Assemblage

I very often have Mesopotamia in the back of my mind when exploring with Studio 11 experiments - currently in how transparent fabrics can ben coloured and the potential they hold. 

An assemblage is a group of objects brought together from a site which typify that site, or a particular period. 

This is an assemblage of things old and new which may help me say something about Mesopotamia and history with textiles.

Most recently I created a stencil which which I used with a lamination technique to apply paper to some organza I had coloured as part  of the transparent experiments we have been doing. The stencil was based the floor plans of several of the temple layouts at Eridu, the oldest of cities according to the Sumerians, where sweet water was discovered, site of the Abzu. The transparent is laid over some hand dyed fabric from an earlier class I took with Christine, sort of desert’ish. Though now I wonder if I should try something blue beneath it, for water. And whether I might not cut it up and use parts of it in different things, rather than as one piece.

The stenciling process - cutting out shapes from freezer paper and then ironing that paper onto the silk screen, has created all these negative shapes, which I shall keep and try to use in some other context.

I have been thinking about what skills were key to the development of civilisation in Mesopotamia, and one, of course, is weaving, without which we have neither baskets, nor linen shifts, nor tapestries. So I have been experimenting with the cordage technique, learnt on and Alice Fox workshop at Studio 11 using  grass from the  garden, fibres from yucca and phormium (New Zealand Flax), and some wool roving I bought, to create “thread” of sorts. The blue is the roving, twisted during a recent Studio 11 zoom session.

I like the way the colours work with this fabric, but the “thread” might also be useful with some of the other recent transparents experiments. Or perhaps I'll twist some more

The fabric is, again from an early workshop, using the wax resist technique to evoke the sort of patterns one finds in for example, pottery with scratched patterns, of rock carvings. Here assembled, to see how they might mingle with some linen thread I bought from “somewhere”. 

And here, another assembled group of transparents - fine voile coloured with acrylic inks, walnut ink and rust dyed  

They seem to fit together rather well

I at last have a stool workshop, so I can sit at my bench with music playing - Heligoland in this case (Massive Attack one day Pergolesi the next!) - look at the anemones by the fence, and muse. It is a great pleasure. I am tucked away down the side of the house, and have to duck past the well to get here. It somehow feels appropriate

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.

Alice Fox at Studio 11

We had the pleasure of Alice Fox teaching at Studio 11 last weekend at one of the studio's "Re-Treats". It was the hottest weekend of the year, but that didn't stop us from enjoying ourselves.

We were 8 students plus Alice, and Christine was there to greet us, and to provide us with a lovely lunch each day. The participants ranged widely in experience and practice from my still very novice, to artists who exhibit nationally and internationally. We were asked to talk about ourselves and what "our thing" was to start with. It was really interesting to hear different people's paths to textiles, though I had to confess that I was still trying to find my "thing". Alice talked to us about the way she looks on using found materials as deeply bound up with her desire to tread lightly on the earth and work with the places and things that life brings her.

We spent some time on each of the first three days wandering by the seaside picking up items that could be used for rust printing, eco printing or monoprinting, hence the title of the workshop "Printing the Coast". The first day was spent on Eastbourne beach, on day two it was off to Cuckmere Haven, and day three was foraging at Birling Gap - where I inadvertently discovered the nudist part of the beach. I felt very overdressed! The weather each day was wonderful, the sky pure blue and the sea gentle on the shoreline.

Each trip involved collecting; collecting objects, impressions, marks, feelings, sensations. Alice encouraged us to just sit and be with the place we were exploring, and it was such a delight to do this; to walk and absorb the locality, looking closely, asking ourselves how this place feels, and collecting things to work with later. We took little folded books, which Alice showed us how to make, and used these to record thoughts and impressions; using local materials to colour the paper, making quick sketches, noting down marks on the landscape.

These, along with the things we collected, and other papers and fabrics we had brought, were what we worked with back in the studio. A period of each day was spent with a different process, and with preparing materials for the following day's foraging.

On the first day we explored rust dyeing. Alice noted that although lots of instructions online suggest using vinegar for this, you can also use tea of all sorts - the tannic acid being a more sympathetic catalyst on the collected metals. Vinegar tends to just give you tones of orange, whereas tea will bring all sorts of other greys and deep tones to the mix.

An important element is serendipity - different fabrics will take the marks differently - here a slik noil above, and a dupion silk below show quite a variation in the type and colour in the impression from rusty nails and "stuff"

On the second day we were taught eco printing, using the plant materials we had collected, bundled with fabrics, pressed between the leaves of our books, and placed in the steamer to do its magic. I experimented a bit more this at home. The colours here slightly more subtle than in real life, on a fine weave silk cotton mix whihc really shows the detail from maple and hawthorn

and silk noil again with ash leaves from the Cuckmere walk over rust prints from the beach

The third day was spent monoprinting with the objects we had collected. Mine were mostly made using plant materials and feathers. Other used the printing press in the studio to create collagraphs.

On day four we brought all these things together, using our fabrics, booklets and printed materials to create slightly bigger books. In my case one of them turned into a bit of a monster, albeit a small monster, since each signature is only 7.5x10 cm, but there are twelve of them bound together.

You can see pictures of all our work here, though you may have to scroll down a bit if it's been a while since the course.

As with all previous courses I've been on, along with the teaching, one of the great pleasures is meeting others, seeing what inspires them and enjoying the company of like minded souls. One of the things we commented on during one lunch break was the prevalence of women on this sort of course. Alice said she'd only had a couple of male participants on her previous courses. Something to ponder I think - are we women more willing to integrate creativity into our "ordinary" lives, rather than needing the kudos of being part of a bigger commercial artistic (or sporting) movement? Do we enjoy the participatory and non competitive nature of this sort of artistic expression, or are we simply a self-selected group whose minds and lives move with and are moved by this sort of making? I think a long conversation could ensue - perhaps I'll suggest it to Christine for one of our studio discussions.

So, a wonderful four days, some great fun, many new ideas to absorb and work with, all mediated by Alice's generous teaching and willingness to share. If you want to know more, I recommend her book Natural Processes in Textile Art. It is one of those books I will read and re-read to glean ideas and inspiration.

Thank you Alice and Christine for such a lovely Re-Treat.

Byzantine Klimt

Remember this? Layers of organza on a base of gold Thai silk, from a sleevless top I picked up in a charity shop years ago - saved until it was the right fabric - its day had come. The layers of organza, pared away with the soldering iron, were my introduction to the technique I used on my Anglo-Saxon cuff.

Well, I wondered about - the startling colour change is all to do with the light, not a profound change in the piece!

A mock up using a sketch app on the iPad. Mixing my media! The image, taken in a rather odd light, has been "drawn on" as well!

The blue framing fabric (another Thai silk blouse) was found in different charity shop to the source of the gold, and found after I'd been to Wendy's workshop. How awesome is that! The vivid blue picks up on the blue in the organza, the patterns are the same as the gold base fabric, but on a slightly different scale and can be arranged to echo the patterns in the centre. The fabric is identical in weave and texture. I can use the blue with a bright or dull side, which allows for more subtlety of tone. They can be arranged to echo the patterns in the centre and it allows me to create the illusion of dangling ornament, which echoes the Klimt inspiration

Lots more stitching and beading needed, but it suggests a way forward; definitely worth exploring

Colour all week long

I had a delightful time the week before last at Committed to Cloth, experimenting with colour, enjoying the companionship of the rest of the group and learning from Leslie, who is endlessly generous with her advice and expertise. We all experimented with mixing colours, each from her own source of inspiration. These included pictures torn from magazines, photos of favourite garden flowers, views of much loved scenes, paintings, advertising images, all the colours of the rainbow and more.

Some images were delicate and muted, some vivid and bright, we all brought or own interests and personalities to the workshop. Throughout the week Leslie talked to us about colour and shared her own working practice, inspirations and knowledge. We learnt about cool and warm colours, about tone, contrast, mood, proportion and the way to use the colour wheel to understand what colours go with each other and how they react to one another.

The first day we spent working from just one image, taking two colours from it and attempting to mix each from the eight dye colours available to us. We mixed a base colour, then diluted it, then diluted the dilution, if you know what I mean. These three source colours, light, medium and dark, were then mixed, each with each to achieve a palette of fifteen colours, graded from light to dark, from pure to mixed. The resulting colours were applied in little squares to the pre soda'd cloth of our choice. The studio was awash with little pots of colour and samples pinnned up on the design walls or pinned to the benches as we all experimented to our hearts content.

We were encouraged to "document, document, document" as this is the only way to truly understand the process. We were also encouraged to "steal" from each other, though only in the spirit of knowledge sharing. So, at the end of the first day we each went round everyone's table, with little bits of cloth, and took colour samples from everyone else's families, making notes on the mixes as we went.

This way we all benefited from each other's experimentation and colour interest; those working with a soft muted palettes could have brilliant brights as well, those working with darks could find out about pastels. Oddly, three of us, including me, worked a range from purple to green, my source being the Mackintosh Descent of Night which I had taken with me.

In the following days we either mixed yet more colours, refined the ones we had already mixed, worked on creating imagery from those mixes or some or all of the above. By the end of the week the studio was full of colour samples and creative fabrics produced with our colours. In between these experiments we were fed delicious soups and salads, were tempted by several yummy cakes and a sumptuous cheesecake, had the opportunity to browse the books on the shelves in the studio and were given encouragement, help and advice from Leslie. We also had the pleasure of sharing each other's interests and expertise, and watching everyone's imagery and colour palettes develop through the week. With such a wide variety of experience and practice there was more inspiration than one couple possibly absorb in one week. Plenty of food for thought to mull over in slow time.

You can check out the C to C Facebook page for the results and some details of the lovely work produced. My own images were drawn in part from the pictures I took along for inspiration and in part from experimenting with the tools available in the studio. I became quite adept at applying colour with Leslie's favourite tool, a credit card, tried out some of the thermofaxes, made a thermofax of my own, experimented with brushes and a bit of monoprinting and used masking tape and a silk screen to blend a grid of colours from one of my experiments. All in all, a wonderful week of experiment, learning and laughter in in the company of like minded, creative, talented women.

Maksing tape screen in purple and gold

Monoprinted blues that I couldn't bear to waste

Thermofax umbellifers in greens and golds

Credit card drawn image loosely based on Eric Money's beautiful The Ferryman

layered work in progress from purple to green 

Must try harder

as my teachers always said! I have been busy, just not astonishingly productive. We had teenagers to stay so the house had to be made ready, then it had to be made tidy again and unteenaged! Not that they were too bad bless them; they went to Hastings together and played Crazy Golf on the seafront - mad things. It's a regular ritual when they come and stay. Should I admit to never having played Crazy Golf?

I've been doing little bits of stitching here and there, mostly on the Homage Cloth and my breakdown printing piece which is finally coming together, albeit slowly. I won't post pictures today is it's getting dark outside and artificial light just doesn't pick up the colours properly. I will announce an adventure though. I have next week off work and am going to another workshop with Leslie Morgan at Committed to Cloth. Having worked my last work day today I can now begin to believe I'm having a holiday (life is stressful in the world of libraries just now!)

So, this is what I'll be doing next week, every day. Won't that be fun? I've got some fabric to take with me - 3 metres of cotton poplin, and will buy some of Leslie's lovely cotton sateen while I'm there; it takes colour so very well. Even better, one of my friends from Studio 11 is coming too, so we can swap notes and report back at our next session there.

We've been advised to take some picture inspirations along, so I've put together some images to work with:

Klee - just love the colours here and the way this looks like a quilt. I'm taking another image of his as well for contrast

Charles Rennie Mackintosh - Harvest Moon, my favourite of his, though I've also printed out the lovely Descent Of Night

Jan Myers Newbury, whose shibori pieces are just so amazing

and Paul Nash, whose wonderful sense of mystery and the indwelling spirit of landscape has always thrilled me - though this (Landscape of the Vernal Equinox) might be a bit too gentle for the colour exercises

Hopefully these, and the other six images I'm bringing, including the beautiful Incantation Under a Winter Sun by Rima Staines, will provide plenty of inspiration. I will come home with lots of colour samples like those I did with Michel Garcia, some solid colours, some surface design pieces and a much deeper understanding of how Procion MX dyes can be mixed to get the colours I want.

I do love this dabbling in textiles - what more could you want but colour and texture all together.

Just don't ask me "what are you going to do with all the fabrics" - a common query .... I refer you to my opening statement!