Out & About: EPM in Alsace, lots of lovely scenery

Sunburst at sunset over the vineyards at St Hippolyte

I’m just back from a fabulous four days at the European Patchwork Meeting in Alsace.  It was a great time: the work was stunning and very varied; I met up with some people I knew and met some lovely new ones; and it was hot and sunny!

St Hippolyte

I have still to process all of what I saw, as well as the 600+ photos I took, so in the meantime, here are some of the ones I took of the beautiful scenery.  I was staying in the village of St Hippolyte, where the hotel was surrounded by vineyards.  The last of the harvest was being brought in and from what I tasted of the local wine, next time I go I will definitely make sure I can take some home.  Hand luggage isn’t much good for this!

Shutters at Ste Marie aux Mines

Patchwork Garden at Villa Borrus, St Croix aux Mines

Large loaves of bread!

Early morning mist over the vineyards

St Hippolyte

Art with the kids: 3 types of painting and printing with a 7 year old

As a treat from our visit to the Ming exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland the other weekend, we bought some rice paper and an ink stick to play with at home.  

We’ve been enjoying an Indian summer here and so the other evening after school, we took the paper, ink, some brushes and a little bowl outside to try. 

We got some lovely marks, using the ink in different strengths and pressing on the brush in other ways.  It was a very relaxing half hour for me and I think the seven year old did too!

She and I have been exploring in the studio quite a bit recently (this can be interpreted as I want to be in the studio playing so I need to find something the kids want to do there too!).  I brought back some sun printing paper from the States for them and we finally gave it a go.  In typical kid fashion she was pleased with her first attempt and didn’t want to do any more – as an adult I always want to do more.  

We’ve also been experimenting with the gelli-plate printing, another extravagance from America.  I’ll show you some of my results soon once I get going on it, but it was fun just to try out.

This all sounds like some kind of mothering idyll.  It certainly isn’t!  We haven’t made any art for months, even less since I stopped running kids art classes and whilst we’ve been doing these pieces, the boys have been out playing or playing on computers.  Still we can all do impressions of good parenting at times, especially when it overlaps with my studio interests!

Out & About: Frieda Oxenham and 52 Journals

Memory by Frieda Oxenham

On Friday, I spent a lovely day in the Scottish Borders, visiting Frieda Oxenham and her exhibition ’52 Journals’ at the Tweeddale Museum and Gallery, Peebles.

Thoughts Fly Swift by Frieda Oxenham

For an entire year, Frieda made one journal quilt a week, mainly A4-sized, with one a month 10in square.  They are beautiful little works of art, and as you would expect from Frieda, each one has a lot of care, attention and time given to it.  It is really astounding she managed to make them all in just one year given all the other projects she had on too.  If you can make it to Peebles, it is well worth a visit.  The work is exquisite.

Some of Frieda Oxenham's inspiration photos

As well as the actual quilts, Frieda had a book of the inspirations behind the journal quilts and a little explanation on how she got from the inspiration to the quilt.  When I was there, many visitors were spending lots of time of time reading and enjoying the work.  Frieda was very generous with her time and I have lots of notes now to go and write an article on her amazing work for Popular Patchwork.

Circle of Creation by Frieda Oxenham

Frieda has a great blog at http://friedaquilter.blogspot.co.uk/.  You should visit and say hello!

Doodle by Frieda Oxenham

Out & About: Matisse, Tate Modern, the National Gallery and lots of colour

Sunset from the National Theatre

One of my exciting summer adventures was a weekend in London, by myself.  It was a bit of a mega treat and although I could have done thousands of things, I decided to concentrate on just going to a small number of exhibitions and museums and making the most of those visits.

The river Thames from Waterloo Bridge

I don’t know if it was fear of the oyster card system or stubbornness, but in the end I walked everywhere.  It was a great way to re-acquaint myself with the place I lived for 10 years, seeing lots of new things and being entertained by the buzz of the metropolis.  On the Saturday evening, I went to a play at the National Theatre and there was the most fantastic sunset over the city during the interval.  I was so glad I had my ‘proper’ camera with me!  Afterwards I joined lots of other photographers/tourists on Waterloo Bridge taking night-time shots of the river. 

Bus going over Waterloo Bridge

But my main reason to go, was to visit some art.  Principally the Matisse cut-out exhibition at Tate Modern.  For me, it was worth the anticipation.  I love the bold shapes and clever designs of these pieces and whilst they look good in reproduction, it was fascinating to see them close up and see the pin holes where the pieces of paper had been tacked to the wall before the final layout was pleasing to the master.  Also, there is more variation in colour than can be seen in a reprint, something that had annoyed Matisse with his Jazz book. Although the exhibition has finished in this country, there is an app with loads of fantastic images and info you can download.

Henri Matisse, Large Composition with Masks 1953 National Gallery of Art, Washington. Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund 1973.17.1 Digital Image: © National Gallery of Art, Washington Artwork: © Succession Henri Matisse/DACS 2014

After a lovely time browsing in the bookshop (I picked up lots of books intending to buy, but eventually put most them back!) – I don’t often get to a really good bookshop – I walked over to the National Gallery where Margaret Cooter had recommended the Making Colour exhibition.  For once, I decided to take the audio guide, which was a good move, as it gave so much more information as to why the particular paintings had been selected to represent a certain shade or preparation of colour.  Although I know that certain colours are less stable than others and fade at different rates, seeing some examples of what the paintings would have looked like in their heyday was astonishing and. in some cases, somewhat gaudy!

Henri Matisse, The Snail 1953, Gouache on paper, cut and pasted on paper mounted to canvas, Tate © Succession Henri Matisse/DACS 2013

My favourite piece in the Making Colour show was a photo of ‘Seizure’ an intriguing contemporary artwork by Roger Hiorns, definitely in the blue section.  It has just been moved to the YorkshireSculpture Park and it is definitely on my list to see next time I visit there.  This is a link to a video about it that the Guardian made when the work was moved last year.

Henri Matisse, Icarus 1946, Maquette for plate VIII of the illustrated book Jazz 1947, Digital image: © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Jean-Claude Planchet, Artwork: © Succession Henri Matisse/DACS 2014

I was going to tell you about the Sunday as well, but I think this is more than enough words for one blogpost, so I’ll keep the museum visit for another one.

New work: Lost in Time

Detail of 'Lost in Time; by Gillian Cooper

Arrgh – migraines!   I had great plans for last week, but my head scuppered most of them as I was well under the weather from Wednesday until this morning.  So I didn’t achieve much in the studio last week and even the tidying up project has been somewhat delayed.  Anyway.  I’m back on feet now and am raring to continue, especially as I got my lovely delivery of cotton and silk from Whaleys last week so I can get on with dyeing for some new big pieces.

'Lost in Time' by Gillian Cooper

I’ve started one, as in my first part of tidying up, I discovered I had lots more hand dyed fabric than I thought, which was rather lovely.  The next pieces are going to follow on from this piece ‘Lost in Time’, which is touring with the CQ exhibition ‘Dislocation’.  I don’t normally make pieces for challenges, but as I could fit the theme nicely with my work on ancient goddesses and I really fancied making this bird woman, I decided to give it a go.  

Detail of handling sample for 'Lost in Time; by Gillian Cooper

Timing was a bit tight due me leaving it to the last minute and also due to summer holidays.  However, I was really chuffed I finished (at least well enough for photography) on the last day of school before the summer holidays and to get my sample piece sent off at the same time.  I received the email that it was going to be part of the exhibition on the ferry as we left for our holiday in Holland, which was a fantastic start to a great vacation.

Detail of 'Lost in Time; by Gillian Cooper

For those interested in the technical details, rather than use iron-on Vilene this time, I used bondaweb on the fabric and then stitched round each patch, as a form of raw edge appliqué.  I couched the outline of the figure using hand dyed yellow cotton, which I had machine corded with red thread.  I would have finished it a lot earlier if I hadn’t decided to cord the outline thread or if I had just used the silk sari strips directly onto the figure without ruching them first.  One day I will make it easy on myself!

Current work in progress

Out & About: the Festival of Quilts

My quilt in the competition category - top left

Somewhat unsurprisingly, one of my weekends away this summer was to the Festival of Quilts.  As usual, it was great fun.  Unusually for me, I had finally entered a quilt in the art quilt category.  It was really interesting to see how different it looked to when it was hung at home, with better light.  It seemed rather washed out as opposed to delicate!

Dislocation exhibition

I also had a piece in the CQ exhibition ‘Dislocation’.  I was really pleased that it was selected.  I don’t think I’ve shown it in detail on the blog yet as I only finished it the day before the summer holidays started.

Yvonne Kervinen 'Urban Landscape'

There was some great artwork on show.  I really liked the work of Gabi Mett and Judith Mundwiler, who shared a gallery.  For some reason, I didn’t take any photos of their work, but you can check it out online here and here.  The EQA exhibition is always interesting and this time was no exception.  Here is a link to some gallery shots, as no photos were allowed.

Cecilia Gonzalez Desedamas 'The Difference'

The photos here are of some of the pieces I liked in the competition quilts.  They are a bit random as I was just enjoying wandering and contemplating rather than ‘working’. 

Brigitte Kopp 'Gebarmutter'

Margaret Ramsay 'Nautical Dawn'

Finally, the best thing about the Festival of Quilts for me is meeting up with old friends and making new ones.  In the second category, I met with Linda Seward who was promoting her new book, ‘The Ultimate Guide to Art Quilting’.  She was lovely in real life but I have a bone to pick with her.  All weekend I admired her beautiful scarf, thinking what great taste she had.  Unfortunately towards the end of the weekend I discovered she had bought it at the show as there was a stall, Pappumama, selling them and so one of them just had to find its way into my bag... It is rather beautiful!

 

Nice scarf!

In my studio: fabric printing and painting

screen print onto hand dyed fabric

After a summer out of the studio, having fun as well as seeing lots of fantastic artwork, I’m struggling to settle back into making.  There are so many things I want to make, but I just don’t seem to be getting started right away.  I thought I knew exactly what I was going to do, but I’ve discovered out I didn’t!  What had seemed the key things during the holidays have turned out to be less fully fleshed out ideas than I had thought.

Hanging out to dry

Rather than panic – I have some exciting deadlines which I’ll tell you about later – I have decided to take things easy and just paint and print and see where that leads to.  So here are some of the things I’ve been ‘playing’ at this week. I don't know where any of them will lead, but maybe the panic will start subsiding in a week or two...

Reverse of the breakdown printing

Painting with thickened dyes

Mono-print from bubblewrap

Printing with bubble wrap

Painting with Inktense pencils

Print plate ready to make mono-print

Lightly dyed fabric, with circles stamped on top

Out & About: Carradale and the quilt show

Although it is still August, it feels like the end of summer.  And it has been a fabulous one!  A dearth of blog posts from me will be for one of two reasons: either I feel down and inadequate and so have nothing I think is worth sharing, or things are going very well and I’m really busy with family and enjoying life.  Luckily this has been the latter and rather than worrying about not creating work over the summer holidays, I decided just to enjoy them this year.  So after our trip to Yorkshire in the last post, I’ve also been to Holland, the Commonwealth Games, London, the Festival of Quilts, had two lots of friends and family to stay and at the weekend there, we went to Carradale on the Mull of Kintyre to see Marjory MacKinven and Marion Robertson’s exhibition.

I hadn’t visited that area of Scotland for the best part of 20 years but we had such a lovely time I hope it won’t be 20 years until the next time.  We camped at Carradale Campsite, which led straight onto the beach  - a fantastic location.  

The views were stunning, as you can see from the harbour view (which R took).

Marjory with Liz Ferguson and some of their beautiful sketchbooks

Then, of course, there was the exhibition.  It was fabulous seeing so many of Marjory and Marion’s quilts in one room.  The theme of the work was ‘From the River to the Sea’ and both of them are heavily influenced by water in their work.  

I love Marion’s pebbles which I first saw at the Festival of Quilts last year.  

Also in a grey colourway was Marjory’s new piece based on Skipness Castle.  I think it was my favourite piece in the show.  We visited the castle on the way home.

The kids loved the baby quilts on show and were very proud of their efforts at mono-printing on fabric.  Thanks Marion for being so patient and showing them how to do it.  They were thrilled. 

I’m now back in work mode and really pleased to be so – having the summer off was fun but so is being the studio.  This week I’m dyeing and printing lots of fabric.