to North Norfolk and Cley in particular. i was stunned by the windfarm which wasn't there last time i was!

i have been looking at photographic negatives and the need for people to take many shots of the same thing. the work is on undyed Ramie cloth with ko-i-nor pigment paints and graphite with removed threads.the squares are the size of 120 film just a bit bigger than 5.5cm square.

 somke stitch has been played with using transparent nylon sewing machine thread

i still need to refine my technique and also reading something about the koh-i-nor paints has got me thinking about long term stability. i have some samples up at the window which i will check on 17th (one month)to see their fading capacity. i have decided i don't mind them fading as like the photographic images they change with time and become more mellow.

other samples are based on the wind turbines themselves and the tracks the seals make between them to feed. further details will follow hopefully sooner than the last blog.
 

'Strip Show'

finally finished my contribution to South West Textile Group's show at 'Fashion and Embroidery' NEC Birmingham 16-19 March.

15cm wide by about 150cm long.

quite difficult to photograph long thin things and have any definition so i have photographed it in sections just as it was made. do come along and see the show. 

'Strip Show'

i am busy working on a new piece for South West Textile Groups exhibition in March at the NEC in Birmingham.
Title: Strip Show, it is 15cm (approx) wide and will be 1.5metres long. 

i have gone back to my favourite material Ramie with graphite, drawing pen, other things and good old fashioned stitch! Wow.

as usual i have gone for black and white but there are some gems of bright colour occasionally

i have been playing with pulled thread insertions to join pieces, so enjoyable but frustrating at times when working so small but as usual my own choice. 
watch this space for more.
i am also working on something for the 'Festival of Quilts' at the NEC in August, again a South West Textile Group exhibition based on a pin loom workshop i went on at 'wool on the exe' 

the tutor Jane showed us the diagonal method of creating woolly squares on a pin loom. needless to say i have adapted this to small squares, non diagonal and worked in paper yarn. more later