CQ On the Edge: Eroding Margins

Thrilled to find out this morning that my entry ' Eroding Margins'  for CQ 'On  The Edge'  challenge  has been accepted!!
Having been in the 'Salon de Refuses' the last couple of times I've entered ( 'CQ@ 10'   and  'Dislocation') and  after a year of not making anything much, fearing I'd lost my way, it's given me a real boost. It fits in with both my continuing  series of indigo and seascapes  and those using salvaged antique red quilts, being constructed from sections of old quilts I dyed in the garden. 
A decent bottle of red with our lamb chops at lunchtime is called for I think...   

From my statement:

The edges of the coast are eroding, falling into the sea, being washed up in other places.  Disintegrating sea defence structures are patched up, replaced and reinforced, the coastline continually evolving, a delicate balance between intervening and letting nature take its course.   

Sections of two rescued antique coverlets over-dyed with indigo, tacked together and lines of broken quilting repaired, the edges of holes caught down and darned. Through the process of stitching I attempt to reach an equilibrium of mending with leaving the fragility and beauty of worn textiles to speak for themselves.

Quilts returned and a curation exercise

On  Saturday I went to  a meeting of Thames Valley Contemporary Textiles ( arriving an hour  late because of booking my BBC Proms tickets !)Besides being an interesting meeting, I also collected 2 quilts that have been away for a while in different exhibitions. I unfurled them  as soon as I got home, good to see them again in situ!

'Nautical Dawn' was part of the CQ 'Horizons' exhibition, going to FoQ, Ledbury and Prague.
 'Fleet mudflats'   was in the open competition at FoQ and then  in 'Halfway Between' by TVCT exhibited at  Knit and Stitch Olympia (where it was used in the advertising !) and the National Needlework Archive

 

 

 

In the afternoon of the TVCT meeting, we had the chance to look through the latest CQ suitcase collection 'All in days work'. Some fascinating pieces, made more powerful by the stories associated  with them.  We then had a curation exercise,  working to  a theme, choosing just 10 -15  from the 40+.  A valuable experience, and  as someone pointed out, reassuring  to think that if your work is rejected it might be nothing to do with the quality of work but because it doesn't meet the brief or work with other pieces chosen.

I did make me grateful that 'Nautical Dawn'  was included in the Horizons  exhibitions - it was so singular in it's  colour  that it was displayed on  it's own at FoQ, it could easily have been rejected. 

 

The model Jane and I had constructed for  Halfway Between had another airing as I attempted to explain  my thought processes. I had  initially chosen  groups of 2 or 3 pieces that worked together ( theme, contrast,  colour , shapes, sizes) and then worked  at getting a pleasing flow  not forgetting  practicalities like where the entrance  was, sightlines and electrical points. A lot of it  seemed intuition or gut reaction but  wasn't . I've probably been analysing   what works or not from all the exhibitions I've been to  and treated it like any other  composition.  

 



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.

On not returning but moving on

For one my quilts on the theme of Connection for exhibition with Cwilt Cymru next year, I had decided to  finish off a quilt I put together based on Osterley Weir started a while  ago - it fitted the theme, it was the right size, I'd already done quite a lot of work on it, it would save a lot of time ,wouldn't it, especially with deadlines looming ?   A big mistake on so many levels! I'd worked on lots of samples resolving different issues  but not a  major one- scaling up. The main problem however was I've moved on so much in the last couple of years, my quilts taking a more abstract leaning that I just couldn't make it work to my satisfaction. I couldn't get away from trying to represent what  saw in photographs and sketches.  

Elements of it work well (like the feeling of rush of water above)and the samples like below have appeal.





 

 But I don't like the whole piece (below), admittedly abandoned mid -paint,  and the elements are disconnected, ironic given the theme!

 One of the inspirations for starting this piece was a painting I love  by Terry Frost ' Winter 1956'. I played around in Phoshop layering this painting over my quilt to see how I might introduce a bit of energy through large painting /stitching marks

 It has potential, perhaps by cutting out the sections I like, but not now. I've set it aside to concentrate on another quilt assembled from all the leftovers from 3 quilts made from an old red and white quilt, making do with what scraps I have. So in between  Xmas  activities featuring ham, tiramisu, devils ( such are our traditions ) I'll be stitching with red thread. 

 

A productive afternoon

 I took the afternoon off today to make the most of  the weekend while Ian is at his parents to get 2 pieces of work underway for  Festival of Quilts. I concentrated today on my entry for CQ challenge
 ' Horizons' ( 50 x 150cm).   My aim was to create the background on the old red quilt I used for 'red flotsam'  to use some of the results of my screenprinting experiments from a few years ago.

 I became quite an expert on ripping 2 inch masking tape into raggy strips!

 

 Sample after first lot of  masking tape and painting with blue and red acrylic paints.

 

2nd lot of making tape applied then 'unbleached titanium' acrylic paint.

 

 Taped

 Painted

Tape removed

 

 Reasonably pleased with the first half  of the full size piece. Maybe a bit too regular , I'll  try to create more variety for the second half.  Loved the mass of coloured making tape I peeled off!

While I'm waiting for the paint to dry, time for a final play with my 'half way between ' indigo piece  - need to finalise the size by the end of May if I want to enter it in FoQ! Off to bed for an early start  tomorrow!