Glass and gourds

A morning spent at the Chihuly glass exhibition Kew Gardens culminated in the Lily House, with wonderful contrast between white glass and green gourds.

Back to drawing

It is lovely to be back at the Mary Ward Centre to draw with the inspirational Abigail Downer.  The first exercise is to consider two objects, a natural one and a manmade one, as “actors” in a composition.  My objects are a vase and a gourd, 

Many exercises later, I have a drawing of the vase,  a little lopsided, but a good start.

While studying the structures together, I was struck how overlapping multiple images of the vase mimicked the folds and rolls of the gourd.  That is what I am exploring next,

Treasure

Natural

Natural and man-made

Man-made

found, abandoned, here

Rusting projects ahead, inspired by Alice Fox.

 

Travels and stitches

I have been away in Venice to hear my son sing with his school choir in St Mark’s Cathedral.  The whole visit was incredible - music, canals, gilding, carving, painted ceilings, marble, madonnas, crowds, fans, masks, mosaics, reflections. churches, walking, heat, gondolas, glass, more walking, vaporettos, palazzos, the Biennale.   After 4 days, I had much sympathy with the protestant movement, and understood the need for simplicity and minimalism.  The modern art museum had much to be admired, and I particularly liked the works of Giorgio de Chirico.





So much inspiration, it will take months to digest.
As two of the days were very hot, I retired to the air-conditioned room for a siesta, and did some hand-stitching, comparing French and colonial knots.  The colonial were much more even, but perhaps that was because I had recovered from the heat by then.

Coming home to a wet day, got this bound and finished.  To be displayed next to the quilts at our exhibition in October, to give attendees something to touch, when they really want to touch the quilts.  Most signs about touching the quilts at quilt shows are so negative, I wanted to give a more positive message.

The arrow is whip stitched which was good fun to do.  Maybe inspired by those stripey gondola hitching-posts?

Another one, finished off during the tennis.

and finally, following this tutorial from Benta, a little pouch, as you can never have too many pouches for stuff.

Intriguing, eclectic, bonkers and free

Although 2 Temple Place is only open to the public intermittently, it is worth making a special trip when it is.  I've blogged before about my first visit and that sense of wonder is still there from the moment of seeing the little cherubs with telephones. at the front door.  The current exhibition, " Cotton to Gold" focusses on collections gathered by industrialists who were prominent when the British cotton trade was at its peak.  As ever, the curators mush have had a lot of discussion about what to bring to London to showcase these collections.  The selection on display has put the Haworth Museum on my list of places to visit.  If you like Tiffany glass, beautiful beetles, stuffed birds, illuminated books, Japanese prints visit before 19th April.

Modern glass

Alston Hall ( see previous post) has a very jolly commemorative stained glass window in the little chapel.  I first noticed it when I went for a walk on a very misty Sunday morning.

From within, the colours glowed

Then today, in the Morley College Gallery, there was an exhibition by the Guild of Glass Engravers ( on until 23rd October).   I've never been sure about glass engraving, as a lot of it seems very formulaic and a bit repetitive, however, the pieces on display were very inspiring.  Glass is very difficult to photograph well, but the galleries of each of the artists have excellent representations of their work.

Greg Sullivan

William Saltmarsh

Katharine Coleman

and very movingly, Alison Kinnaird, " The Unknown"

All that, after a lesson on two point perspective, and attendance at a talk last night by Barbara Chainey about her huge collection of pieces made by the Tentmakers of Cairo, was much food for thought.

Exhibition round-up- journals, tanks, textiles and glass

I realise I've send  few exhibitions this month and haven't posted anything about them.  So this is a quick reminder for me really of what I've seen.

First up, the contemporary Quilt Group journal quilt exhibition at the Creative Stitching show at the Excel in London.  I wasn't too taken with this show, not sure why, it seemed a real miss mash of too many different crafts with little focus on showcasing any particular one.  These journals really caught my eye

The week after a visit to the White Cube gallery to see the leather tank.  This was really amazing and I did manage to sneak a photo as those on the website  do not give any idea of the scale.  This is full size,stitched completely by hand by an "army" of stitchers.  once again, my mind rang with thoughts of the artist versus the artisan.

Lovely railings and reflections on the way

Then on to Artist Textiles, Picsaso to Warhol  at the Fashion and Textile Museum.  This is on until 17 May and is well worth a visit.  Lots of lovely fabrics, beautifully curated with really informative posters accompanying the cloth.  By the end I did wonder why there seem to be so few contemporary, named artists working with cloth manufacturers now.  It may be to do with the change from screen printing to roller printing of cloth, as many of the designs below were screen printed, so perhaps the artist maintains more control in that circumstance.

Salvador Dali - I love those swirly lines that build up the dancers

Dali again - bony spines?

Can't remember this one

Picasso - given as a freebie to attendees at a student conference

Joan Miro

Andy Warhol

John Piper- yes, this is cloth

As evr, when I'm on that street, I finished the day with a dash into the London GlassBlowing Studio.  When will someone notice my obsession with Peter Layton and the colours of his glass?  I have a significant birthday coming up in 4 years if any of my family are reading!

Wood, straws, glass, pop-art, doilies, stitching

To be able to combine all of these in one day of art was a challenge, but I did it.  First with a visit to the Royal Academy exhibition " Sensing Spaces - Architecture Reimagined".  Well worth a vsit, even at half term with children interacting with several of the exhibits.  Several people have blogged about this exhibition, here and here.

Health and safety was to the fore of course and that first statement could be applied to one or two individuals I know.

Son doing just that,

before inserting his straws

This was real fun and reminded us both of our visit to the Ernesto Neto exhibition at the Hayward Gallery a few years ago.  In the book shop, a book for my wish list, Archidoodle.

Then off to the glorious exhibition of Chihuly glass at the Halcyon Gallery, on until March.  I love this glass and took so many photos that I would bore everyone by including them.  Instead, here are a few and a link to all of them.  The colours are breathtaking and this time, the gallery includes a ceiling installation which is incredible.

A quick whizz to the Redfern Gallery to see an exhibition of Brian Rice' early works - and a free catalogue, thank you very much.  So many of these paintings could be quilts.

A zoom in to the Vigo Gallery to see the paintings by Biggs and Collings, and was struck again by how easily these paintings could transfer to textiles, particularly "Human Use" shown below ( this image doesn't do any justice to the complexity of the paint).

and to finish a wander down Bond Street to get inspiration from Burberry of what to do with the large bag of doilies languishing in a cupboard waiting for an idea to strike.  Not sure i could carry this skirt off though.

And in case this is all too art - dominated, a bit of proper patchwork ( recycled shirt) and practise stitching on the train, trying out this appliqué technique, but hand stitching rather than machine stitching ( 7 inch square) .  I have an idea in my mind for the Contemporary quilt Group challenge this year, based on the word " dislocation'.  If it works, it will need a lot of appliqué.