Train Stitching Part 2 : a beginning

 After several false starts and ideas that didn't come to fruition, I've finally got going  on a new 'train stitching' piece. I began it on my birthday, gathering together some scraps to take with me and pin to the  background fabric 

I didn't want to replicate exactly 'Wind Me In The Sea' ( detail below) which I'm delighted to say has been accepted for 7th European Quilt Triennial  which will open in Heidelberg in September but I like the idea of using indigo again but combined with some other colours . I tried different combinations  of colours and materials for scraps and backgrounds  but nothing was really gelling .   

Then looking again at the work I'd put together for Cwilt Cymru 'Traces' exhibition  with it's use of Musa's kola  fabrics  with indigo shibori   along with  paintings  seen in Margate and the colour palette I'd used for 'Painting the Novel' , I  made the connection that the subtle hues of the shoreline are what  grabs me at the moment. Working with a restrictive palette gives more opportunities to explore the tonal range, shape and composition as well as mark-making. I'll probably use the same range of colours for course with Gizella Warburton in  a couple of weeks.  

So I've  started gathering together scraps into  one of my African baskets and am  experimenting with wrapping some strips around the kasuri background fabric .  Lots of decisions to make - how many strips of kasuri to use, whether to join them together in a loop or as separate strips,  what colour threads to use. But the process is what's fun and at last I'm excited to be stitching again. 

Journeys with ' the Waste Land' in Margate

What better place to go on the hottest day of the year so far than to the seaside! Last Thursday I headed off to Margate to see the well reviewed exhibition ' Journey with the Waste Land' at Turner Contemporary. I wore my   trousers with zip-off legs and took paddling sandals and towel but alas the  tide was out when I arrived. 

It was a lot busier on the beach when I left to go home , with lots of people already going pink exposing winter flesh for the first time. 

 The exhibition had an interesting approach to curation  being the culmination of a 3 year project of local residents  who chose all the artworks, designed the layout  and wrote the exhibition texts, exploring the significance of TS Eliot's  poem' The Waste Land' through the visual arts . Rather than a catalogue, the gallery guide had quotes from members about why they had chosen particular pieces and at listening points in the exhibition there were recordings of the discussions.   

There was a  wide variety of work on show, often thought provoking, some  uncomfortable  and disturbing.   

There were  2  contrasting pieces by Paul Nash: 'Wire '  and 'The Shore' ( above).  It was wonderful to be re-aquainted  with one of my favourite paintings , having visited it several times in it's home gallery in Leeds and then seeing it again in the  Tate Nash exhibition. It was chosen here for  the parallels between Nash and Eliot visiting Kent  at times of personal crisis.. 

 'Goodwin Sands' by William Lionel Wyllie ( above and detail below), just off the coast near Margate  was chosen in relation to the section of the poem ' Death by Water' . The ancient shipwreck depicted , ancient and rotting, reminded me of  disintegrating  structures of breakwaters.

The sculpture ' Heavy Insect' by William Turnbull also reminded me of breakwaters and  interestingly the quote in the notes was  how it looked like ancient images of boats  and the resemblance to the decaying shipwreck in Wylies painting !

I loved  this photo by Lee Miller 'Portrait of Space, Al Bulwayeb, Nr Siwa, Egypt , 1941 and the discussions  at the listening post about significance of the rectangle ( was it a mirror or not?) added another dimension. 

It was fascination to see some of the collages by John Stezaker in the flesh having seen so many photos of his work in  recent collage class.  In the gallery notes I liked his quotes about collage , that it 'redeems fragments'  and is 'a relationship with the wasteland of everyday experience'. 

One of the gallery spaces was devoted to the actual  text of the poem, including the annotated copies of the research group . One wall was taken  up with 36 collages by Vibeke Tandberg , taking a copy of the Waste Land, cutting out each word individually  and organising them so you could see how many times each word appears, intentionally breaking it down  so that the meaning is lost. I  particularly like the one above which is  composed of sentences from the notes pages of the book.    

 My strategy in exhibitions is  to  go fairly quickly through to the finish then work backwards  more slowly . While I stop and look  in progress , it's often on the return journey that things leap out at me that I hadn't noticed. That was the case with the woodcuts of Christine Baumgartner ( above). The image is clearer from a distance, close- to its' a series of  subtly changing lines. From the notes: " There's an interesting question about the moment at which something takes on a recognisable form, the moment at which nothing becomes something" 

Elsewhere at the Turner  was this large scale installation ' Digestive Cavity' by Yin Xiuzhen made from clothes ( you could climb inside!) 

Outside in the sunshine ' Dutch/Light (for Agneta Block)' by Jyll Bradley  was casting wonderful colourful shadows. Commissioned  by Turner Contemporary and Chatham Historic Dockyards ( where appropriately I'm going sketching tomorrow), it commemorates the 1667 Dutch raid on the Medway which brought to an end the second Anglo-Dutch war. Referencing glasshouse structures, it uses  old timber from former  naval buildings with contemporary 'edge-lit' Plexiglas: orange to symbolise The Netherlands;green for Kent, the 'garden of England'.

More glorious colour on the way home , with the trees on Faversham 'rec' in full blossom and young leaves spouting

Inspired by Turner

 It's a while since I've posted , mainly because I'm currently doing a different kind of painting: decorating the dining room. Last weekend was spent moving heavy furniture around after reorganising the  garage  to receive some of it and find what I had in painting equipment. Turns out not a lot so a trip to Sittingbourne was required ( atmospheric  pictures from the train below). After a week of tedious prep work, I've got  2 coats of 'magic white' on the ceiling, made easier by my new favourite piece of kit  - a work platform in combination with indispensable  Ikea  wooden stool.  I rewarded myself with watching 'Mr Turner' on DVD.
On Saturday we went to John Lewis to look at replacement hob and oven ( what exciting lives we lead!)   now ordered for installation in February, then   treating ourselves to lunch at Savoir Faire. We haven't been for nearly  a year so it was lovely to catch up with Irene.
Rather than using DLR, we walked through Westfield shopping Centre to  change trains  at Stratford  which was a bit of an eye-opener . Rather more to our taste was the evening  light over the marshes  between Ebbsfleet and Rochester  ( above)

 I've been recording the 2nd floor views from our bedroom and my studio   of morning skies ( above) and  our first snow (below)

  My studio is now advancing along the corridor towards the bedroom  with the installation of a design wall . Ian is more  bothered I might fall backwards down the stairs than my encroachment.

 Had a super trip on Friday 6th with friends from CQ Kent  group to Turner Contemporary in Margate  to   catch the Turner exhibition before it closed. 

 The emphasisis was on  colour and it was  great to be reminded of  his watercolours, in particular those on toned paper . I made colour notes in my sketchbook  to remind me of the details and then searched online ( photos  below are from the Tate  resources,  easy to spend many happy hours browsing....) 


                                     

 I caught an earlier train than planned so had the opportunity for a bit of beachcombing  for stones and shells - a friendly local showed me his finds of bits of clay pipe and pottery found on the rocks ( it was a very low tide) . Mainly though I took photos ( too cold to sketch) , lots of inspiration for painting and  quilts. I'm itching to play about in Photoshop but the dining room calls- I need to finish  sanding the woodwork.

Paul Nash at Tate Britain

 Another Friday, another exhibition, this time Paul Nash at Tate Britain . It was great to see so much of his work altogether  and see the progression of  ideas  along with repeated imagery. I'm so used to  paying homage to  favourite individual paintings , like the 'Winter Sea' (above)  I visit every time I'm in York and 'The Shore' (below)  in Leeds so it was interesting to see them in context.

The 'Dymchurch' painting drawings and prints  that informed my ' Bexhill Breakwaters' quilt continue to inspire

 It was great to see some of his lesser- known photographs - I've got a  large number of shots of breakwaters and sea defenses too!

 I'm not usually a big fan of  surreal works  but seeing how he used scaled up  objects that had meaning for him set against the landscape  has given me ideas of how I might  combine my ' small treasure' drawings  with seascapes

  I've seen this painting ' A nest of stones' recently at Margate  - it was good to see it  in different company. It features in the frontispiece of my favourite art book  ' The Experience of Landscape' . I've had  it for over 20 years but still find new things  to enjoy  among the combination of  artworks and poetry.   

My journey from the Tate to City lit by bus was fun , on the top deck of a double -decker going via the Houses of Parliament and Trafalgar Square, some interesting details at roof level along the ministries on Whitehall .
In the  Advanced Painting class   we were looking at colour strategies - limited palette ( eg complimentaries, monochromatic, analagous )  and colour inventories.  Enough exercises to keep me happy for months, I love mixing paints.

 This Picasso ' 2 women sitting at  the bar' is  another one of my favourite paintings. , I love the shapes and colours. I once saw it in an exhibition  when I was abroad somewhere, paying a fortune for entry so I could spend 20 minutes absorbing it.

 Many in the class chose to carry out an inventory of a painting, placing squares of colour like  Paul Klee's paintings

 I chose instead to  try and mix the colours found in this photo of 2 boats

  The squares did remind me how useful the 'pixelate, mosaic' filter is in Photoshop as an aid to simplification and identifying the colours

And while I was in Photoshop, I had a go at combining the stack of limpets  collected at Margate  overlaid on the  canvas I painted in Weymouth which I'm thinking of using as the basis for further experiments. Definite possibilities