A day in London

I haven’t been to London since June last year. Every time I go I think ‘I’ll do this more often’, but rarely manage it. When the trains work, which they did yesterday, it only takes about an hour and twenty minutes. I must get into the habit; I love going, and I love the river, blessed as we are here in Birmingham with a poor hidden little river; so the Thames always thrills me. I also love the London plane trees everywhere, so special in winter, with their beautiful bark, and dangling seed spheres.

However, I didn’t see the river yesterday, as the two exhibitions I visited with a friend were within walking distance of the station. First of all we went to see Grayson Perry’s Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman. I’ve followed his work for years and he has become incredibly famous, and he deserves to. I would so much like to be let loose in the British Museum and its stores as he was to choose and curate my own show! He produced some fantastic work based upon his choices too. I also enjoyed seeing such a range of objects from the Museum all in one show, there was something new to me, and different, in every show case. His own work included new ceramics, work in metal, textiles and mixed media. I can feel a book purchase coming on…

A close up of the pot on the leaflet, the Rosetta vase, 2011. It was about 60 cm tall. Copyright Grayson Perry, Courtesy Victoria Miro Gallery, London.

Then after a refreshing walk through wet Bloomsbury, and lunch at the Foundling Museum, we went to the British Library to see the Royal Manuscripts exhibition. There were 150 illuminated books and manuscripts on show; I don’t really need to say how glorious they were. I hope they stay burned on my brain for a long time; I’ve never seen real manuscripts of this quality before, only images in books and the interesting tv programmes that have been on recently. I’ve kept those to watch again. Bring on the gold leaf…

A workshop involving much Thrift and Alchemy.

I’ve been teaching Thrift and Alchemy, a re, or should I say, up, cycling textile collage workshop at The RBSA Galleries in Birmingham, in the past two days. Never have a group of students worked so hard making excellent pieces of work from such unpromising materials! So much everyday stuff is ignored, and with a theme of some sort and some paint and glue,  thread and ingenuity, such good work can be made. The room didn’t even look too much like a rubbish dump, which I had feared would be the sight welcoming the students on the first day, when they would be faced with all the detritus I had provided, which I was intending to convince them were valid materials for a creative textiles workshop…

Here are some images.

All hard at work on the first morning.

Imogen making a wild and wonderful large woodland piece, Laura at work on  her exquisite portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, and Carolyn, musing over  beautifully considered mixed media pieces,  with Jean’s work in the foreground; delicately painted maps, and a subtle use of colour and tone forming the basis of garden based collage.

Ella, Sophie and Pheobe. A very productive threesome, all very creative with fabric, paint and stitch. They didn’t waste a minute of the time on the course, and enjoyed the freedom of the approach, in contrast to their rather regulated GCSE Art course at school. I have noticed how GCSE and A level Art is increasingly regulated, and even BA courses. Is this what art should be about, homogeneity?

Kathryn was working on a city scape based piece of work, using an exciting mix of fabrics and papers to create an electric urban scene.

Anne’s work in the foreground, a series of city bird scapes in papers and recycled fabrics, very rich and luscious, with David who was making a delicate and gorgeous bookbinding.

Bird, Beach and Bruegel.

This is a somewhat mixed post, as you may gather from the title.

The Bruegal bit is simply a reference to the weather here, and the sharply detailed snowy views I enjoyed on a walk yesterday. It was only a suburban walk through a small wooded area, not sweeping landscapes of snowfields and mountains, but the sharply detailed trees and paths, and the snowy roofs were like walking in a Bruegel [the elder] painting. I know they have been much used as Christmas cards but I think they are lovely still and have stood up to that abuse very well.I had to keep stopping and gazing around. It’s the coldest bit of winter so far, quite a shock for the crocuses that were flowering.

I’ve laid down another bird piece, on colograph printed khadi paper, and machined it, as well as the companion piece and some other small pieces. They are at home now waiting for some hand stitch to be added. The companion piece is at the very end of the previous post.

Snow and freeze outside, tropical scenes within. I’ll undoubtedly make some snowy pieces in summer. I do find that the way I make work can be too slow to keep up with ideas I’d like to develop, but I don’t think there’s a solution to that.

I’ve made the hummingbird separately, with silk and organza fragments on lutradur. He will be easier to stitch in more detail this way, then can be added to the main piece.

So that’s the bird update. The Beach in question has a capital letter as it’s the title of a piece I started in 2010, I think, and finished 2 parts, then let it languish.

I have always liked it though, so decided to add a central piece, influenced by one and a half sheets of double elephant khadi paper I have left over from Beyond Dark Spaces, a large piece I am [still...] finishing.

Here are some images of the central part, which won’t make a lot of sense, until it’s all put together. I’m pleased to have made a decision about it at last, as I didn’t want to frame it, and hopefully the sturdy paper will suit it, as a mount.

It’s about 50 x 50 cm, calico, painted with acrylic paints mixed with resin, and ceramic stucco acrylic media. The bottom is a sandy gold, as I’ve used gold bronzing powder it the mix too, and the upper area is the mixture textured by dragging the end of a paintbrush through it. It is different to the other parts but just similar enough. The shapes at the bottom are appliqued painted calico, which are based on the shapes of a petrified forest that occasionally shows on the beach at Tywyn in Wales. They seem to  have been  influenced too by Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, and Patrick Heron with a touch of Ben Nicholson, and perhaps they all went to Tywyn too.

Here’s a close up of the crunchy texture. I’ll post the whole when it’s done.

I’m teaching Thrift and Alchemy next week at the RBSA Galleries here in Birmingham, so look forward to posting some interesting work from the course, which is based on using re and upcycled materials. I’ve never taken so much stuff to a course in my life, and the students are bringing materials too. I hope we can all fit into the room.

First workshop of the year

I’ve just taught a two day workshop, Beautiful Birds, at Ineke Berlyn’s barn here in the Midlands. The threatened snow did arrive on the second day, today, which of course I take personally. It’s the first snow this winter, but I suppose it causes less chaos on a Saturday. [Actually this proved to be untrue, unfortunately for all those stuck and stranded.] Most people stayed quite close to the end, which was quite brave of them. I hope you all had a tolerable journey home folks.

Here they are with their work. It was a very enjoyable course to teach, with lovely lunches cooked by John, Ineke’s husband.

Lynda with a moonbird based on my pattern but made into her own with a lovely choice of fabric.

Here’s Ineke, managing to make this fantastic kite whilst tending to the students purchasing needs at the same time.

Kay with her sweet curlew.

Lorraine with a wonderful layered crane, very cleverly done.

Paula made this elegant hoopoe; I loved the beautifully organised feathers on his back.

Sarah’s almost life sized herring gull, he was a very urbane chap.

Laurie’s kingfisher was delicately made and had wonderful layered feathers.

Kate was working on two butterfly pieces, one subtle and one dramatic, gorgeous.

Eileen was making the components for a stunning graphic piece, featuring a terrifying wren.

Vivienne’s jewel like kingfisher, very beautiful.

Sue’s jolly colourful starling, with subtle and finely layered leaves.

Jan’s robin in the snow, a lovely creature.

To finish here’s my latest bird piece. I felt the need for colour, so used this khadi paper I had printed with a collograph plate I made last year. There’s another piece above it which I will also use.

And here’s the piece laid down and ready to stitch. It’s about 90 cm x 30 cm.

Plod work

I’m working on finishing a large piece called Beyond Dark Spaces at the moment. I’m no longer interested in using large pieces of fabric as  they are difficult to stitch; I always end up wrestling with them and swearing, so I have decided to mount each piece on Khadi paper, of which I am perhaps over-fond, and string them together, which isn’t my favourite task, but it’s ok once you get going.

I wanted a good sturdy paper, so bought the 640 gsm, which is gorgeous, but of course the machine disagrees. So once again I end up with quite a hefty hand stitching job, albeit with good large stitches. It is plod work however; no wonder some things I make take so long! I do like the look though, which is the most important thing. I had to buy double elephant sized pieces, to cut in half, to get pieces big enough. I do love to buy double elephant, it always makes me smile.

The pieces laid out with the double elephant paper. It looks nowhere as large as it actually is, which is 673 x 1016 cm [ 26.5 x 40 inches].

The first finished piece with borders.

A close up of the border.

In between bodging and stitching these pieces, of which there are nine, each being 60 x 45 cm, I treat myself to laying down a small piece of work, as light relief. I have some fabric in two indigo blue shades, a cast off from my daughter, who is constantly editing her art materials, so until I have time to dye my own cloth, I thought I would experiment with it.

And these are the laid down smalls, waiting to be stitched. This one is A4 sized.

This one is A3 sized.

This is a tiny chappie, only A5.

Another A4 sized piece. They are all a mix of the blue commercial fabric and my painted fabrics.

I’ve started with these woodland/landscape pieces, and find it interesting as I would never have chosen before to work with blue. I’m also experimenting with colour combinations to enjoy the fact that any colour will go happily with indigo. I’ll be trying reds and oranges in the next batch, and using different subject matter.

That blue

Well after many years of liking indigo dyed cloth from many cultures in a vague unfocussed sort of way, I recently realised I like it very much, that it definitely spoke to me, but that I know absolutely nothing about it. This, to me, is a wonderful situation to be in.

For several years now I have painted and printed my fabric, usually calico, with acrylic paints. When I first started with textiles this was an accessible way to produce your own fabric and I do like the abstract expressionist look you can achieve, so I won’t be giving it up. I’ve never dyed fabric, but students in my classes often bring  glorious fabric dyed during other workshops. Indigo is special in that not only does it produce the most glorious range of blues it also goes with every other colour so well, a quality exploited daily by millions of jean wearing humans. So I have some ideas brewing for mixed pieces, as it is such an inclusive colour.

So I was reading the latest issue of Embroidery, found myself absorbed in the book reviews, spotted the Jenny Balfour-Paul book Indigo, and managed to resist buying it for about two days. But it’s that time of year when to offset the niggling inadequacies of life you need something to revitalise and invigorate yourself, so I bought it, and also one or two other books also reviewed in that dangerous magazine. They haven’t arrived yet, I’m not sure why, perhaps they’re being printed by hand, in a sort of Kindle backlash.

The Indigo book is published by the British Museum, and it is excellent, not a how-to book, but a book that covers all aspects of the subject of indigo, with many illustrations. So as soon as I can, when I have read up more on how to do it, the old indigo vat will be established somewhere in the Redfern encampment, and undoubtedly many strange blue rags will be hung on the line, and once again the neighbours will be bemused by the state of our washing.

Gathering resources

Now these images are not particularly amazing but they are very necessary for the development of some new work which is on my mind, although as usual I have things to finish before I start it.

The work is for the SiX and Friends exhibitions entitled Orientation. [see blog on left]

I am planning to make a book with spare and delicate textile illustrations, with some text, and it seems to be evolving, in my head so far, as a seasonal record of plants and trees that stand out when I am out walking or in the garden. It’s all absolutely suburban at the moment, but as I go out and about as the year moves on I daresay this will change. I will use a selection of botanical subjects from each season, and it is going to be called ‘Floating Gardens.’  I am hoping to make a hanging textile piece to go with it too.

I was wondering where ‘Floating Gardens’ had come from; I do like to work to a title, and I want this work to be contemplative and ethereal, so the title seemed perfect. I have seen in the past couple of years two Japanese print exhibitions, one the woodblock prints of Hiroshige and the other of prints by Utamaro. I decided to read up a little about them as I had a suspicion that they had something to do with my title, and indeed these artists were amongst a group of artists whose work, called Ukiyo-E,  was based on the ‘floating world’ of the new 17th century metroplolitan centres of Japan, and also the Japanese love of the natural world. It’s a complex and compelling idea which is described well in www.viewingjapaneseprints.net. So there we are, an oriental link fished from the brain fug.

Here are are few winter images so far.

Snowdrops in our garden. I liked the rather overwhelming iris leaves dividing the space so emphatically; I’ll probably use that in the design of the piece of work in some way. None of these images were planned; I do like to use images that surprise and intrigue me. The pebbles and twigs in the spaces add detail too, which may mean another piece of work, since I want to keep these illustrations minimal and spare. I may let a couple of wilder ones creep in though, who knows.

This is the way small creatures see the world from ground level.

Our aralia [Fatsia japonica] with its wonderful strange winter flowers. I particularly like the stems of the plant too, and it’s also Japanese, not that I chose it because of its origins, but the cotoneaster below is Chinese in origin, both of which are pleasingly adjacent to the theme.

Another view of the plant, with this flower stem losing its heads and starting to look elegantly spare.

Cotoneaster horizontalis, perfect for me, bright berries on bare twigs, and lots of quirky angles and bends.

This small tree attracted me firstly on a dull December day; its small round yellow leaves were blowing around, and indeed were still on the tree as it’s been so mild, in plant terms at least. When I went back to photograph it in early January the weather was amazingly sunny and the leaves looked much greener and fresher, but in the book they will be washed out yellow. I don’t know what it is, I need to do a little surfing.

Beyond Dark Spaces revisited

Well over a year ago I started  a large piece called Beyond Dark Spaces, based on a mix of a jungle theme with elements of Baroque architecture. I’m not sure why I let it sit under my table for a year, but I need a large piece for an exhibition and don’t have time to start another due to other projects, so out it came and I am quite excited about it all over again. I’ve decided to add some  organza shapes in black, grey and white to  introduce, hopefully, a look of fractured light on its surface. This will mean quite a lot more stitching on each of the nine pieces; here are a few images of work in progress. I still haven’t decided how to finish and mount the pieces; it will be one large piece made from these components. I would like to introduce some other elements such as plastics or metals, but I’ll see what the work decides.

Some of the pieces on the table. Each is about 60 x 45 cm.

The same thing but at a cheeky angle.

A close up showing the shadowy organzas. Some are very cheap from the rag market here in Birmingham, and some are silk, not so cheap. When they are on the piece they don’t look that different, but the silk is more pleasant to use.

A flying lizard and his shadow. I have written some text for this piece, which I may incorporate, when I can actually find it.

Gold

I’ve been finishing Gold, another of my Thrift and Alchemy pieces, in the studio this week.  When I started the recycling project I was going to do one piece, and a small one at that. This typically grew to one largish piece and then White Noise was developed too, as I wanted to do work in different colours, tones and moods. They were very definitely materials – led, which is what makes using recycled materials so interesting. One is warm earth colours and gold, the other white and black. I feel the need to make a piece in vibrant pure colour now; plastic bags could be particularly useful for this, although they are mostly fairly unpleasant to stitch.

Unlike White Noise, which is just being finished in artist’s book form, Gold will be wall mounted as it will be exhibited in a couple of places. I still want to keep the pieces separate, rather than as one large piece though, for easier storage, and so I can use it as a teaching aid too.

Here are some of the nine pieces on the table waiting for their edges to be painted. They are all machine and hand stitched, and mounted on canvas.

The edges of the canvas were then painted with this mix of gold bronzing powder, acrylic matt medium and acrylic resin sand medium for a gritty look.

Here are some of them, painted and drying. The next and hopefully final job is to mount them on some old foam board I have. Recycled projects can go on and on, I’ve found, as you try to use what you have which can involve more work, rather than rush out and buy a quick solution; in this case it would be ready stretched canvases.

All the pieces are now my website; here are a couple of the individual parts.

Plastic, paper, photographs, bits of ceramic flower pots, porcelain pieces, paint, natural materials, old Chinese newspaper and thread. 30cm 30cm.

Re- used fabric, paper, photographs, plastic lid,beads, paint and thread.

White Noise on my website

I’ve put all my White Noise images on my website in Gallery Four. This is part of my Thrift and Alchemy project, which involves using recycled, upcycled, found objects and basically stuff that I’ve had for a while and have found a use for in this project. White Noise will be an artist’s book, well it practically is already, I just need to bind it and perhaps add a little text.

The other Thrift and Alchemy project is Gold, which will be a hanging. Both will be at the Festival of Quilts, and Gold will be at Worcester Cathedral too, in May.

I would love to do more work on this theme, especially as I have collected a lot of material, not least a large amount of broken ceramic pieces and a collection of natural objects, such as bark, seed pods, leaves etc, never mind all the paper, plastic and well, so much stuff!

I’ll be teaching a course at the RBSA Gallery here in Birmingham in February, and have agreed to teach another in Worcester in 2013. I’ll try to do more work to use some of the exciting materials I have, but at some point in the future may have to stop due to potential future storage issues. It is very satisfying to work in this way though, I’ve rather gone off just using fabric.

Here are four  images of the finished pieces.

Unquiet Night

Solstice

Fragment/Vein

Regenerate

As it’s a sunny day I’ve decided to indulge in a little photographic amble. On a recent suburban walk I spotted a small tree with little round bright yellow leaves still clinging on to it, and later some good silver birch bark which I intend to use as reference material in my Orientation pieces. [See SiX and Friends in sidebar]

All images copyright Stephanie Redfern 2012.