Saltaire Arts Trail

This is an amazing event, in a fascinating historic setting. There’s a makers’ fair, exhibitions, open houses, workshops and demos. Heaven!

A few of my highlights, with links for you to explore further:
 

Hannah Lamb, Linear Mapping. "An installation of 'threads' or strands suspended from the ceiling. Each of the threads is a record of a walk, a linear map, a record of time and place. Textile, porcelain, found materials, stitch, natural dye, construction, cyanotype." 

 

Valerie Wartelle - subtle, sophisticated felt wall pieces.

Stitching for the Soul, Beverley Holmes-Wright. Machine embroidery/applique pictures, with nice use of automatic embroidery patterns.

Georgina Parker, dissected maps. Incredibly intricate, delicate paper cutting, e.g. removing everything except the roads and rivers.

 

And Alice Fox's "Tide Marks","Gifts from the Pavement" etc. - fabric and paper marked and coloured by exposure to the environment or found objects, with the addition of hand stitching. 

 

And Lizzie Farey's willow sculptures, vessels and wall sculptures. Always a favourite of mine.

 And, and, and... too much to mention! An uplifting, inspiring day.   

Winter Lux

Tomorrow sees the opening of this Christmas exhibition at the lovely Platform Gallery in Clitheroe, Lancashire. There’s a nice little slideshow here to tempt you along.

 

“Star Lace – Orion” (above) is one of my framed pieces that’s included, along with a selection of Bloom embroidered brooches (below).

The lacy brooches are also available in my Etsy and Folksy shops if you can’t get to Clitheroe!

New work: Pollen

Here’s another of the new pieces I’ve got on show with Textilia III at Farfield Mill.

This one’s inspired by pollen grains viewed through a microscope – something I did a lot of in a previous life, long long ago.

It’s all machine embroidery, some free and some using a flower stitcher attachment. As so often in my recent work, the shadows cast by the suspended motifs are an important part of the design. I like the way they give depth and life as the piece changes with the lighting. This does make photographing the work tricky though – I can’t get the shadows I want without ones I don’t! 

New work: Bloom

This is one of the new pieces I’ve got on show with Textilia III at Farfield Mill.

It was inspired by alliums, and created by free machining on dissolvable fabric. Each bloom has two or three lacy layers with beads between to make it three-dimensional.

 

As they stand up above the background, they cast interesting shadows – one of my favourite tricks!

Earthly Delights exhibition

Yesterday we launched the latest Textilia III exhibition at the lovely Farfield Mill, Sedbergh. It’s on until 17th June, with something for everyone who loves textile art – machine embroidery (free and digitised), hand embroidery, felting, book making, jewellery.

In the little adjoining room we’ve got handling samples and sketchbooks to pore over.

As I was on the set up team, I had chance to take lots of photos with nobody around. You can see some of them here.

The other gallery at the mill has an exhibition of digital prints on fabric by Ruth Lee, so it’s a great time to visit!

Textilia III at Farfield Mill

Textilia III’s latest exhibition opens soon at the beautiful Farfield Mill, near Sedbergh (that’s on the Cumbrian edge of the Yorkshire Dales).

If you’d like an invitation to the preview on 5th May, just let me know – I’d love to see you there!

Under the Sea

Today sees the opening of this exhibition at Sheffield Millennium Gallery, which includes my two pieces as shown above – Sea Forms 1 (plankton) and Coral Bleaching.

“Under the Sea explores the beauty and importance of the oceans, their significance for our planet and what we as individuals can do to help protect them for the future.”

I’ve only seen photos so far but it looks great – a wide variety of contemporary art, craft and design alongside specimens and art from the museum collections. And I’m delighted to be able to take part in something with such a strong environmental education element.

BUT, the opening has been overshadowed by the announcement today of a devastating loss of funding for Museums Sheffield. According to their website, “Large scale staff redundancies, major reductions in exhibition programmes and scaled down learning provision for schools/adults are all now inevitable.”

Please take a look here and see if there’s anything you can do to help make the case for culture in Sheffield.

And of course, if at all possible do go and see the exhibition! It’s on until June, open every day, and entry’s free. There’s also a shop with related items including plankton brooches by yours truly. And a cafe. What more do you want?!

Knitting and Stitching Show @ Harrogate

It didn’t snow! No fog or rain! Unusually lucky for the annual pilgrimage to the Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate. I’ll never understand why the most northerly of the shows is the latest in the year, but we got away with it this time.

So, into the labyrinth… five big halls to explore, and the ways between them don’t seem to get any less confusing with practise. Eventually realised I’d managed to miss one corner, a supplier I knew was in there somewhere, but too exhausted to fight my way back through the crowds by then.

The highlights, as ever, were the Textile Gallery and the Graduate Showcase. The Textile Study Group had a polished exhibition, “Individual and Collective”, each member showing a picture of an artwork that inspired them beside their own work. But the catalogue didn’t mention these, or even include many of the works on show – I think it must’ve had to be produced too far in advance? (Know the problem, gg)

I really liked minimally stitched pieces by Pat Clayton (coast/shoreline) and Joan Lamb (dusky East Africa sky and grasses) in the Textile Expressions exhibition. Beautifully done, very evocative; sadly I can’t find any websites for them or their group.

Ten Plus Textiles also had an impressive show for their 20^th anniversary year, and I surprised myself by picking woven, not stitched, pieces as my favourites - Jane White’s painted warp. Guess what… no pics.

In the Graduate Showcase, I was delighted to see some of Diana Barrett’s degree work – I know her as a machine embroidery star, making stunning vessels and unique intensely stitched wall pieces, but she’s really branched out for her BA. Here she also had long hangings with limited areas of stitch or even none. Beautiful laser cut patterns in off-white fabric, well of course I’d love those, I always go for pieces that cast lovely shadows. Congratulations on your First, Diana, well deserved.

The other new graduate who excited me was Melanie Kay, with her stitched beer cans. She had lampshades and reconstructed embroidered cans but what really worked for me were the lacy pieces, heavily perforated with lots of punched holes. She has pics out on the web so I don’t think she’ll mind if I show one here. (I don’t take photos at these shows, it seems wrong to put pictures of other people’s work on the web if they haven’t done so themselves.)

What did I bring home? Not a lot really… it’s one of those rules, I’m always between projects when the show rolls round and then the following week I’ll be desperate for supplies I could have got so easily if I’d known. Some Razzle threads to try on the machine bobbin, dyed scrims to use on the embellisher, some green rubbery stuff to make print blocks (those starlings maybe?), the new Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn book (Stitch Rhythms & Patterns), lots of cards. But mostly – inspiration, a renewed determination to try harder with my own work!

Textilia III exhibition

Our latest show is now on at the Signature Gallery, Kendal, until the end of the year.

There’s an amazing variety of textile art, from framed pieces to jewellery and accessories. You can see machine and hand embroidery, felting, rag rugging, handmade books and mixed media. Something for everyone and lots of great Christmas gifts.

This is one of my pieces that’s included – Botanica 3. Unfortunately the gallery lighting doesn’t show it at its best, it’s meant to cast shadows as in this photo. The little motifs are made using a Flower Stitcher attachment and suspended on fine wire.

More photos on the group website here. The hanging team did a great job in tricky circumstances – the walls of this old building are far from straight, so you’ll have to excuse the slightly drunken appearance of some pieces; they’d look MUCH better on YOUR walls! 

Last chance to see!

Once again the garage is bedecked with bunting and transformed into my own little gallery for the final weekend of the Ilkley Art Trail.

I’m showing over twenty wall pieces, a selection of my ‘soluble lace’ bowls, textile jewellery, plus cards, bookmarks, unframed pieces and more. Take a look at my website and Etsy shop to see examples of my work. 

The weather looks promising, so where better for a day out than beautiful Wharfedale?

Full programme (with map) available on the Ilkley Art Trail website, or pick up a paper copy when you visit me (email if you need directions).

Hope to see you soon!

A Blooming Marvellous Festival of Delights

That’s the summery theme of this year’s Grassington Festival, and I’m delighted to be taking part in a small way.

“Artists, printers, illustrators and makers of contemporary craft from all over the country exhibit high quality work relating to botanicals and blooms.”

Yesterday I delivered these two framed pieces, plus four of my little thread bowls. They’ll be on display in the town hall from 18th June to 2nd July.

This is an amazing festival, bringing world class music, theatre, comedy, film and visual arts to the gorgeous Yorkshire Dales. Plus workshops, walks, and the bunting challenge – the longest stretch of bunting in the world (yes, an actual Guinness Record) was created last year, for the Festival’s 30th birthday!

I’m so lucky, it’s just a few miles up Wharfedale for me – but it’s well worth travelling a lot further for if you can.

Here we go again

Another deadline met! To twist a neat line I heard somewhere, I really DON’T like the swooshing noise deadlines make as they fly past – I’ll do anything I can to avoid hearing that. Usually that means being realistic about what can be done in the time, and not leaving everything til the last minute – you never know what’ll crop up to get in the way. Easier said than done, of course…
It’s the third Textilia III exhibition of this year, not opening til the end of the month but hand in day is tomorrow.

Unfortunately we’ve lost a few members recently, some at rather short notice wrt this exhibition – can’t be helped, people’s priorities change, but it does make everything harder for the rest of us. On the plus side though - more wall space each!

The pics show some of the work I’m submitting – don’t know how much of it will get hung, that depends how much we end up with altogether. There’s lots of 3D/gifty stuff too, but I haven’t got photos of all that yet.