More Inspiration

 The following  pictures were taken during my last "trip" to the Esch/Belval site. While this is a new building and hasn't really anything to do with the steel industry (though in the same area) I was fascinated by the different apertures and the torn plastic sheets which all show different shapes and textures.                              

                                      

I love this picture because of its composition, which was a deliberate choice, the mixture of old and new, the squares and the curved yellow shape as well as the bright green plants in the foreground

 

TEXTILE STUDY GROUP WITH JANE MCKEATING

 This year's theme for the Summer School was "Travelling Lines", the travel could be going downstairs to the kitchen to have a cup of coffee, the garden, a real travel or even an imaginary one.

I saw this as an opportunity to get back into the theme had I chosen for the Diploma and shortly before leaving for the UK went back to the nearby industrial site to eventually draw, take pictures and get re-inspired.

The class started with a quick but efficient exercise where we were asked to go out and make 20 sketches in 20 minutes on Post-it papers. We had to choose a maximum of 3 different mediums. Unfortunately it was still raining, we had to be quick and concentrate on the essential. Then we had the same exercise (less sketches) on our chosen theme relying on our memory.

We then had to choose three words out of those written down by our neighbour and do collages either with paper or fabric or both of them. Again this exercise had to be done rather quickly.

I wanted to render an urban feel, the decay and geometric shapes of Esch/Belval. This was an exercise I really enjoyed. I had taken some of my painted papers with me and knew in which direction I wanted to go. The limited amount of time was good as you didn't get tempted to overdo a piece.

All the time Jane showed us some of her work to explain what she wanted us to do and what the possibilities were. We were talking about thread, the colour of it, the amount of stitching, edges, we did some monoprinting (something I loved).

I soon realized that I wanted to start stitching on fabric, I was longing for some fabric in my hands. So the last day and a half I spent on the stitching.

Jane took the time to mentor each of the students separately. She didn't use the time that was supposed to be her free time. In this tutorial we took a look at my Diploma sketchbook and some of my photos. We discussed why it was important to sketch instead of taking just pictures with the cell phone. (I was so motivated that I sketched while waiting for boarding at the airport :) 

I told Jane that I'd like to introduce more figurative elements at least in this body of work, maybe with monoprinting, who knows. I also realized how much I missed hand stitching (which I did then on my trip back to Luxembourg) as well as working with concrete imagery. I was very much attracted by the loose paints in Jane's work and I was mesmerized by the amount of her stitching.

The following pictures show the collaged work as well as the work in progress which I started in fabric.

  

Sculptural work

 

Details

All of the three pieces were done with a rope basketry technique. As far as possible the pieces were done on the sewing machine, the shaping happened through the positioning of the piece, holding it for instance more upright. The different elements were sewn together by hand. I started with an idea in mind but then had to go with the flow and let the piece develop for itself. 

 I deliberately chose to not work in color, having discovered my love for black an white in one of the Distant Stitch Modules. I wanted the shapes to speak for themselves but due to the stopping and restarting when replacing the black thread there is some variation in tone.

I think my main influence for doing this work comes from the times when I had pottery classes. This technique remind me of the work on the potter's wheel. The link to the natural world is obvious, the love for harmonious shapes continues to influence me.

It was interesting to hear what people had to say about my work and what they saw in it. 

The material used is a cream coloured 3mm macramé thread and regular black thread.

This is what I do in the evening when I'm tired but still have to do something with my hands.

This is all hand work, also a basketry technique using linen rope and 0,9 mm linen thread