Here I am again but this time to tell you about our current exhibition Marking Our Way at the Broadway Gallery, Letchworth which runs until 31 July.

During the pandemic and lockdowns myself and three other textile artists, Janet Edmonds, Marian Hall and Janet Pullen, met on line to encourage each other creatively.  Inspired by creativity coach Rod Judkins, we each considered how we would design the cover of a fictional biography; the seeds of a project were sown.  As ideas for the book covers evolved and crystallised, we started researching other artists who created autobiographical work with which some personal connection was felt.

 My book cover reflects My Textile Journey until now

I was brought up near St Ives and, although living elsewhere, have remained closely associated with the area.  In my view, all creative work is in a sense autobiographical as unless one relates to an area it is difficult to feel connected.  This led to our own autobiographical work.  I chose the work of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham in particular her and her understanding of the forces and layers that give the depth to natural forms.  In pieces like Eight Lines, Porthmeor the essence of the rolling waves is captured.

My response to this Tidelines reflects the natural lines made by the sea as it washes over the sand leaving elements deposited by the sea as it retreats.  It is a digital print from my photograph taken in the early morning.  I have extensively stitched the image although my choice of threads is very subtle and not obvious.

 Tidelines

A second piece, I made from a photograph of deposits left by the sea on a different day, can be considered as Tidelines II or as hung a range of hills.  It is up to the viewer what it represents to them, hence is Untitled.

 Untitled

Spending more time at home was an opportunity to take stock we were able to address the questions: Who am I?  What do I do?  What do I like?  Why do I like them? and How do I work?

My own autobiographical work again reflected the part of St Ives Bay where I grew up.  I always take a lot of photographs during my early morning walk sometimes with magical results.  Early Morning on Porth Kidney was a beautiful sunrise in the autumn.  It is a small quilt that is made of raw edge appliqué pieces and felt which has been machine quilted.

 Early Morning on Porth Kidney

Another early morning photograph of the tidal estuary near Porth Kidney led to my own autobiographical work.

The photograph was manipulated and had paper cords applied and then the resulting image was digitally printed onto fabric.  The resulting fabric was quilted and hand stitched to create A Spectra of Reflections.

 A Spectra of Reflections

Although we did not set out to write a book, the act of writing helped to clarify thoughts and to share ideas amongst ourselves.  The book can be viewed on line via https://www.marianhallart.com/marking-our-way.

Textile work makes use of the head, heart, and hands.  Through this process I have had to think hard about the way I work and what has led me to my work.  I am someone who likes order but enjoys randomness and a degree of serendipity.  Perhaps that is why I like abstracting bits of photographs in paper lamination through an image on a screen to create a pattern on the cloth.  Probably I really like ordered chaos that reaches a point of resolution.

This is perhaps a little late but, if you have found this blog interesting, you can meet the artists at the gallery this Saturday (23 July) between 14.00 and 16.00.  Hope I might see some of you there.

 Once again it is a very long time since I updated my blog.  This does not mean I have been doing nothing, in fact I have been busy with textiles and exhibitions but I won't cover them all only the more recent events.

In the last couple of years I joined the Quilters Guild and the linked Contemporary Quilters.  Quilts is not a medium I explore very often.  However, I recently put quilts into Quilters Guild Region 2 annual event and was part of a small gallery with the other three who make up Fabricata.  The Region 2 challenge required a quilt created using two different fabrics 16inches wide and 40 inches deep.  My stash of fabrics is always growing and I have decided to use them rather than buy or print anything new.  I chose a finely woven cotton that was a breakdown print with shells printed on top and a very loose weave cotton dust sheet which I had used for breakdown printing.  The latter was easy to hand sew but stretched and moved under any form of machine sewing even with a walking foot.  So rather than fix it to another medium, I hand quilted that part of the work.  So a patchwork of images were joined and hand or machine stitched to create Round and Round or Caught in the Net,

 Caught in the Net

In 2022 I also exhibited at Ramster, a lovely historic house with a wonderful garden.  The exhibition was soon after the gales had swept through the southeast and the loss of trees was evident.  It was a very interesting and varied exhibition with a wide variety of work.

Early in 2022 The Worshipful Company of Broderers had an exhibition at the Bankside Gallery, London entitled 'The Art of Embroidery'.  My piece Underfoot was included.  It is a paper lamination of the path under my feet as I take a regular walk along the estuary to a beach on St Ives Bay.  The work was machine embroidered and hand stitched with some pebbles highlighted with darning.

 Underfoot

In October 2021 I decided to enter the Contemporary Quilters Challenge to produce a quilt that could be viewed from both sides and was 30cm wide at the top and 150cm long.  Much of my textile art is created as paper laminations from my photographs.  I put together a patchwork of photographs of footprints and sand patterns between high and low water taken over many years on the beach on St Ives Bay.  I made two long laminations of these images to create Between Tides.  Joints were raw edged with fine paper laminated linen between the back and front panels in places.  The whole was hand stitched and then machine quilted.   I was amazed and delighted when this won the Ann Tuck prize which I am happily spending on courses to increase my knowledge of quilting techniques.     

        Between Tides - back and front

In September 2021 I was part of the team that organised a two week exhibition at Denbies Vineyard, Dorking for the NEG.  This was a curated exhibition and I had two pieces selected.  Roots without Branches is a breakdown print on linen which was quilted by machine and hand stitched.  Unlike most of my work it is not based on the sea shore and does not use blue,

 Roots without Branches

I returned to my usual tones with blue and terracotta piece that was created from a mono print on linen off glassine (a very shiny surface that breaks up applied liquid dye).  It is mainly heavily hand stitched with some machine stitching - Shallow Waters was the result.

 Shallow Waters

At that exhibition the President's Challenge had to involve flowers.  My piece was a digital print of an image I had created from my work on line.  It was machine quilted with raw edge appliqué flowers.

 Floating Tulips                 

Knit and Stitch Shows

This Autumn I am lucky enough to have pieces selected for exhibiting in the HUE and NEG textile galleries at Knit and Stitch in Alexandra Palace and Harrogate.

In HUE our starting point was Robert Macfarlane's book 'The Old Ways - A Journey on Foot' along the ancient tracks, holloways, drove roads and sea paths that crisscross the British landscape and its waters.  My starting point was the ancient route across West Penwith that linked the Hayle estuary and Marazion saving the dangerous sea route around Lands End.  Much of my work involves paper laminations of my photographs which allows the fragility of the ever changing patterns of the sea and sand at the entrance to the Hayle estuary from the seato be reflected.

Detail from Shore Visions

My work selected for the New Embroidery Group textile gallery is more varied but most of the pieces still include paper laminations but in a variety of ways.  Be What You Are and City Skyline use text to create different patterns.  The text reads "Do not try to be anything but what you are and try and be that perfectly' although writing it with a piece of slate and without spaces between words or lines means it is difficult to read.

Detail from Be What You Are

City Skyline

Depths of Time reflects the chaos of different sand patterns created by the retreating sea.  This piece uses acrylic, distressed lutrador and paper lamination.

By contrast Random Confusion to Final Order has no paper lamination but relies on random effect of different acrylic pieces on cloth together with hand stitch.

Well I hope I will see some of you at Knit and Stitch, I am there parts of Thursday, Friday and Saturday and will try.  Maybe my blogs will be more frequent in the future.

The Contemporary Textile fair may be of interest

Update since my original blog

Once again it is a very long time since I updated my blog.  This does not mean I have been doing nothing, in fact I have been busy with textiles and exhibitions but I won't cover them all only the more recent ones.

In September 2021 I was part of the team that organised a two week exhibition at Denbies Vineyard, Dorking for the NEG.  This was a curated exhibition and I was pleased to have two pieces selected.  They were new works.  Roots without Branches is a breakdown print which was quilted by machine and hand stitched.  Unlike most of my work, it is not based on the sea shore and did to use blue.

 Roots without Branches                    

I returned to my normal tones with a blue and terracotta piece that was created from a mono print off glassine (a very shining surface that breaks up applied dye).  It is mainly heavily hand stitched with some machine stitching.  Shallow Waters was the result

 

Shallow Waters + detail

At that exhibition we had a President's Challenge, which involved flowers my piece was a digital print of an image I had created from my work on line.  It was machine quilted with raw edge appliqué tulips and some hand stitch.

Floating Tulips

Fairly recently I joined the Quilters Guild and the linked Contemporary Quilters, not a medium I explore very often.  I decided to enter the Contemporary Quilters' Autumn Challenge which was a quilt that could be viewed from both sides that was to be 30cm wide at the top and 150cm long.  Much of my textile art is created from paper laminations from my photographs.  I put together a patchwork of my photographs of footprints and sand patterns in the sand between the tides that gets washed away twice a day.  I made two long paper laminations of these images to create Between Tides.  Any joints were raw edged.  In places between the two laminations there are fine lien pieces again paper laminated with the sand patterns.  The piece was machine quilted and hand stitched.  I was amazed and delighted when this won the Ann Tuck prize which I am happily spending on courses to increase my knowledge of quilting techniques.

  

 Between Tides - front and back

I am now into 2022 when the Worshipful Company of Broderers invited people to submit work for an exhibition entitled 'The Art of Embroidery'.  This exhibition was at the Bankside Gallery.  My piece Underfoot was one of the nearly 150 pieces selected.  It is a paper lamination of the pebbles under my feet as I take a regular walk along an estuary to a beach on St Ives Bay.  The work was machine and hand stitched with some pebbles highlighted with darning.  

 Underfoot

This year I was also able to exhibit at Ramster, a lovely historic house with a wonderful garden.  It was soon after the gales had swept through in the Spring and the loss of trees was very evident.  It was a very interesting exhibition with a wide variety of work but is only held biannually.

I recently put quilts into Region 2 of the Quilters Guild exhibition, both in their main quilt show and their challenge and also exhibited as part of a group of four who make up Fabricata.  The challenge was to create a quilt using two different fabrics 16 inches wide and up to 40 inches deep.  I have recently felt that my stash of fabrics that I have dyed and/or printed was getting too big and I needed to make use of them before buying or making more.  I chose a finely woven cotton that had a breakdown print and was over printed with a shell image and a very loose weave cotton dust sheet which I had used for breakdown printing.  The latter is easy for hand sewing but stretched and moved under any form of machining whether or not with a walking foot.  So a patchwork of images were joined and hand or machine quilted to create the following piece (yet again it is blue tones).  I was going to call it Round and Round but then decided Caught in the Net was more appropriate.

 Caught in the Net

This is all my of current update but another will following very shortly regarding the exhibition Letchworth about which I am very excited.

Well it is a very long time since I added anything to my blog.  I have been productive during that time in broadening my range of work through attending courses and ways of interpreting images.  I can perhaps go back to why I started on my textile journey.  

My contribution to craft started with my creations of birthday, thank you and holiday cards for family and friends while doing my C&G Diploma in Textiles (Embroidery).  My enjoyment and successful creations have driven me to push my work further.  My love for the countryside and coastline has inspired me to create pieces of work which showcase a variety of colours, textures and images bringing the textile work to life.  I have displayed a number of my textile pieces in exhibitions around England, including Ramster, Chichister and Berkhampstead. I have participated in creative working groups, both local and national, to share my expertise and train other enthusiasts such as myself generally focusing on paper lamination.






For my work, I take inspiration from everything around me and from all over the world, from New York City to Australia, from coastlines to skylines, reflections to unique spaces.   This piece is entitled “Down Under”.  It is a wall hanging that was created by using dyed fabric and colour catchers, paper laminations and print with hand and machine stitching.  The piece draws together the variety of materials and truly reflects the open space of Western Australia, whilst also subtlety highlighting the diverse nature and countryside that can be found there together with the unique plants from Fitzgerald National Park.













I have been interested in rust and its effect on fabric and paper.  I used rusty nails to inspire "Nailed it" which combined threads, paper on net, threads and rust dyed fabrics with hand stitch.

A course with Alice Fox extended my interest and resulted in a couple of pieces based on "Countryside Findings"

An interest in using text as the basis for a design led me to produce work based on text by Francis de Sales text 'Do not wish to be anything but what you are and try and be that perfectly'.   This led to a series of paper lamination pieces with print and stitch. This was one of my earlier large pieces of work but still retains a freshness.

At last a blogger

I have finally been persuaded that having my own blog would be a good idea.  I have been creating art textiles for some time and the problem is where to start.  So, as an introduction, I will show you details of a recent design for a blind for a double height window that would allow light in but provide a degree of privacy both during the day and at night.  I used paper lamination to abstract parts of photographs of places known to the client.  It was made into a Roman blind. Here is the closed blind in situ.

Detail of part of the blind. 

More recently I have been working towards pieces that will be submitted to the Taking Textiles Further exhibition that runs during November at Art Van Go - see poster below