A real treat

For four days last weekend, I had the pleasure of attending a workshop led by Eszter Bornmisza, hosted by Studio 11 as part of Christine's programme of "re-treats". She always has inspiring textile artists, and I have been on several over the years. This one was called "Captured in Nets" and was a marvellous introduction to the techniques Eszter uses to craft her beautiful artworks. If you've not seen them, pop over to her website to have a look. If you have seen them in person you will understand how evocative they are; ethereal, yet firmly grounded in the townscapes that are her primary theme. Eszter was a generous, patient and supportive tutor and we learnt a great deal. In addition to nurturing and broadening my textile skills, the four days gave me an even deeper appreciation of her art, and of the time, skill and meticulous planning involved in each creation.

Our first day was an introduction to net making with soluble fabric, machine stitching into it to create a web that, once the fabric has been dissolved, will hold itself together. This is harder than it sounds as you have to make sure that wherever your stitching goes, it is tied in with what has been before, otherwise bits will fall apart. I found the first day challenging. In part this was because my Janome was misbehaving. Once I'd  popped home and returned with the Bernina; my preferred machine for embroidery (but heavy to move about), the rest of my time was undisturbed by machine failure. Having not done much machine embroidery for a long while; my shoulders and upper back were tense and intensely painful, my stitching unruly. However, I managed a couple of samples, and began to understand more about its creative potential.

Here, my various samples at the end of the sessions in the studio

And the thought processes that brought it all about - with retrospective notes

A preparatory drawing inspired by Eridu, exploring the pattern of temple spaces and how continuous line might all hold together

stitch and imagery,

lace and thread, boundaries and mounds

The second day also had its difficulties; I stitched my forefinger - breaking the machine needle as I snatched it away. A loud bang, a sharp pain and a few minutes of feeling rather peculiar followed, but the studio had plasters and there was more stitching to be done. I still felt I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing but, following instructions, managed to produce a couple more samples and felt happier by the end of the day.

Inspired by Nirvana; a different sort of layer, that of family myth, nestled at the edge of the Rother, home to childhood dreams

and what to do with the spaces removed?

Then Babylon, drawing on an ancient map; imagery printed out several days before the workshop and pondered on

the reverse of the embroidery makes a more powerful statement - lesson learnt

By day three things were looking up, the accumulation of techniques was beginning to make sense, and I was starting to see where they might apply to the projects I am working on at my regular Studio 11 sessions. More samples were made, more stitching was done, more bobbins were cleared of thread and at end of play, a very enjoyable meal out, organised for us by Christine at a local hostelry. We began with making voids, mending them, bridging gaps. Organza carved out with a soldering iron, mended with Islamic pierced window grilles in mind, same region, later culture, more layers of history. The cutout pieces were also captured in a net with additions

Here, working with painted clingfilm and very pink organza. As I stitched I was thinking about the growth enabled by Abzu, the life giving water; marshlands, foliage, ripples, grasses waving

Flowers and leaves strewn across gaps in the fabric, supported by a web of stitching. The flowers were hand stitched into a piece of soluble fabric with chain stitch, then pinned to the base fabric, the leaves simple knots in a piece of thread.

Finally there was the "bring it all together and make a larger piece" day. So we put all we had learnt into practice on our chosen design. In my case this was based around a satellite view of Nineveh - drawn from my Mesopotamia ruminations. Here a portion of Nineveh, the hill of Kuyunjik nestled in a bend of the Khosr River, on the outskirts of Mosul

Not anywhere near finished yet, there is still much stitching of nets to be done, suggestions of cultivated land at the top, soluble fabric to be washed away, but an encouraging start. I managed to do enough to know how to complete it, and will make time to do this, which will be a huge pleasure.

So, a marvellous and inspiring few days amongst friends old and new exploring thread, stitch, time and ideas to create something fresh. I feel I have learnt  techniques that chime with my thoughts about Mesopotamia; history, layers of time and layers of man made artefacts/marks on the earth. Techniques I can hopefully exploit in my own way to move forward with my explorations of what creating textile art is all about.

Thank you Eszter and Christine for a very inspiring retreat. Definitely a real treat.