Looking back

This time last year I wrote a blog, looking back on some workshops I'd attended and various unfinished pieces I needed to work on in the New Year ... and unsurprisingly, I have to admit that several of them are still waiting! This year my thoughts have turned not to the unfinished but the finished - our Revealed exhibition, which we really enjoyed sharing with the many people we met in 2019.

I'm in the middle of updating our Gallery page and looking back and remembering the reactions and various conversations we had with visitors about our work. So, I thought I'd share some of my memories of our year here. Our exhibition, 'Revealed', explored our individual approaches to the idea of what is seen or unseen, using unconventional viewpoints, revealing various hidden layers - in the physical world, in our emotional landscapes and also in our work itself. As always, we came up with a variety of ideas.

Some of our work came from a very personal perspective - most notably, Becca's work relating to her deafness and the response to them was very positive, particularly from the deaf community. Becca has written her own post here eloquently describing her feelings and the various conversations she had. I just remember the smiles and excited faces of the members of the deaf community I met, as I pointed out the inspiration behind the work - leading to the following comment in our book, 'Very impressive work - from deaf fellows'.

The Hidden Face

Hidden Deafness 1/3

Hidden Deafness 2/3

Hidden Deafness 3/3

Bernice was also inspired by a personal accident for the following machine-stitched piece 'Hidden Support', described here in her own words: A personal journey about my breaking my fingers in 2018. The base of the piece is made from the two muslin slings I was given. I kept a photo diary of my treatment and recovery and most of these photos were printed out on cotton fabric. The top layer is made from the hospital appointment letters. The tags show the dates of the appointments up to December 31st.

Visitors were fascinated to learn of the story behind both this and also the following piece. I saw many a smile on the faces of people, reading the label for 'My Mother Said' and pointing it out to their friends. The label said: On the first layer I wrote about my mother disapproving of even a bra strap showing, unlike now when almost anything goes!

My Mother Said
Mixed media distressed vest, made with paper, fabric, stitch and beads

As the following comment shows, some people were very interested to find out the stories behind our work: 'An amazing display of work and so interesting to hear the background of some of the exhibitors'.

Vicki also found inspiration in the human body and biological structure, here exploring hidden vulnerability and disease. This wonderful, delicate stitching showed the fragility of osteoporosis.

Osseous

The inspiration for this was of great interest to some, maybe with personal experience of the disease, and some commented how good it was to have a common theme running through an artist's work. However, it was interesting to listen to other conversations about this piece as it was clear that it wasn't necessary to know the inspiration behind it to appreciate the work, as is also often the case. It's seen here displayed as it was on a wonderful glass head ...

... which led to many people discussing its suitability as a fascinator and one loud comment, 'It's beautiful - I'd wear it for my wedding!'

Deb's fabulous 'unwearable' dress was also very popular, with many people commenting on the wonderful texture she has created on the surface. The general consensus was that it was definitely wearable - someone wrote the following in our book: 'Green outfit absolutely beautiful. Could definitely be wearable. So beautiful and so clever to be able to have the foresight'.

Another of Deb's pieces which was greatly admired was her beautiful stitched piece - just stunning!

In some cases, a personal response to the work came from a shared experience with a visitor, which was the case with these wonderful needle felted landscapes from Dia. They grew out of her recent holiday in Namibia ...

Sossusvlei

Deadvlei

... and 'Deadvlei' in particular brought back very happy memories of a very special place for one visitor, who talked excitedly with Dia about the work for some time. She had lived in Namibia for many years and wrote in our book: 'Beautiful work. Such skills ... and the picture of Deadvlei, Namibia is a treasure!'

Several of us chose to use wet-felting with resists techniques for 'Revealed', as these close-ups show.

In 'Spiral Space', I challenged myself to do a large spiral resist and it ended up being the largest piece of wet felting I've ever done - physically, quite hard work and definitely a challenge! However, I was very pleased with it and had many conversations about how I had worked it and the various methods I had to use to make the spiral stand up.

Spiral Space
Wet felted with spiral resist, yarn, threads and pre-felted shapes, hand & machine stitch

Another of my wet-felted resist pieces which drew comments was 3D - the vessel, 'Rainbow Totem'. This had multi-layered resists and one of my favourite colour combinations - orange, red and turquoise. After I'd pointed out 'Spiral Space' to one visitor as wet-felting with a resist, she rushed instead towards the vessel, saying, 'Ooh, I like the spiral, but I lo-o-o-ve this!'

Rainbow Totem
Wet felting with resists, nuno felted with silk chiffon

This also had some nuno-felted areas and so combined felting techniques, learned on separate workshops with two inspirational felters, Caroline Merrell and Clare Bullock. The joy of learning new techniques and sharing ideas within the textile art community is important to me and also a very special part of my reason for doing exhibitions. I hope that sharing our work, as we do, also plays a small part in inspiring others - which is why this is possibly my favourite comment of all written in our book this year: 'Thanks for your information and inspiration. I am going to have a go!'


So, we say goodbye to 2019 and 'Revealed' and look forward to next year, where our theme will be 'Senses'. I'll close with one more close-up image of my 'Starshine' lampcover, also inspired by another wonderful tutor, Alysn Midgelow-Marsden, which drew this comment in our book: 'Starshine is spectacular! Magical!'

Starshine
Copper shim and mesh, stainless steel fabric, heat treated,
zapped layered synthetics, hand & machine stitch, sequins and beads

It brings spectacular and magical 'Happy New Year' wishes to you all with love and thanks from all of us here at Traverse.


Cath

Workshop works in progress 1 - Fabulous Nuno-Felting

It's that strange time in between Christmas and New Year, when I never really know what time it is, it takes a lot of concentration to even work out the day of the week and the fridge is full of food that needs eating up - tiramisu for breakfast, anyone? My thoughts wander towards tying up the old year's loose ends before moving on to the new. I've been meaning to blog about a couple of workshops I attended in the latter part of 2018 and was waiting until I had something approaching a finished piece to show but I know it will be a while now because exhibition work will have to come top of my list. So, workshop works in progress it is! Here's the first of two - the second will follow shortly (but probably not till next year!)

Recently, Bernice and I spent a great day with a couple of friends, exploring Clare Bullock's world of nuno-felting in her wonderful workshop in Sharnbrook. It was a bit like entering Aladdin's cave or the Tardis - seemingly quite small on the outside but full of textile treasures, stacked floor to ceiling inside. Thanks to Bernice (BH) for many of the following photos ...

Aladdin's cave (BH)

Clare's wonderful hats!

The table was set up before we arrived with everything we needed - we only had to bring our lunch  (now that's my kind of workshop!)

Wool tops

Sari silk chiffon strips

Bernice spotted these for me - oooh, purple! (BH)

After a quick introduction over coffee, Clare gave us a demo of her basic technique ...

Laying out a thin layer of fibres (BH)

A few accents of contrasting colours (BH)

Ready for the next stage (BH)

Laying out the sari silk chiffon strips (BH)

Adding water and soap to facilitate the felting process (BH)

Bernice's friend, Helena, gently felting the back of one of her samples (BH)

As she worked, Clare described her methods very clearly and also explained how she makes a collection of  small pieces, which she adds stitch to, individually, until eventually making a much larger piece by stitching them all together. These collages have great personal meaning for her, many being linked to significant people, times or places and the stitch tensions and patterns reflect her feelings at each particular time. With that in mind we all went on to to make several small pieces.

My friend Pat's fibres laid out

Adding the silk strips

Pat's first sample felted and rinsed but still wet

This shows one of my examples, at the stage where the wool fibres are beginning to show through the sari silk chiffon ...

A bit wet - more soap and more felting action needed!

... and the finished felt sample (still wet).

I told myself that the uneven felting adds to the charm!

Here are Bernice's beautiful pieces, which she managed to felt much more evenly.

The eagle-eyed of you will no doubt have spotted the odd one out of the four above. The final part of the workshop was to make another nuno felt, using white wool tops and white/undyed silk chiffon, scrim and butter muslin. After felting, we took them outside, pegged them on a line while still wet and dripped acrylic inks onto them, spraying with more water if desired. Great fun was had and we successfully coloured quite a bit of the pavement outside Clare's workshop, while just about avoiding our shoes.

Here's a close up of my painted sample - I particularly liked the texture created with the butter muslin at the bottom.

In fact, I was very taken with the idea of painting the nuno felt while still wet and will definitely be trying more of that.

However, it will be a while before I build up enough pieces to make something as big as this beautiful work which hung on Clare's wall.

Clare's large hanging (BH)

On closer examination, the use of stitch can be seen.

Selected areas

More stitching in the many wonderful examples of Clare's work dotted around the studio ...

More stitching examples

I've looked at these examples of my own several times and have been trying to decide on how and where to add stitch ...

... but remembering Clare's comments about the stitching reflecting her mood and feelings at the time and bearing in mind my earlier comments about not even being able to decide what day it is at the moment, maybe those creative decisions are better left for a while.

One thing I can be sure of is how much we enjoyed the workshop and I hope to be able to work with Clare again next year - maybe something like these inspiring 3D examples ...

... or this exquisite little vessel.

So much to look forward to in 2019. Hoping for happy times for you all as we move into the New Year.

Cath

Ally Pally Inspirations

A bit late but this has been rewritten due to my having accidentally somehow deleted the first effort!

Last week, I made my first visit to the Alexandra Palace Knitting and Stitching Show. After a longer than expected journey with a rather stressed out coach driver who had never been to Ally Pally before and ended up relying on my phone to navigate the narrow side streets of London, we finally arrived and I headed straight for the Galleries, intending to investigate the 'shopping' side of the experience later, as it was very crowded. However, it wasn’t that fact, but rather the quality of the work and the artists I met, that meant I returned home with a nearly empty shopping bag but a head full of ideas and inspiration.

First was Alysn Midgelow-Marsden’s collaborative Fabricated Narratives project, which was top of my list. This huge hanging of stainless steel fabric looked wonderful, suspended in the corner; as well as the simple but very effective stitching, I love the patination that occurs when metal fabric is heated and Alysn is the ‘metal maestro’ for me. I had a little chat with her about a collaborative project of our own that Traverse are hoping to embark on next year – this piece was a great inspiration for that. Watch this space for more …

The Ripple Effect - stainless steel fabric and stitch

Heat patination

I spent quite some time looking in detail at this piece.

 

I must apologise to Alysn's collaborators because I have no good photos of everyone's work but I will post what I have here.

Artists Brushes - Marianda Twydell

Circles of Life - Marianda Twydell

Sadly, I don't even have a title for the following - an amazing indigo-dyed kimono.

Marianda Twydell

Next I moved on to Cas Holmes with her Tea Flora Tales and Textile Landscape – an inspiration to Bernice, who was honoured to have a piece of work included in her latest book, Textile Landscapes. Although the naturalistic forms in the foreground of this piece don’t usually feature in my own work, I loved the way the background is composed of such a beautiful variety of Indian fabrics …

Madder

… along with the intricate embroidery and the use of cut-out elements.

 

Of course, I loved the red madder colour, which was so me, but was also interested to see the complementary pop of yellow, which was so not me! Food for thought …

I really enjoyed chatting to Clare Bullock on the Artists in Action stand and watching her nuno felting technique, which has such beautiful results, enhanced by her wonderful stitching. I’ve had mixed results when I’ve tried nuno felting in the past but her explanation was so clear that I’ve come away inspired to give it another go. (Thanks to Art Van Go’s Kevin for this and some other photos of the artists in action.)

Clare in action

I also liked Clare’s method of working on small pieces, which she carries around, working on them as and when she can, before finally extending and assembling them into a whole; it reminded me of the Indian fabric background on Madder.

Adding and extending into a whole piece

Close-up of layers of silk and stitch - possibly my favourite section

It was very crowded but I managed to find a small space on a bench to eat my lunch while listening to a very interesting talk in the Creative Living Theatre by Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn entitled Capturing the Spirit. I have long admired their work but am always particularly drawn to Jean’s use of the embellisher, as I use it a lot in my own work (as well as demonstrating it at shows). Her part of the talk focused on her series based on the moon and the various design processes she goes through, emphasising the long process of building up layers of print and stitch. 

Cusp 1

Cusp 2

Strawberry Solstice

As luck would have it, Jan and Jean were also on the Artist in Action stand in the afternoon so I had the opportunity to look at several examples of Jean's work in progress up close. She was also very generous in answering my many questions about the effects she achieves with an embellisher and I definitely came away from there feeling very inspired.

Jean in action

Jean's work in progress

There were many other examples of beautiful textile work in the other galleries, although based on people’s comments and having read a few other reviews, it seems there were not as many as in previous years. As this was my first visit, I had nothing to compare it to so I did really enjoy it.

I dashed back to Alysn’s gallery as I wanted to take some photos of a few more pieces, which I hadn’t been able to get close to earlier because of the crowds. I’m on a workshop with Alysn next week and I’m really looking forward to working with a bit of metal and wire again – something even half as good as this would be fantastic! (I’ll try to post a few photos of work in progress.)

 

Finally, this beautiful wire mobile and its many reflections had an interesting title - Accreted Towards a Whole.

 

 

I have a bit of a reputation for being good with words but this was a new one on me and I had to look up the word accretion on my phone; I was very interested in the meaning – the process of growth and enlargement by the gradual accumulation of additional layers and here are just a few of the synonyms that I found - accumulation, gathering, growth, increase, extension.

As I sat on the coach on the way home, reflecting on the day and hoping for a better journey than the morning, I thought how well that word summed up my day – not only in the physical processes I had seen, Clare’s nuno felt, Cas’s Indian fabrics, Jean’s embellished, printed and stitched layers, but also the gathering together in the collaborative element of several of the galleried exhibitions and the growth and extension of my repertoire of techniques and the many inspirational ideas which came my way.

'Never mind about the journey', I thought and I was reminded of one of those inspirational quotes you sometimes get on greetings cards:

It’s not about the journey, it’s about the people you meet along the way

Cath