Luminary - Serena Partridge & Gawthorpe Hall

Nelson's Column & Big Ben by Serena Partridge

Luminary by Serena Partridge is currently being exhibited at Gawthorpe Hall.  This year, it is 50 years since Rachel Kay-Shuttleworth died.  She set up the Gawthorpe Textiles Collection based at Gawthorpe Hall in Lancashire.  (This is my second trip to Gawthorpe Hall - you can read about the first here.)  Luminary is a series of installations inspired by Rachel & her textile collection.  Working with local schools and adult groups across Lancashire & Yorkshire, Serena Partridge has created pieces which relate to Rachel's life & her ethos of keeping traditional craft skills alive. 
 

Notre-Dame D'Afrique, Algeria by Serena Partridge

Serena creates beautifully stitched artworks inspired by historical textiles and storytelling.  You may have read about Serena on my blog before.  You can find it here.

Bruges Belfry, Belgium By Serena Partridge

"Set" in the Dining Room reflects Rachel's extensive travels on which she collected many of her embroidery and textile pieces. Serena worked with local school children who sketched famous landmarks which she translated faithfully into embroideries.  Her use of glow in the dark thread is a reference to a spiritual experience Rachel had of a great luminosity which convinced her to set up her house (Gawthorpe Hall) as a centre for craft learning.

Eiffel Tower, France by Myles & Serena Partridge

Nuremberg Castle, Germany by Abredha & Serena Partridge

Windmills, Holland - Serena Partridge

In the Long Gallery, "Guide"  takes inspiration from Rachel's long involvement with the Girl Guides and the communal sampler made by Guides to her design.  School children created drawings relating to this or their own experiences of camping and outdoor activity.  These were mixed together and translated into embroidered pennants by adult groups.

Girl Guide Communal Sampler Designed by Rachel Kay-Shuttleworth

Here are some of the pennants...

The pennants were mounted on 7 different poles...

"Care" in the Huntroyd Bedroom reflects Rachel's role as caretaker both of the Hall and her textile collection.  Working together, Serena & Angela Chalmers have produced a series of cyanotypes (a type of cameraless photography) on felt of antique lace and whitework - as if documenting parts of the textile collection.  

Care - Serena Partridge & Angela Chalmers

Care - Serena Partridge & Angela Chalmers

The textile collection itself is very interesting and worth exploring.  I also like the display of Rachel's desk and her green ink labels for everything.

Rachel Kay-Shuttleworth's Desk

One of Rachel Kay-Shuttleworth's labels in characteristic green ink

Whilst I was visiting, I spotted a Threadifitti installation in the grounds.  This textile grafitti piece was made by UCLan's Fashion Design Department, postgraduate students from the MA Textiles and the Ground Up community group.  It uses thread, rope, crochet and embroidery.  There are other pieces in the grounds.  Threadifitti in on display until the end of September.

Threadifitti Installation

Threadifitti & Luminary are both part of Fabrications - a celebration of textiles through the eyes of artists in Pennine Lancashire in September 2017 presented by Super Slow Way.

Luminary is on at Gawthorpe Hall until 5 November 2017.  Why not go and take a look?  There's a cafe & car park in the grounds.

Fabric of Place - Reeth & Swaledale

On a beautiful day at the weekend, I travelled up to Reeth to investigate what was going on in the Fabric of Place project and to make some string with Joanne B Kaar.  I have seen some of Joanne's work before at the Pittenweem Art Festival in 2015 and you can read about it here. 

Joanne B Kaar

The Fabric of Place project is a community based project looking at Reeth and Swaledale and the relationship the communities have with the place they live.  It's a two year Slow Art project.  Slow Art is a movement to help people look at and love art without being an expert and to unlock their passion & creativity.  This project has three artists in residence.  Joanne, who is leading the project, is a fibre artist and weaver of grass and is inspired by place, the natural environment and history and has a lot of experience working with communties through artist residencies.  The other artists involved are Serena Partridge, a visual artist working largely with textiles and stitch and Graham Taylor, a potter.

New Zealand flax and nail brush to shred the flax, dried fibres, dampened fibres ready for string making

On the day your could make string with Joanne, felt with Serena or add to Graham's Green Man.  I chose to make string with Joanne.  She told us how to collect and dry our stems, the need to dampen them before beginning to make the fibres more pliable, and how to twist the fibres together to make string.  Joanne comes from the north of Scotland and has a large garden and so has a wealth of plant fibres to choose from for her making.  She told us that she would be harvesting daffodil stems next - once the flowers had gone.  I hadn't thought of daffodils as being suitable but was pleased they were.  I live in a city with a garden the size of a postage stamp and about the only thing readily available to me at the moment is daffodils - so I shall look forward to trying them out!

My ball of string

I made about 1.25 metres of string - here's what it looks like wound up into a little ball.  And I'm looking forward to making more with my daffodil stems!

Jig mitt made using Oslo stitch & boots made using Coppergate stitch

Once the string is made, Joanne uses the nalbinding ("needle binding") technique to make items.  This predates knitting and crochet and although more ancient still, was popular with the Vikings.  It involves using short pieces of yarn or fibre as the whole length must be pulled through the loops made.  Joanne has used this technique to make her trig mitt and her boots which were on display.  The boots illustrate Coppergate stitch which first seen in the Viking "Coppergate sock" found in York.

Serena Partridge - Gauntlet Glove & Other Work

Although Serena was making felt at the workshop, she had brought some of her beautiful work to show.  I loved the miniature gloves...
 

Serena Partridge - Gloves

Graham, who does a lot of work with heritage institutions making replica pots, was working with folk to complete a Green Man plaque...

Graham Taylor - Green Man - work in progress

The project, which has been developed by Chrysalis Arts Development, is in its infancy.  Joanne has started looking at lichens, present in both Swaledale and her native Caithness.  Lichens are very slow growing - very suitable for slow art!  Artwork may include the mapping of lichens and making clothing inspired by lichens.  Whatever the artists and the community decide on, the outcome will be an touring exhibition in late 2018 which will consist of community artwork and the artists' artwork displayed together.  I can't wait to see it!

Work on lichens has begun - Joanne B Kaar

It was a really interesting afternoon.  If you live in Swaledale do get involved!

Click here for the Facebook link and here for the Twitter link.