The Exhibition

The exhibition is ‘done and dusted’, dismantled, work collected and accounts processed. It is always a pleasure to look at textile related work in a gallery setting and fun to be part of a group exhibition show casing the diversity of work of such talented women. You can see more of the exhibition here.

Here at the opening night, thanking Glenys Mann for opening the exhibition and presenting her with a large woollen blanket. Glenys uses these frequently in her textile work and I knew that she was in desperate need of more for a forthcoming exhibition.

Being part of an exhibition somehow makes you look st your work with fresh eyes. I tend to make and then either give away or put into a cupboard and never or rarely seen again.  These photographs, taken on the opening night, give you a taste of some of my work as it appeared in the exhibition. The works on the three lower shelves are examples of this. The third shelf on the right contains my ‘Box of Cards’ a group project that involved making a postcard each month in response to a themed topic.

A close up of one of the cards, the theme was Symbols and Icons. My interpretation was Cat as Icon.

This is one of the pieces that has been in the cupboard for a few years. free machine embroidery, with eco dyed silk leaves.

My first contribution was to stitch the Breaking Tradtions embroidery sign - used for the advertising material.

I make many books, this is one of the pages from my Birds of a Feather book.

From my glue book. These pages were another group project looking at design ideas that could be interpreted in future stitched works.

Birds are often featured in my work. This stitched Owl bollard was made using little pieces of embroidery that were then attached to a base fabric that covered a weighted Pringles tin. Lots of free stitch to cover the joins and fill in the space.

Some more bird sculptures, Crows and Ravens are a favourite image for me to use, the Black Swan lent itself to a dramatic tail treatment.

Another bird, mixed media with botanical contact/ecodye fabric covering the body/for feathers.

The peacock is stitched and has vintage lace that was cut up and used to make the tail and flowers. Pearls and sequins were used to attach the lace on the tail and provide that bit of  flashy glamour that is expected of a peacock.

Palm Trees, another of my tonal works. This is very heavily stitched and worked on the reverse of the fabric.

Another of the tonal pieces. Texture 1 is a quite small, mixed media piece. In includes washers, buttons, beads and stitch, predominantly French Knots.

Esme is one of my pieces on display at home, she  is a bit difficult to stuff into a cupboard and gets to sit on a shelf in my sewing room.

Nudes are another area of interest. I use a variety of life drawings from an art class that I did many years ago and experiment with stitch and the backgrounds.

Papier-mâché people.

Fallen. This photograph was taken prior to framing, it is a very large piece and it was too difficult to photograph on the night.