Place-Making Winter: A Book of Marks

 Over the course of the last  6 months on my daily-ish walks down Abbeyfields  in Faversham, I've been mapping and recording my impressions  of this ' Place'   inspired by Alice Fox course ' Place-making Winter.  I've finally got round to compiling  some of the drawings ( on Abaca tissue, Colour Catchers)  prints, texts,  fabrics  into  a '  book of Marks ' . The  structure is  based on that learnt on Dorothy Caldwell course in Puglia  2013   of sewn signatures  with a needle woven binding . I've used it several times   ( in Rydal, Greece, Weymouth )   but not recently so it was a bit of a relearning curve  but I love the interaction of the pages. 

A Book of Marks from Daily Drawing

It's 'Drawing Tuesday'  but I'm not  at Museum of London Docklands  but at home still recovering  from a horrible cold and glad I'm not going out  in the wild weather. I've been enjoying the daily prompts for the 30daysketchbook challenge (more in another post)  but  also sewing together a record of my  daily drawing.  

 I've started  another  'dropcloth'  ( A1 sheet of paper) which I place underneath my sketchbook  when I draw. Over the year it accumulates  paint splashes, colour trials, doodles, notes. 

  When on the Dorothy  Caldwell  course in Puglia,  we made small books using our ' dropcloth'  to practice making  signatures and sewing them together, needle weaving with embroidery floss. The paper we had then was half the size ( 32 pages, 18 signatures) . I wasn't sure  how 64  pages, 32 signatures would work   but I'm pleased with the effect even if I did lose count  during stitching in a few places!

Festival of Quilts 2018 Warm -Up Challenge

I've been a bad , bad blogger , so involved with the process of drawing, doing a lot of thinking , using Facebook and Instagram   to post photos. But I do enjoy the reflective nature of writing and I 'mine' my own blog with search function tool to remind myself what I've done  over the years. So to ease myself back into  a more regular practice I'm returning to the many 'drafts' I'd started . This one was almost  straight compilation of Instagram posts last year. 

#foqwarmupchallenge

 In July 2018   the Quilters Guild of the British Isles   had a  warm up challenge for the Festival of Quilts on Instagram  with a prompt each day. It was great fun to join in and compare our love of  fabric and stitch   

#myfirstquilt

This is 'Parsons Prism' made in 1982  when I was at home unemployed after leaving university. With access to my mum's stash  of jumble sale finds and samples and offcuts from the Tootals shirt factory, I constructed this log cabin hanging inspired by  stained  glass. No rotary cutters in those days - the strips were  laboriously marked and measured then cut with scissors. Sewn on an ancient turned Singer and hand  quilted.

#fabricstash

One side of the  studio - there's more  out of sight, not to mention all the art supplies.  Some boxes of yardage  ( lots of indigo and African  fabrics )  but mainly  old quilts and recycled textiles  to repurpose and lots of scraps in trolley and African baskets 

#WIP

"Train stitching  2 " - scraps of  indigo and kola sewn to Japanese semi translucent kasuri kimono. 'Train Stitching 1 ( 'Wind Me in the Sea')   was accepted for 7th European Quilt Triennial exhibited first in Heidelberg  and  soon in Haslech, Austria .  Note the  travel kit - thread reels  are on elastic  to wear as bracelets,  I use a  Clover thread cutter and my thimble is also on elastic as got fed up of chasing it down the train carriage when I dropped it.   

#quiltcrush 

 This piece is 'bowl by Dorothy Caldwell which was just one of her wonderful works shown at FoQ 2008. The subtle diversity of fabric , wax-resist marks and stitch, masterly composition and sense of place I found mesmersising and I revisted the gallery several times . I was lucky enough to go on a workshop with her in Puglia in 2013 and she was an inspirational and generous teacher.  I  was thrilled to meet up with her again   at Open Studios  of Pauline Burbidge and Charlie Poulsen and buy a small piece of her work! 

#proudestproject 

I suppose the obvious #proudestproject  would be winning Fine Art Quilt Masters in 2017!! But the quilt that means most to me and wouldn't part with is  'Medieval Tiles' which took 7 years to make. Made from my own batik  based on  tiles in the British Museum and recycled fabrics from my mum's stash ( she was an early Quilters Guild Member) , I started it in 1987, the year she died. Hand quilted with around 50 different tile patterns. Also the largest quilt I've ever made!

EDAM Term 2: Monoprint and Artists Books

 I missed  the first of the 3 sessions  with Claire Hynds  on 'Experiments with hand printing'  as I was up in the Lake District on annual  NWCQ  retreat but as it was monoprinting ( which I've done a lot of)  I was able to take some samples  I'd done previously to the next class which was on artists books. I took along some of the 65 (!) prints  on fabric   at Studio 11 in Eastbourne ( above)  and some on paper from City Lit monoprint course  (below)

Claire started the session  with looking at the history of Artists books  from the early  20th century onwards  including Dada and Surrealism , Kurt Schwitters and Max Ernst ,  Italian Futurism early 'Zines'  and the '26 Gaseline stations' of Ed Ruscha   ( which I'd seen in BM  'American Dream' exhibition)

 She then showed   photos of various  book structures by contemporary  artists  : Alisa Golden  Fishbone fold and Fibonacci ( above)

Jenny Smith laser cut folded books ( above and below)

 Stef Mitchell  ' Field and Hedgerow'  fold out books  ( above and below) 

 Claire  had a number of print outs of instructions for different  structures,   and made photocopies of  our  monoprints /drawings to work with , time to have a go! 

I was pleased  with  nested accordion/ 'slinky book'   folds  and my first attempt  at covering  boards with paper, definately one to explore further. 

Mostly though I experimented with the simple folded one sheet - this one   was made from  failed painting from earlier EDAM  class  based on  photo from Puglia  with  photocopy of the same painting glued to the back. I cut through   in various places inspired by Jenny Smiths books

 The same approach used on another failed painting didn't work so well - the round holes a bit  clunky in comparison  with the slots and lines of the  drawing of the bamboo structure. 

The second  session of making artists  books was a workshop  where we explored ideas further.

I wanted  to have a go at making a ' star tunnel book' following  instructions in my copy of ' cover to cover'  by Shereen Laplantz only to find  it didn't  meet up ! Patti explained that  it would  if  I  added on more paper , it takes a lot more strips than you think ( her  wonderful  version ( below)   showed how it should look like!)   

  I then  tried different variations of   meander accordion sketchbooks ,  folding and cutting 1 sheet of paper.  I particular  like the one I did  using a photocopy of a print from collage class.

 I'd  brought in examples of previous book making including the  sewn ones from Dorothy Caldwell  masterclass  ( above)  and the  ' Australian reverse accordion piano hinge' booklets from Alice Fox workshop  ( and my  subsequent home -steamed drawings ) 

This   cunning   method  of combining simple  1 page book structures  proved popular and I  showed several people how to do it

 It worked particularly well  with  photocopies of my  prints ( 'zine' approach) , exploring  1  structure and letting  the prints speak for themselves. 

Open Studio at Allanbank Mill Steading

   Last week I  had a mini break in Berwick-on -Tweed with the main focus on Open Studios  of Pauline Burbidge  and  Charles Poulson  with guest artist Dorothy  Caldwell.  I spent over 4 hours there  and had a fantastic time.  Will fill in more words here later , about to head off to Festival of Quilts! 

Signs (detail) 

Slow Ice  Deep Patience 

Best of all I had  time to talk to Dorothy,  and I spent the last of my  FOQM prize money on  this piece ' Deep Pond, Calm Shallows' . It's just arrived in the post  and is even more beautiful  than I remembered , especially in the details  of the stitching.