Morning skies in Elounda

 Up early, trying to capture the sunrise and amazing skies over Spinalonga peninsula in watercolour from the huge terrace of our apartment before bread and honey for breakfast.

 Then a 5k walk to Plaka on backroads, even spotting some late orchids along the way.The last 3k was on roads along the coast seeing all the superposh new developments.

 Seeing octopuses pegged out reminded us of Gerolimni and Gythion and we had a delicious lunch at the Taverna Spinalonga overlooking Spinalonga Island ( as in book 'The Island".)

 Heading back with clouds looming , a couple of kilometres down the road, we sheltered in a metal(!) bus shelter opposite this colourful shrine while the gods threw around copious lightening and thunderbolts which then cleared to sunshine in time for us to be rescued by a taxi driver!

Indigo Evening in Elounda

Last night, at the Lotus Eaters in Elounda, Crete, a wonderful meal of aubergine dip, followed by lamb and a chocolate and rosemary tart rounded off with a metaxa and Greek coffee watching Spinalonga peninsula turn through various shades of indigo to an absolute pitch black ( not used to that after brown london skies). We enjoyed our meal so much we're going back tomorrow for my birthday having ordered a special lamb leg that will be cooking all afternoon. 

Earlier in the day we'd head over to the peninsula , after a lesiurely lunch of leftovers from  dinner the night before at Mam's( my portion was ginormous and also very tired from an early start tho staying at Gatwick the night before is definately the way to go ) . Lovely evening light as we walked by the old salt pans with remnants of the old windmills. 

Boro at Somerset House

 

More than 2 weeks since my last post, very busy at work as our lab was a winner in the Intellectual Property Office 'Fast Forward' Competition. Plus 2 weekends ago Susan and Glyn came to stay, lovely to catch up, and hearing Susan talk from behind her pile of quilts at  Quilters Guild Regional day . Last Friday, Ian and I went to the 'Vikings' exhibition at British Museum - very crowded and lots of people with BO!( end of week? unsuitable clothes in warmer weather?) so I  moved quickly to the larger area where the impressive boat was. I also enjoyed the interpretation more in this area , concentrating on how they lived, their belief systems  (which had me looking again through excellent book on amulets  when I got home).

Earlier on I'd taken the afternoon off work to go to see the  Boro exhibition at Somerset House, deeply satisfying at so many levels. Several bloggers have written excellent posts on their experiences: Helen; Susan; Margaret: here and here.   

First of all the setting was spacious allowing you to step back from the pieces and also to examine them in detail  at leisure. The pieces were mainly mounted on canvas, very much to be viewed as abstract art pieces. The  minimal mounted boards of explanatory text ( repeated in the catalogue) made reference to  a wide range of artists including 'outsider art' those that used ephemera  and more  mainstream artists such as  Picasso and Paul Klee ( having seen the recent exhibition I can definitely see the links there). But the fabric and stitch gave a whole other dimension. The catalogue  also showed in some instances the same piece in different orientations -  that many looked equally good although different showed just how powerful  these pieces are.   Difficult to choose favourites,  (although  2 out of 3 had been sold so I obviously have good taste!) my preference was for those that had a bit of light to leaven the indigo and with some interesting stitch and patterns.  I concentrated to taking photos of some of the details as these weren't so represented in the catalogue



Taking photos from  beneath or to the side in raked light revealed some interesting textures and clues to how fabrics had been layered.

Holes 

I loved the  almost vessel like quality , variation in stitch (with some sashiko) and evidence of multiple layers in this piece (no 3)

And the reverse applique ovoids  in no 18 (below)

Seams 

 

Fray



Rips



Tacks

 

This was so reminiscent of blind stitching  but then it's probably the back, the 'unconscious side' with neater stitching of the front hidden.

When I got home I fished out the 'cutter' quilts I've bought, thinking I could be even more daring than I was 'darning' and putting together my 'Red Remnants' quilt. Watch this space!
Update -  Judy has asked about details of the catalogue. It's ISBN 978-2-9536279-3-0 Boro Threads of Life Japanese Indigo Patched Textiles 2014  Gordon Reece & Philippe Boudin. Do take a look at the  Mingei Arts Gallery  and Gordon Reece websites  for some of the pictures that feature in the book.



CQ AGM, Journals Quilts and an indulgance

 

Yesterday was the annual meeting of Contemporary Quilt in Central London, an event I look forward to eagerly each year with its opportunity to catch up with so many quilting friends. I picked up my copies of the 'Horizons' Catalogue ( Thanks Hilary), thrilled to find mine is on the front cover!

This was a very successful exhibition  and it's about to go to the Prague Patchwork Meeting.

 

The afternoon talk was by Elizabeth Tarr, not a textile artist I was aware of,  she works a lot with indigo (particularly on paper), now buying Chinese shibori pleated skirts from Slow Loris rather than dyeing her own. A lot of the pieces she showed on slides was very dark and difficult to photograph- the example she'd brought with her showed better the richness and depth she achieves. With indigo  I go for marks rather then the intensity she aims for - just shows how versatile a dye it is, more determined than ever to set up a vat this summer.  She did a whole series around painting' Las Meninas' by Velazquez of the Spanish Infanta, admitting this style of painting wasn't really her thing but adapting images from it to tell her own stories. It made me think of the courses I did at the National Gallery,  finding links to pictures in all kinds of unexpected ways which I am still processing.  

 



Bringing small quilts to the meeting was my incentive to finish off some journal quilts: 2 based on my surroundings at Rydal ('Rydal Colours' and 'Rydal Beck') and 1 an  experiment with all kinds of red marks: pen, stitch and finger painting!

Finally a wander around Covent Garden indulging myself  in London Graphic Centre with a box of  100 Fabriano Medievalis  cards as used on 'Human Marks' class. I'd told myself that I could easily make them myself from watercolour paper but actually because they're mould-made with a  slightly thinner area on the fold, they work much better in  handmade books of  marks. I'm planning to take some ( along with colour catchers, paints and threads ) when we go to Crete in  less than 4 weeks.

Leeds City Art Gallery and train stitching

There's something about seeing a favourite artwork for the first time in the flesh  after only seeing it in  print/on the web.  My treat on Wednesday while in Leeds for  a meeting  was seeing Paul Nash's 'The Shore(1923) ' in the City Art Gallery  in the 20 minutes I had  spare before catching my train. I'd gone to see 'Winter Sea' again  but I think I have a false memory  of seeing it there as the postcard I have is from York!

 

  

'The Shore' and various other works  based on Dymchurch, gave me a lot of inspiration on compositions when I was working on 'Bexhill Breakwaters'

 

On the train home, stitching with my snarled, enlarged tangle of threads ( it keeps getting added to!) pulling out colours for one of the journal quilts made of scraps inspired by Rydal, thinking of the  main type of sewing I do on trains, planning my indigo vat this summer

 

Spring Knit and Stitch, Olympia

A week has now gone by since the Spring Knit and Stitch Show at Olympia  and I've just about recovered! On the Saturday I went with my mother-in -law Sheila to have a good look round  but Sunday was stewarding day.

I went in early before it was open to the public  so I could take photos of the TVCT 'Halfway Between' stand. It looked fantastic and I'm so pleased that my dolls house mock-up proved useful .

It was quiet to begin with but soon there were lots of interested people having a look around. The show attracted quite a wide  range of  knitters and stitchers and I think our stand with it's variety of textiles appealed to that audience.

No photography allowed(we encouraged people to buy the catalogue)  but in a quiet time I got Sue to take a snap of me with  my 'Fleet Mudflats' ( as used  in advertising and  show catalogue!) .
There's still the opportunity to see 'Halfway Between' at the National Needlework Archive

I spent the Sunday afternoon with my white gloves on , stewarding the 70 or so  quilts of Contemporary Quilt Specialist Group of Quilters Guild Of British Isles. Lovely to see such a wide range of quilts (including older ones) made by my friends and with my white gloves having a  fine time sneaking a look at their backs. I've written a post for the 'fire' blog on this topic. 

A little retail therapy did not go amiss - some fabrics to dye with indigo later in the summer and a range of threads including luscious linen ones from  Namolio.

British Drawing: 1600 to Present Day

After a stimulating  Kew/NHM  networking day at the Natural History Museum on Monday ( 79 'lightening' talks of 2 slides in less than 5 minutes!!), with my head still buzzing, I went over the road to the V&A, finally getting round to see the exhibition of British drawings. It was a joy to be reminded of the work of Samuel Palmer - the catalogue from the 2005 exhibition was the first thing off my bookshelves when I got home. Besides his 'black works', perhaps because they reminded me of the rubbings of bark I made at Rydal, I particularly liked his drawings of tree trunks capturing the different textures, obviously enjoying the  marks made with his pen.  

More impressive marks made by David Connrean in 'Mappa Mundi: drawing to the extent of the body'  capturing the evolution of a line as its is copied imperfectly. I've tried something similar and can attest to how absorbing it is as an exercise  but never on this monumental scale where he used his whole body!
A different set of marks again in this charcoal drawing 'Head Study Two'  by Alison Lambert, almost sculptural  with  its patches of paper added  and drawn into.
I was also intrigued by the methods of Jane Dixon -  making paintings of photographs, then rubbings of the textured paintings on graph paper with graphite. Thought provoking studies making me wonder how I might take further the ideas I started working through in my daily art last year.

Despite buying several exhibition catalogues lately, I'm sure I'll be buying this  book  soon.
Meanwhile I couldn't resist this colourful kantha scarf in the shop - well it is my birthday next month and I'm currently researching and writing some blog posts on hand stitch for the 'And Then We Set It On Fire' Blog.  I'm sure it counts as 'reference material'!