From where I sit- Stories from within - Exhibition & Earworms

Four friends and I have formed a small group called RE-create Collective.   We are exhibiting at the Albury Library Museum and the launch is scheduled for 11.00 am on Saturday 25 June, 2022.

It's been such a long haul.    I was working on my last piece - that's it above. It's not completed and hasn't made the cut.    I was discharge dying on black fabric with bleach and though it sort of worked it requires more hand stitching than I'm prepared to do at this point.   

London's burning melded with a small series I was working on based on the Black Summer fires.  I found I was singing the nursery rhyme a lot and it  has become a persistan earwork ever since.  It occured to me the earworm itself, rather than the work which was its casue, could form part of the exhibition.

I'm feeling pretty chuffed (probably easy for others but) I managed to find my round the internet and phone and laptop and record that earworm, upload it and fix it to a QR code.   Now I'm wondering if I have time to cross stitch it! 

Exhibition anxiety, worthyness and words

Green & Blue Series 

 

Life has been bus.  My colleagues and I (RE-create Collective) are at the pointy end of our exhibition From Where I Sit – Stories from within which will be launched at the Albury Library Museum on 25 June, 2020.

Super excited and over it all at the same time!

I have prepared a series of textile works and have been umming and ahing about whether to submit them. Exhibition anxierty.  Are they worthy? I have decided to offer them up for the exhibition and let the Albury Library Museum make the curatorial decision.   

The works are an interpretation of a poem by Lesbia Harford which I wanted to do for some time:

            Green and blue
            First-named of colours believe these two.
            They first of colours by men were seen
            This grass colour, tree colour,
            Sky colour, sea colour,
            Magic-named, mystic-souled, blue and green.
            Later came
            Small subtle colours like tongues of flame,
            Small jewel colours for treasure trove,
            Not fruit colour, flower colour,
            Cloud colour, shower colour,
            But purple, amethyst, violet and mauve.
            These remain,
            Two broad fair colours for our larger gain
            Stretched underfoot or spreading wide on high,
            Green beech colour, vine colour,
            Gum colour, pine colour,

            Blue of the noonday and the moonlit sky.

Why did I change my mind?   Because when I sit at my table and gaze out the window I see green and blue.  When I rest in my garden I see green and blue.   These colours are restful and calming and often observed whilst sitting and pondering. My artists statement will reflect this.

Slow making

 

Being involved in slow stitch and collage in both paper and fabric of late.   The joy of slow making is priceless. 

Translating text to textiles

Green Lovers - Marc Chagall 

                    Green and blue 

                    First-named of colours believe these two. 

                    They first of colours by men were seen 

                    This grass colour, tree colour, 

                    Sky colour, sea colour, 

                    Magic-named, mystic-souled, blue and green.

                    Later came 

                    Small subtle colours like tongues of flame, 

                    Small jewel colours for treasure trove, 

                    Not fruit colour, flower colour, 

                    Cloud colour, shower colour, 

                    But purple, amethyst, violet and mauve. 

                    These remain, 

                    Two broad fair colours for our larger gain

                    Stretched underfoot or spreading wide on high, 

                    Green beech colour, vine colour, 

                    Gum colour, pine colour,

                    Blue of the noonday and the moonlit sky. 

I’ve been thinking about how to interpret this poem by Lesbia Harford in a textile format. 

The words have the same effect on my brain that the feel of textiles has in my hands.

Can words be tactile? 

Palpable. A synonym of tactile: a feeling or atmosphere so intense as to seem almost tangible. 

I’ve been exploring artists too. 

Modernist Marc Chagall uses a lot of blue and green and interesting vistas and skies.  (The Tate has a great teachers pack for an introduction and a little self-directed learning.) 

A further poke around the Tate online brought me back to Wassily Kandinsky and his inspiring use of colour and line. 

 Circles in Squares - Wassily Kandinsky

I’ve been pondering on how to express this poem in fabric and stitch for a fair while now. I have silk sari strips and threads. A few days ago I found some interesting wire frames tucked away in the garage. They may be just the thing to help create a work that is either flat of 3D – or both?

Chairs

 

Dolls House Chairs

As a result of a throwaway line I’m working towards a small exhibition, Chairs later this year with art colleagues under the banner of RE-create Collective.     

Chairs explores reuse, recycle and repair by way of practical and fanciful refurbishment of old and discarded chairs together with wall art featuring chairs.

I have taken the opportunity to learn how to fix and reupholster chairs with the exhibition in mind.  It has been a slow process and I haven’t been as focussed as I had hoped to be.  I have been taking apart the chairs and regluing them with the assistance of an awesome instructor at an upholstery class run at a community centre near where I live.   I'm currently working on dining chairs punning on fine dining.  I also plant put together  a third dining chair with a fun theme.

One of a pair of dining chairs reglued.  My awsome  tutor is in the backbround

Starting to  remove fabric from my second chair.   It wasn;t as easy as I had hoped.  There were two layers of fabric and a huge number of tacks and staples

After I started the project (and with 3 chairs waiting attention) I saw this beuaty at the tip shop.  Sadly torn, worn and broken it called out to me as I passed it on leaving,   I returned the next day :-)

Marking time and making

 In the vibe.  Mixed media collage.

Gosh, is the first of April.  I’m not sure what I’ve been up to in the last few months Ive been busy but with bits and peice. 

 

Fabric Book - A4 spread

I started a fabric book iren January.  I still have a few pages to go.  I have used bits that I have connecton with.  Its interesting to leaf through it and remember. The lace a remant from a dress a friend made for her son's wedding, the bobbles from another friend, the printed blue fabric was a left over from a fun day at a friend's studio.

Isolation - central panel A4

Muse  (A4)

I have been working on collage and experimenting (sometimes rather unsatisfactorily) with different media

I’ve definitely been thinking and working on some items for an exhibition with RE-create Collective, a small group I belong to.  There are four of us and, after a throw away line about chairs, we are now working on a chair themed exhibition.

RE-create Collective, as its name implies, values no waste, reuse and recycling.  Added to this we have a focus on  textiles and fibre.    

So wasn’t it a bonus that I have two dining chairs I picked up from the roadside (and been hanging on to for too many years) because they were too good to leave for hard waste collection.

Another abonus, the local community centre runs an ongoing upholstery class.  

Progress so far:

• ·        Removed all fabric from one chair and reglued it.  And in the process discovered it had been recovered twice.  Twice the number of tacks and staples!!!
• ·         Removed all fabric from the other chair.  Its is yet to be dismantled and reglued.  

Awesome Eddie our tutor tells me that they are very good quality chairs.

• ·     Chosen my fabric.  I have made a decision about how they are to be presented but won’t let the cat out of the bag yet.   It is more a bit of a word play – I love puns 😊.

Of course, once bitten I had to do another chair.  I found a lovely one at the tip shop in a very sad state.   It's also on its way to be undressed but will need tender care in deconstruction and reconstruction as it is broken in a couple of places.  This one has been recovered 3 times!   I've got ahead of myself and have hand printed some fabric for this one. 

 

And somewhere in between I've  snuck in a little simple bookmaking with a view to more collage :-) 

Phew!  That's where the times gone!

Take care all and keep creating.

Donna

Steal Like an Artist

My family treated me well this Christmas and gave me books that had been on my wish list for a while.

I was very happy to be receive Steal like an Artist by Austin Kleon.   It’s a wonderful little book with thoughts about becoming a creative which he wishes he knew when he started out.  

I follow Austin’s blog, his Instagram and receive his weekly email.   He shares what he has read, listened to or watched.  All interesting stuff which one can choose to dip into. Or not.