Contemporary Collage week 4: Conceptual Wall Assemblage 'Head and Heart'

 Being a scientist  and generally making art  inspired  by landscape  or abstracted versions of things I've seen  and recorded, I find it difficult to work with concepts  and emotions  as themes.  But that was what we were  working with  last week. 

 The idea was to put up sheets of paper on the wall, pick a word based on 'states of being'  eg anger   and explore ways of expressing that in visual terms   eg what colour would it be , shape, size,  texture, quick/slow marks etc. We had an overview of   24 of these abstract terms and  examples of  how different artists had used them  eg Rachel Whiteread for 'volume'  casting the spaces under desks in resin ' and Luke Gottelier  for 'scale' making a studio for his hamster.

Working on the wall  ( or in my case a door) gave the opportunity to find links between different elements  and to expand to further sheets of paper.

We formed brain storming groups of 4 to discuss   our words and how they could be interpreted which was useful process, especially as I was way out of my comfort zone. 

As it's 3 years since I left Kew, this has been  on my mind a lot this week.  Initially my word was 'reflective'  but changed to 'regret'.  Working there for nearly 25 years, doing work I enjoyed and made a difference  both for conservation and in training people,  it was a large part of my identity. I used to squeeze art and stitching into any spare time. In the end I didn't need to find a job  but now while in theory I have all the time in the world to focus on art,  one of the main issues I've had to deal with  is deciding my own direction and motivation after being part of a team effort working towards long term goals.  I still miss my colleagues.   On the positive side , Faversham is proving a lovely place to live  and I've  already had  unexpected success in winning Fine Art Quilt Masters although now there are expectations of what I'll produce next! 

 So  lots of complex and conflicting  emotion there , how to express it visually?  I started off with a grid structure   of the growth room shelves and the  circles of Petri dishes , ideas about breaking out of the grid and  positive and negative  feelings.  

 I continue to have a bit of a thing about circles  and also the outlines remaining when you cut shapes out. This hasn't been part of my textiles so far but perhaps they should be .

At home , I finally got round to sticking in some more leftover bits in my 'scrap book' . 

Green Quilts: I think I've Done Now.

'Lost in the Reeds

 Yesterday I finished my quilt on the theme of 'Green'  for International Threads  exhibiting group.  I think this  is the final piece in a fabric journey starting in 2003  with a weeks class in France at 'La Maison du Patchwork' near  Limoge with Alison Schwabe

It was a challenging  time for me - I'd just started on anti- depressants   and was finding it   difficult to adjust but being fed and watered in lovely surrounding with expert tuition from Alison was just what I needed. She taught  us a variety of piecing and design techniques - I still use her method of curved piecing and inserting strips  slightly adapted to incorporate those used by Charlotte Yde on a later workshop. I'd brought masses of green fabrics with the idea of making a double sized quilt and made  loads of blocks which I'd started to join together with Alison's help. I completed the top on my return  and layered it with wadding ready to quilt - then left it untouched until 2015!

 Grass Clippings at FoQ 2004

I did however get very excited and inspired by all the scraps left over from cutting down the blocks  and made 2  small quilts ' Grass Clippings' and 'Grass Cuttings'  . The first was accepted for   CQ  exhibition at the fabulous Nature in Art museum near Gloucester  and subsequently in a white gallery space at festival of quilts 2004( above) .  In 2006 it went on its travels to Japan when I went with Susan Briscoe along with 'Serifos Storm' my first indigo piece.

Grass Clippings in Japan 2006

Grass Cuttings  at work

When I changed desks at work and had space to display a quilt, I chose 'grass cuttings' as being appropriate - it was much admired and prompted conversations about what I was doing with textiles as well as plants.
When a colleague had his first child I had great fun making a baby quilt using the 'lego' piecing technique.  His second child arrived after I'd left Kew  last year and with most of my things in storage/packed up  as we were about to move  I wanted to do something that wouldn't require too much work. So  deciding that after 12 years I was unlikely to quilt my double green quilt, I   removed the wadding and backing ,  partially picked apart and reassembled a section of the top and quilted it - a suitable quilt for a botanists child!

Samuel's Quilt

I still had two-thirds of the quilt left and  for  Cwilt Cymru's  next exhibition 'Cynefin ' ( roughly translated as a sense of place, of belonging) I wanted to commemorate losing my wedding and engagement rings on Catfield Fen! Lots of cutting apart and reassembling  and insertion of strips of Jo Lovelocks dyed fabric as well as some photos printed on fabric of the Fen Orchid and its habitat.

Catfield Fen: Gifts to The Gods

For the theme 'Green' for International Threads, it seemed appropriate to use up what was left and try some slightly different ideas out for 'Lost in the Reeds' (below)

Besides using scraps for the Grass Cuttings/Clippings  quilts, I've made several Journal quilts /samples over the years

JQ  June 2003

JQ  September 2015

Gifts to the Gods Sample

Postcards

I've recently been posting postcards on Facebook 'sketchbooks and experiments for textiles 'group, zig-zagging together offcuts  when cutting  quilts down to size. I love playing with scraps! I still have a few bit left of blocks and trimmings  but I think I'm done with green now!

Textile Sensory Overload: Jammers and Weft

It's been quite a while since I've been to any exhibitions so fitting in 2 yesterday afternoon left me with my head buzzing. Having read the review in the Guardian a couple of weeks ago about the Rauschenberg exhibits at the Barbican and Gagosian Gallery, I decided to do a combined trip to Bloomsbury  to  see 'Jammers'  and  the World Eco-Fiber and Textile Art exhibition at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS (thanks Margaret for flagging this up)

 

 

 

First time at the Gagosian - such a large, light space shows the  pieces up to great effect.
I was particularly struck by 'Mirage' with  it's overlapping gauze over a pieced red and yellow background, the gauze have a pieced section on the top, playing with transparency/opacity.
Slubbed silks were used to good effect in 'Gull ' with the touch of red on the rattan pole and the frayed blue-grey silk in 'Pollen'  partially revealed  the yellow silk beneath.
My favourite piece however was 'Vow', a 3D triangle of naturally coloured fabric, sown at the bottom, weighted with a short rattan pole (with that touch of red again)

Than onto WEFT at SOAS - such richness of textile techniques after the sparceness of the Rauschenberg!  I love 'ethnic' textiles and have acquired a variety of pieces from John Gillow over the years: ikat; kantha; indigo (tho' the  Chinese  shibori above, very like a length exhibited, was bought fairly recently from Changs)  This exhibition is an absolute joy in  its variety and quality and it was good to see  contemporary intepretations of traditional forms.

 

The  double faced Suzhou embroidery on organza  by Liang Xuefang of lotus shoots and their relections was stunning -  so graphic its looked like it had been drawn with ink but  composed of tiny stitches. 

Made me think of some paintings I did a while ago of posts and their reflections in Derwent Water and thinking how I might intepret them ( with much  larger stiches, naturally!)

Thinking of the Lake District,  I'm having a creative weekend while Ian is at his parents choosing what to take with me to  NWCQ retreat  next week at Rydal Hall : indigo journal quilts; watercolours and sketchbooks; colourcatchers and scraps for daily(ish) art project and depending on my printer co-operating, inkjet prints of green doors to play around with for Sue Ridgewell challenge at QG AGM. Meanwhile I've made an apple cake and washed my walking socks and thermals!

Green Door Experiments

 The Sue Ridgewell Challenge at the QGBI AGM at Nottingham this year is a 60cm square quilt on the theme 'My World is Green'. Having  gone through several  green phases with a substantial stash remaining and with my work as a botanist I was originally thinking of doing something based on my lab work. But with deadlines looming I remembered the pieces I produced on the paper lamination course a few years ago using pictures of crumbly doors.

 

I did several experiments in photoshop, playing with opacity  to see how they would look layered over a pictures of distressed doors (Iran, Greece and Yorkshire!) which I would then print in poster format over 9 sheets.

 



 

I do however have various door pictures that I had already printed on fabric so played around with these. A bit more random piecing and perhaps cutting them up is required but interesting possibilities.

I have 2 laminated pieces to choose from : the one below is more interesting but less green - it would require stronger green fabrics behind it. Looks like I might to make both and then decide!