Art and Textiles: November 2012

Thursday, November 29, 2012

The Irish Machine

Wow, I love this machine and now I have been inducted I can't wait to get back into uni and spend some time on it. Tomorrow I will try and add an image of my very first piece, but just needed to blog today as so excited about the prospects of some creative pieces to follow, I hope!!

Friday, November 23, 2012

Recently I have been to several galleries in just 2 weeks. In Liverpool, the Walker Gallery, Tate Liverpool and The Blue Coat and then to London for The National Gallery, Tate Britain and The Portrait Gallery but it wasn't until I visited Gloucester Cathedral yesterday, that I really felt inspired to start creating. Ptolemmy Mann and Anna Glasbrook's exhibition 'The Architecture of Cloth, Colour and Space' was truly stunning and it was the latter artist that really struck a chord! Glasbrook works with textiles to create bespoke installations for achitecture using brightly coloured threads and materials to make three dimensional drawings in space. Glasbrook (www.annaglasbrrok.com/blog) says that she is obsessed with transparency and collects plastic packaging destined for the recycling bin, stitching into them whenever she gets the chance. She is inspired by photographs that she takes of architecture and the urban and rural landscape.

Some of my favourite were:

Floating series 2: Aura mixed media, steel and acrylic frame.

Side view of Aura

Structures Series ~ 6 Grey and Pink, mixed media

Structure Series ~ 5 blue, mixed media

Calm, mixed media, anodised aluminium frame

I now look forward to making some samples inspired by this work. I would like to try using some of my painted fabrics and include some embroidered text.

Artist Statement

I am a mixed media artist living and working in Bristol. Always interested in art for pleasure, I embarked on creative courses as my second son started school. I was secure in a happy family life, but when tragedy struck art became my way of making sense of the world that I had unconsciously become part of. Emotions that made no sense could be explored and played with: loss, anger, control and hope worked through until a sense of calm could be achieved.

The work can be textile or paper based and often involves photography, but the direction always varies as it responds to my emotional state: sometimes process driven, sometimes a reaction to feeling or a thought. It may be in the form of obsessive and repetitive mark making or the abstract use of colours and symbols that explore psychological states of wellbeing. Sometimes it just records a moment which may become a memory, or may just become lost. But the aim is always the same: to live through the conflicts of life and appreciate that sometimes it can be the things that go wrong and show our vulnerability that can actually strengthen and add the most value.