The final session of City Lit Art and Ideas Time and Memory was devoted to sharing our understanding, reflections and creative work made in response to the ideas explored on the course. What I chose to make to share with the group was a textile piece inspired by the themes covered in session 2 and 4 on involuntary and mediated memories
Remembering involves all the senses. My ‘Madeline Moment’ was to do with the feel of fabrics and threads. I have kept a lot of my mums stash which includes scraps from childhood dresses. What I collect are old quilts, the layers worn through and colours faded, the ‘hand of the maker’ evident ,the cloth itself with memory and re-use them to make them my own.
In 2001 I bought my first home computer with inkjet printer to manipulate photos or drawings using Photoshop and print them on fabric. Over the years I’ve used these in my textile work but still have about 200 or so printed pieces of cloth!! These include 40 or so printed sheets of silk organza including photos of Krac de Chevalier in Syria and Tiryns in Greece. I’d printed the same image both on cotton and silk organza. Slightly offset they give a 3d effect, more of a shift and it starts to be unsettling , reminding me of the work of Idris Khan.
A few years ago , for the Contemporary Quilt suitcase collection with the theme ‘ Childhood Memories’ I combined scanned photos printed on fabrics with a monoprint that reminded me of Bamburgh where we used to go on holiday. The black and white photos of my childhood in the 60's and 70's are mostly black and white but In fact it was very colourful time! So I used vintage charity shop fabric as backing and using machine quilting , stitched from the back with flourescent threads following the wild patterns.Perhaps because it was for public viewing it now it seems rather decorative and literal and my preference now is for a more abstracted approach.
For my response to this course I wanted to make something more personal . I layered printed photos on fabric of me and Ian with those from significant holidays overlaid with a print of Cyclopean walls from Myceanea on silk organza. Memories are buried but I know they’re contained within.
While I use my sewing machines for piecing fabric together and some machine quilting for quick results , my preference has always been for the slowness of hand stitching: the rhythm, ,the mindfulness, the connection to cloth. The stitch you get with machine is uniform ,unbroken, solid , the same on top and back. With hand sewing, the natural variation in size of stitch, the thread used and the way the fabric is held and manipulated results in the front ‘intentional side’ often being different to the back, the ‘unconscious side’. Stitching by hand through layers results in an integration that you don't get by any other means. Its difficult to describe ( though you can feel it) and photos don't do it justice but that's what happened here, with hidden marks/memories revealing themselves. I took the photo when it was partially stitched so the difference the stitching makes is more evident .
The feedback from the group ( with artists from a range of disciplines, non textile related) was very positive , preferring this to the earlier work, representing hidden layers of memory both physically and metaphorically. I had to laugh when some said the textures reminded them of doors....
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