Patching & printing

Over the last two weeks I have been exploring new directions with some of the patchwork and embroidery pieces I have been working on. Taking the plunge with ink and roller, I have been working on some new prints, for the forthcoming 'Material Evidence' exhibition at Sunny Bank Mills. I am really excited by the detail reproduction of each fibre and stitch, and also the opportunities for playing with composition. I think this might be just the start of something for me.

Material Evidence opens on Saturday 24th October at Sunny Bank Mills and includes work by Claire Wellesley-Smith, Clare Lane and Lorna Jewitt. I hope you will join us for afternoon tea 2-4pm to celebrate the opening.

Taking time

The project I am currently working on has been taking longer than anticipated. It's a joy to do, but just tricky to find the time. Lately I have had to carve out little bits of time for stitching... and therefore no time for blogging (sorry!).

Here are some little clues about what I am working on for the forthcoming exhibition 'Material Evidence' at Sunny Bank Mills.

Inspiration From Historical Textiles

Last weekend I enjoyed teaching a two-day workshop at my studio in Saltaire, West Yorkshire. The theme 'Inspiration from Historical Textiles' allowed me to dig out some of my textile treasures. My lovely students also brought some absolute treats of their own too. We spent the weekend talking about textiles, making cyanotype prints of textiles, drawing from textiles and stitching into textile. Obsessed; surely not!

Below are a few highlights. If you are interested in coming to one of my workshops you can find more information here.

Workshop wandering

During my recent workshops I have met some delightful folk and enjoyed some really interesting discussions about process and practice. It is always an enormous pleasure and excitiement to see what people will do with a new process or material.

Firstly here are a few photos from my Stitch with Found Objects workshop with the lovely Grassington Embroiderers' Guild (plus a few folk from the Skipton EG too).

And then an Artist Talk and Cyanotype Taster workshop to coincide with the Pick & Mix exhibtion a The Dye House Gallery. It was great to have the run of the college workshops.

If you are interested in joining me for a workshop you can find out more here.

Draft

Last week saw the culmination of a long running project and the hanging of a challenging and ambitious piece that concludes the work. With the high levels of stress associated with trying to complete a difficult piece on time I suppose it was inevitable I would succumb to the classic post-project cold/flu. The plus side of this being a couple of days to reflect on the project before the exhibition opens next week.

The Bradford Textile Archive is held at Bradford College, West Yorkshire. It houses a wide range of textiles, sample books, ledgers and books relating to the textile industry in Bradford and also items specific to the College's long history of textile education, such as student work books. As a lecturer at Bradford College I am lucky enough to have regular access to the archive and last year based a project on the use of archives in creative practice. As luck would have it, around the same time archivist Helen Farrar was putting together an Arts Council bid for an exhibition called Pick & Mix. For the exhibition 22 artists and makers (including my friend Claire Wellesley-Smith) were invited to respond to the archive, creating work across a range of media.

My own work took inspiration from the contents of one brown archive box, which represents the working life of Bradford textile designer and former student Mr George Arnold Stead. The documents represent his personal record of designs created during a lifetime in textiles. The box also contains mementos and pamphlets from the Listers Mill.

I chose to interpret a 7 metre length of Stead's point paper designs as a ‘ghost’ of the original, stripped of its original meaning as a technical weave document. Working with tracing paper and cross stitch I started to map out the designs. Using stitch references the largely forgotten manufacture of sewing and embroidery threads in Bradford, of which Lister’s was a world leader before the 1930’s.

The mammoth task of stitching the work took much longer than I realised. I worked almost non-stop during Christmas do complete it. Most definitely a very slow act of making...

...the final stitch (above) but not the end of making. Part way through making the stitched piece I realised it would work well as a negative for cyanotype. So I created a partner piece in silk, capturing the ghost of the blocks of pattern and stitched details.  It was slightly nerve wracking creating such a big  blueprint but fortunately it worked out pretty well.

The final step was hanging the work, called 'Draft'.

More images to come once the exhibition opens next week. Pick & Mix runs from 13th January until 18th February 2015 at the Dye House Gallery, Lister Building, Bradford College, Carlton Street, Bradford, BD7 1AY.

Revising and rethinking

My work for Pick & Mix has caused me worries this week. After agonising over the shade of red used for the cross stitching I came to a realisation that it was all wrong. I was unhappy with the red, unsure about the presentation and disappointed with the look of the whole thing. I think also I have been worried about whether this piece is truly representative of my own practice.

I was pretty miserable about the project and felt like throwing in the towel. However I took a step back to reflect and consider my options. One idea that had been floating in the back of my mind was to use the stitched paper as a negative for a cyanotype print. So I did some very quick sampling and was really happy with the results.

I feel the quality of mark achieved is delicate and ghostly; a mere trace. It looks much more interesting and develops the original weave drafts and lifting plans I was studying into something that is a more personal response. By taking the designs through another process they become increasingly vague and unreadable; one of the points of the work is to portray the disappearance of specialist technical knowledge.

So now the shade of red no longer matters but I still have so much work to do.

New Workshops for 2015

I have been putting the finishing touches to my workshops for spring / summer 2015. You can now find all the details on my website.

The year starts with Scrap Magic and Repair & Disrepair workshops. These workshops take different approaches to working with scraps and secondhand materials. Cut, slash, stitch and manipulate to create a whole variety of surfaces.

This year I will be teaching a variety of workshops from my studio in Saltaire, West Yorkshire. These include stitch, mixed media and cyanotype techniques. For the first time I will be teaching a two-day Inspiration from Historical Textiles course, taking ideas from antique textile and using hand stitch and cyanotype to create original art pieces.

The ever popular Cyanotype Essentials workshop runs on 25th April and for those who have already learnt the essentials there will be a Cyanotype Experimental Day (16th May) to extend your ideas and individual projects.

Rhythms and patterns

Over the last couple of weeks I have been trying to settle into new rhythms and patterns in my life. We have a lovely new addition to the household in the form of a four year-old greyhound called Henry. For all of us adjusting to new routines and ways of doing things has been a challenge. For one thing walking is becoming more frequent but has a different focus. Henry made his first visit to the studio yesterday and enjoyed the scenic view (below).

In my studio I am also learning to work differently. The work for the 'Pick & Mix' exhibition is making very slow progress and I am finding the counted cross stitch tedious and fiddly, especially given that I am stitching on tracing paper. I am not used to working in such a constrained way, within grids and to a pre-ordained pattern but perhaps the discipline will be good for me. I may just have to break free at some point though.

Time to work, time to think

It's been a while since I was in the studio properly doing my own work. But the combination of forthcoming deadlines and some focussed time to myself means I have been doing a little sampling. These (below) are ideas being explored for a an exhibition in association with the Bradford Textile Archive, early next year.

I was also reminded this week of the need for reflective thinking and writing. Trying to foster reflective journal writing in my students has given me the opportunity to look back over some of my own journals from way back. The need to work and then pause, step back, take stock is as important now as it ever was when I was a student. The need to record it, even more important when working time is so fragmented.

I have been thinking about the relationships between woven textiles and stitch; repetition, grids and connections understood through material associations.

Working in blue

 I have been a little quiet about this work.

It has been ongoing for a while now... ideas rustling about. But taking a very different direction I wanted to let things develop before sharing. So just a few peeks for now...

The work is complete, I now have to wait to see if they will be exhibited.

Studio discipline

Yesterday I started the day in despair. My work was awful and I had no time to start again. By the end of the day I was feeling really positive. Pinning the work up and stepping back it wasn't really as bad as I thought. John helped me to see there were some small alterations I could make.

On reflection I realised there are some simple little elements of studio discipline that are crucial to my creative process; making a cup of tea, putting on my linen apron, switching on my favourite radio station. Without these I am all 'at sea' and struggle to settle. This routine helps me to switch over to studio time.

I also find the rhythm of hand stitch a calming element of my practice, although I haven't the patience for large amounts of it. Small areas of stitch work well for me, as a way of blending together disparate elements.

from the other side

Magical scraps

This weekend I was joined by Fiona, Jayne, Anne and Angela at the studio for some fun playing with scraps.

Staining, stitches and lemon slices to die for

The highlight of today was most definitely the lemon slices John made for our workshop, from a recipe from this book. But besides that I have enjoyed the company of Ruth, Helen, Carole, Sally and Kathryn at the studio for the Paper Textiles workshop. You can see some of out work here: