As the leaves fall from the trees I realise how long it is since I updated this page. I like to add new work to prove that I am working but I don’t post any major work until it has been exhibited, so because I have been working on one piece for so long I don’t have much to show for the time being.  This is a small detail of the work in progress:

Having returned from the Birmingham I was inspired to have a go at marbling and it is something that I will go back to. I had a trial run by marbling some ladies for my September JQ, I marbled, appliquéd and on to a commercial fabric which I hand quilted to highlight the vertical lines. I kept it simple but now want to have another go with brighter colours.

Mid September was the Carrefour Européen at Ste Marie aux Mines in Alsace. The weather was cold and wet but it was a good show, and as usual the networking was great. I was really impressed by the Zero 3 ‘s Signature IX exhibition and that of Ian Berry who works in denim with incredible attention to detail.

After the show I went on to do a four day course with Denise Labadie, two days of making a mess with paint and then two days of stitching. It remotivated with fabric painting which I have always enjoyed but she really opened my eyes to the ways in which I could use it. We worked from photos so were aiming at personalised colour palettes.

Needless to say I haven’t yet finished my work but I will find the tile to get back to it soon. Very unexpectedly the hotel we were staying in had some wonderful samplers and small dress hanging in the dining room, they were behind glass but the attention to detail was fantastic and they were very well conserved.

 

While I was away I had my October JQ with me to stitch, I was playing around with a stencil and a flour resist screen. Once the colours were stencilled I concentrated on stitching the background, the idea was to seed stitch with black thread to darken the background fabric.

The end of September was the reveal for the final piece of the Fifteen by Fifteen series. I worked with the same motifs for all five pieces and actually worked them one after the other  because the ideas flowed. This one was using a piece that I had dyed a couple of years ago and fitted perfectly for the centre piece, I then printed some other fabric from the same dye session as the border. The motifs are hand stitched and some added glittery flower centres completed it.

The full series is below with the original photograph which was my starting point and which I photographed in Bagru, India, which is known for its indigo dyeing which makes the  last piece all the more relevant.

 

Mid October and there was a Creative show just down the road which I had signed up to as an exhibitor. In all there were only 5 of us exhibiting, one of whom was Chantal Guillermet, and we were placed in a dead-end corridor but the visitors we did have were those who chose to come and have a look so were actually interested. I got a lot of hand stitching done and had some really good and encouraging conversations. It is good to hear want people think and not necessarily those who are, themselves, involved in textiles. The photo quality isn’t good but it was a great exhibition space.

With the autumn weather I was inspired to go  for a walk and collect some leaves to have a go at eco-printing. The leaf colours are quite beautiful, and the iridescence of some of them is incredible. The fungi in the lower part of the wood  were really interesting and inspiration started flowing…

Once home I cooked up some leaves and the results were promising, although at the moment I really don’t need any more fabric so I will have to tie my hands behind my back until I get my next exhibition for the International Biennial, in Beaujolais, finished.

Yesterday, thanks to the advice of somebody I met last weekend, I went to two art exhibitions further down the valley. I didn’t know what to expect but I was really impressed, I hadn’t realised how many truly talented artists are living and working in this area. At the fist one in Viuz-en-Sallaz there were two artists who really attracted my attention. One was Lilian Gailly who works recycling cardboard in to sculptures, the transparency of  some of the pieces really appealed to me.

 

The other was Anne Liger-Mercier who works with locally collected vegetation, her work really inspired me and we had a really long discussion about the methods she uses.

The final exhibition was good,  a really good mix of different styles of painting and sculptures.