10 years on

I realised the other day on the middle one’s 10^th birthday that it must be 10 years since I graduated from Goldsmiths.  In some ways it seems like a life time ago since I was studying textiles there.  So much has happened since and not just in my artwork. 

When I visited Goldsmiths for an Open Day before I became a student, I remember being told that it took on average 10 years after graduation for the textile student to get on the right track for their career.  At the time, I thought, surely not – that seems forever!  Now, 10 years down the line it seems about right.  Things have finally fallen in place as to where I should be going and taking control and teaching from home is exactly what I want to do.  It has taken the 10 years to get to this point.  I don’t think it would have worked any earlier.

An anniversary, like 10 years, is a good time to look back on what I have been doing.  So here are some edited highlights (missing out the low points!) of the last 10 years.

Vigilance V by Gillian Cooper

This was my degree show work. 

Vigliance VIII by Gillian Cooper

I almost made these,

Shelter by Gillian Cooper at Delta Studios

...but at the last minute decided to take advantage of the digital knitting machine as I knew I would not have access to it later.  Some of these knitted pieces later toured in a Scottish Arts Council exhibition, the Cutting Edge.  I finally made the Shelter pieces for the Loch Lomond Quilt Show gallery.  They now live in my garage!

the 37 steps installation by Gillian Cooper at the Changing Room, Stirling

I was ‘Craft Practitioner in Residence’ at Duncan of Jordanstone School of Art in Dundee for a number of months.  It was fantastic opportunity to create a new body of work – the 37 steps, which went on to give me my first solo exhibition at the Changing Room in Stirling.

3 of the 37 steps by Gillian Cooper

This led on to creating the Unsung Muses series, which has occupied me for the past five years.  Initially it was shown at the Festival of Quilts, and this year had a number of outings, including to the European Patchwork Meeting in France and a couple of solo exhibitions in the UK. 

Unsung Muses at the European Patchwork Meeting

Over the past 10 years, I have written for a number of textile publications, given talks to quilt (and other) groups and started running workshops.  The teaching part of my life took a huge step this year when I converted my home studio into a teaching room and started running textile classes from home.  I can’t believe how popular the C&G in patchwork and quilting is and the dedication of the lovely students.  It is enormous fun. 

Facing Time by Gillian Cooper

Looking at this on paper, it doesn’t seem that much, but I’ve also had two more children and they do take up a lot of time – which is great.  We also moved to Scotland.  And how could I forget to mention the PomPom Festival – that really was a bit nuts.

Balfron PomPom Blossom Festival

So, not bad for 10 years.  My work has greatly developed, in ways I couldn’t have imagined and at the moment, I am loving playing with and sharing all different types of surface design.  I’m getting ready to think about the next big art project and spending lots of time teaching and writing.  It will be interesting to see what the next 10 years lead to.

Out & About: Chinese Whispers at the Loch Lomond Quilt Show

Sheena Norquay 'Seapinks at Sandwick', 9th in her chain

I thoroughly enjoyed last week’s final Loch Lomond Quilt Show.  It is a shame that it had to be the final one, but I do understand why it had to end and I’m so pleased that the last one was a success.

Dorothy Deane 'Dutch Elm Disease', 6th in her chain

I had a great time talking to lots of quilters – over the nine Loch Lomond Quilt Shows I’ve been to I seem to have got to know a lot of people; eating good cakes and soup and, of course, seeing some fabulous quilts.  There were many highlights this year and the biggest exhibit by far was Chinese Whispers. 

Marjory McKinven, 'View from the Newsroom Window', 1st in her chain

For Chinese Whispers, 22 different groups of quilters took part, each with between 8 and 14 members.  The first person was given a photo of a pedestrian bridge across the river Clyde in Glasgow (if you watch BBC ‘Reporting Scotland’ you will know the iconic view), and was asked to make a quilt inspired by it, in a limited amount of time, within certain size restrictions.  This quilt, but not the photo was passed to the second person in the chain and so on.  There was great speculation over the past 18 months as to what the photo could be of, but the first quilters in the chain were sworn to secrecy.  

Mairi Wheeler 'West Coast North America', 2nd in her chain

The end results were predictably mixed but this did not lessen the enjoyment or the hilarity at trying to work out the jumps from one quilt to another.  One group very quickly moved from Glasgow to Edinburgh and had the Forth Road Bridge in a number of quilts.  There were chickens, elephant and peacocks and none of the final quilts bore any resemblance at all to the starting image.  It was fascinating.  I wasn’t able to take photos of all 250-odd quilts, but here is a small selection of them.

Diana Brown 'The Last Leaf', 10th in her chain

Out & About: the final Loch Lomond Quilt Show

At the moment, I’m not getting to spend much time in my studio making as I seem to be gallivanting to quilt events all the time (life is really tough!).  Today the last ever Loch Lomond Quilt Show started and I spent the morning enjoying the huge variety of quilts.  In the fact, the variety was so bewildering, I haven’t taken many photos at all!  But there is plenty of time as I am going back tomorrow and Friday.

The Commonwealth Remembers - Coming Home (detail) by Senga Bain 

 Here are some of my favourites from the competition quilts.  Although it is only a detail of Senga Bain’s winning entry, you can see that it is absolutely stunning.  The design and execution are fantastic. 

Greek Island Seas by Marion Robertson

Marion Robertson has mixed a number of different types of fabric to make her quilt, which is all hand printed.  She is having an exhibition with her sister in Carradale, August Bank Holiday Weekend, which will be well worth a visit.  We’re taking our tent.

Colours of Burano by Frieda Oxenham

I love Frieda’s work and this year’s entry looked deceptively simple, but her signature beads are still there and the hand quilting is beautiful, deservedly winning the hand quilting award.

Firelight by Jane Appelbee

Finally, I just love how Jane Appelbee has manipulated and coloured her fabric to give the idea of flames.  It is superbly made.

More to follow from the Loch Lomond Show, when I finally stop talking to people I know (part of the joy of this show is how friendly it is) and hunker down and photograph some quilts.

In my studio: this week

This week I’ve spent almost five full days (or at least school days!) in the studio, which has been lovely.  Although nothing is finished, I thought I would share some of the things I have been working on which are still in progress.

Dyeing fabric

 

I have lots of fabric dyeing going on.  Some in bags, some in tubs, some in tubs and some in buckets.  The first round is complete and now I am making paler colours by using up the excess dye.  Ruth Higham suggested using the pure cotton sheets from Asda  as they dye really well and she was right.  The fabric is lovely and it ironed beautifully afterwards.  I did do something rather silly though and bought a fitted sheet rather than a flat one by error.  I thought I had been checking carefully too!

I have also been painting sketchbooks with the dye to create some backgrounds.

Coffee Cup Patchwork

I started developing a new workshop this week about making patterns and 3D paper piecing.  This is the first sample underway.  I now have the pattern ready and can start piecing next week.

The Big Draw 5 October

I have been charged with planning two of our activities for the Big Draw event FAB Arts is running on Saturday 5 October.  If you are in the Balfron area, please come along as it is a fantastic morning – drop in anytime to the McLintock Hall between 10am and 1pm.  We are going to make paper buildings and I was trying out patterns for them.  We are also going to make mosaics using the huge collection of milk bottle tops I have been accumulating over the years.  I am really excited by this one as if it goes well, we can see about making it into a large scale community art project to go outside in Balfron.

Article on Loch Lomond Quilt Show for Popular Patchwork

I finally crafted my piece on the Loch Lomond Quilt Show for Popular Patchwork – a bit later than normal, but the last few months have been really hectic, then followed by the post-hectic migraine cluster slump.  The feature includes this lovely quilt, 'Fire and Ice' by Frieda Oxenham.

Frieda Oxenham, 'Fire and Ice'

These are just the main highlights.  I’ve also cut a stencil, made a papier mache piñata for a birthday party (still to be filled and painted), sketched and written about several ideas and planned next month’s City & Guilds weekend, checking out lots of fun drawing exercises.  I’ve got next week planned out already – let’s hope it is just as productive and who knows something may actually get completed!

 

 

Balfron PomPom Blossom Festival

Following on from the Loch Lomond Quilt Show, life has been beyond frantic... mainly due to the PomPoms.  I was hoping we would receive 1,000 PomPoms as that, I felt, would give us a reasonable coverage over the village.  I have been staggered by the response and last weekend we hung over 2,250 PomPoms from trees in Balfron.  It has been amazing.  The best bit has been all the people looking at them and smiling and talking about them and why they are there (because it seemed like a good idea?).

 

 

I have millions of photos of PomPoms – these are some taken by Alan McCredie, an Edinburgh based photographer.  The PomPom Blossom Festival has also been featured in The Herald, with me standing amongst them – my first national press appearance (this is a link to the article).  Not sure why they had to give my age.  I wanted to say ‘324 and very well preserved!’ but in the end I was boring and honest!

 

 

I am still logging PomPoms, doing photography and blogging them, but also am having to move on to FABFEST!, Balfron’s first arts festival, which starts a week today.  As well as being one of the three organisers (and the PomPoms are part of it), I am running two felt making workshops Friday 14^th June (still place available),curating along with Dawn our ArtWorks exhibition for the Saturday and arranging drop-in art activities to run alongside the exhibition AND I have Open Studios from 11-4 on the Sunday. Better start tidying now!

 

 

PS - I'd better say that FABFEST! and the Balfron PomPom Blossom Festival have been generously funded by Awards for All (Scotland).  We're really grateful for the grant as we have been able to do so much more than would have been the case.  Thanks!

Out & About: Unsung Muses at the Loch Lomond Quilt Show

Unsung Muses is having an outing to the Loch Lomond Quilt Show this week.  Hanging it proved a bit challenging, but I am rather pleased with myself as I had to go up the ladder and tie off the ends.  As a child I couldn’t go upstairs at Primary School, I was so scared of heights, so sitting at the top of the ladder and feeling comfortable there was actually quite an achievement!

I love the Loch Lomond Quilt Show.  It always has a variety of interesting exhibitions and you normally discover an artist or body of work you knew nothing about, but whose work excites you.  Hopefully this year that artist and work will be mine!

The first two days have been fun; the visitors are lovely and I’m catching up with lots of quilting friends as they come round to see the Show.

The actual work looks very different from when I hung it at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham two years ago.  It’s amazing how different it looks in a different setting.  Personally, I like the white gallery walls better without quilt frames, but a number of people have commented how much more they like it here, with lots of natural lights and a more human setting.  What do you think?