Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

Well, time has truly flown since I last wrote, but that is not to say that I haven’t been well occupied!

The first weekend of September was the ‘Fête des Arts’ at Nieul-sur-Mer, the neighbouring village, and good friends of mine invited me to exhibit in their home; it was a lovely weekend and the visitors who came were really interested in my work which was a real boost. I am happy to say that the following piece found a new home although I was sad to se it go.

Once that was finished I headed off to Sainte-Marie-aux Mines for the EPM show where I was exhibiting in tandem with Chantal Guillermet, our work on show was based on places visited while travelling. Our style of working is very different but as a result complimentary. In the past EPM has been extremely busy attracting people from far and wide, this year there were many fewer people which meant that we had time to talk to visitors and they had good space to view the work on show. It was so good to be among people who were really interested and I was amazed that the distances some people had travelled especially for the show.

Made it to the local paper while I was installing my work.

We chose our exhibition space to suit our work but the lighting and hanging system made it difficult to take good photographs, I need to take the time to redo them all so that they are well lit and square, from these you will have an idea of what I was exhibiting.

Inspired by Indian door curtains and some blue striped fabric I found in India. I dyed the blues, lino printed, wood block printed and appliquéd using motifs I photographed when travelling in India.

These three developed in to a series, the first two were planned as positive/negative works but it was during lock-down and I was doing a big jigsaw puzzle so the idea to create the same doorway with a garden behind as a puzzle came to mind. Once again India inspired.

Based on the Taj Mahal, I photoshopped an image and appliquée it before adding hand stitch detail .

Before visiting Russia I thought the high rise flats were drab but not at all, so I wove a backdrop of dyed fabric and then added the domes.

A street scene on the island of Burano known for its lace with a carnival mask to tie it to Venice….

I couldn’t leave out the African continent so I created a piece based on a batik print I bought in Kenya using fabrics I had brought back from The Gambia.

There was a panel of the small pieces I have done of people met in Pakistan back in the mid ’90s, this one included.

These three are all based on photographs that I have taken while walking here in France.

While I was away an exhibition opened at Ste Marie de Ré where I had three pieces on display, the subject being sea shells. It was an interesting exhibition because not only was it multi media but it also had a scientific element in the guise of lectures. I used two pieces which fit the bill and made one more on the subject of shells.

In this one I have returned to a way of working which I love, stitching directly into the wadding.

Ten days later it was time to head to ‘Pour L’Amour du Fil’ at Nantes where I taught two classes both of which were over full with enthusiastic students, it was so good to be in the classroom again.

At the end of September the fifth Fifteen-by-Fifteen piece was revealed, still based on our chosen country, mine being Pakistan, the subject was literature. I struggled because the north-west of the country is not strong on literature but there is a culture of mime, dance and oral stories. I chose to depict two different tales, that of Halmasti a wolf-like creature the size of a horse spitting flames and that of Terich Mir, 7708 m the land of fairies. The full story can be read with this photograph at Fifteenquilts.com .

Barely back from Nantes and rather last minute I decided to visit the UK for the first time for over two years. This meant that I could finally deliver my niece’s wedding quilt, which I made in the spring, because I had been unableI was unable to get to the wedding in June due to COVID restrictions. I also got to meet my great niece for the first time and gave her a rag doll I had made. I had made a ball for my great nephew but sadly didn’t get to meet him due to illness in the family but at least he now has his ball!

The quilt is made with May Morris design fabrics and pieced by machine. The larger squares are all hand quilted.

I made two new birds to make a collection of four, I sold all the others I had made, for the Arts Atlantique show next weekend.

When I work on my little birds I always use work from photographs that I have taken myself. I sent a small panel of two shells to America for the SAQA trunk show.

Now it is time to start a new body of work and I started off trying out some resist printing, now the ideas are running out ahead of me….

2 comments

Barbara · November 1, 2021

Congratulations on being so prolific!
Look forward to more
Barbara

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- carolinehiggs · November 1, 2021
  
  Thank you Barbara
  
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