My inspiration always comes from natural and man-made patterns in and on the Earth’s crust. My regular followers and collectors know that I’m currently very interested in stuffed Suffolk puffs. Several tabletop installations of these 3D units, in the “Growth’ series were presented in my recent solo exhibition, “Elements of Landscape”. Originally based on anything roundish as it grows in volume; think of some coloured dye dropped into water, or the rapid development of a huge storm cloud, and the volcanic magma solidifing as it runs into the sea forming large nodules known as pahoehoe (which inspired two wall quilts of that name) and just look at these mushrooms in our own garden today :
These puffs make a lovely surface for further stitch embellishment, and I’ll continue to explore it intil I feel it’s run its course, or that I just need to take a break from it. That’s exactly what I did with my “Ancient Explorations” series, last added to with A.E XIV, 1992. I’ve alway felt that it’s still ‘open’ and that one day I might resume making A.E. works – never say never! Recently another fibre artist, can’t remember in which group or SM page, apologised for being a bit obsessive with her current theme – but I feel that a certain degree of obsessive focus on one theme is the situation out of which innovation occasionally emerges as we artists periodically review and question our work.
In conversation with several other textile artists this week, the importance of meaningful stitching has come up in several ways. On Tuesday, our embroiderers circle held its fortnightly zoom meetup All the others are still members of the StitchClub, and several showed some delightful samples from the recent stitched portrait workshop, with show and tell being an important part of our get togethers. StitchClub is about learning and trying out stitch techniques on sample piece with a topic the teacher selects. Some members leave them unmounted, but others methodically mount and catalogue them in albums as a record, and others incorporate them into a finished project by framing or incorporating into a cushion cover, and so on.. A couple of Pinks said/confessed they didn’t like stitching portraits so they’d skipped that workshop – and we all agreed it’s important to stitch something that has personal meaning.
As an experienced member of SAQA, each year I volunteer to mentor a fellow member who has applied for mentor guidance to help them work towards particlar goals they have identified. This year’s partnership has just commenced, and my new mentee is looking for guidance on focusing and refining her vision and style, in other words developing a recongisable ‘artist’s voice’. If I’m a successful mentor, the process that has just started will continue long after our contract year ends. My own personal experience developing my own voice rather than work to someone’s suggested theme began with a slide presentation by an American art quilter 35+ years ago, as she showed us her works in chronological order and talked about what they told her about herself and her vision. Much of my work at that time was still creative embroidery but all had been professionally photographed in my 1987 ‘Sunburnt Textures’ exhibition – so I did as she did, and it was an eye opener. Through this blog and lots of other bits of writing (lists, quotes) and sample making that my dear readers never see, I’ve continued with ongoing self examination with research of all kinds of things, ranging between my lifelong personal interests and newer, often tech driven interests. Through my own Life Story (see pickledgizzards) and jottings in this blog, you may see how some of my personal views have long been expressed in stitch of some kind.
And also in the last few days I was discussing my recent solo exhibition with a friend who strongly suggested that I now need to make and show some installations. They’re big on installation art here in UY, but it’s my opinion that too many fibre or textile art ‘installations’ are essentially large sized collections of fabrics or fibres, too often lacking real manual skill or craft. I admire a number of installation artists who do spend a great deal of time and effort using their best skills to present their vision, and my own portfolio shows I could do the same if it helps me achieve what I want to create, but I’m not interested in working large just for the sake of it.
