The 62 Group - Tailored - Sunny Bank Mills, Farsley, West Yorkshire

 

Sian Martin - Process (detail) & Hannah Lamb - Deconstructed Shirt (detail)

The 62 Group, a renowned textile art collective, are currently exhibiting at Sunny Bank Mills with an exhibition entitled - Tailored.  The work in Tailored explores multiple meanings and interpretations of the word itself and what it means to the individual artists’ practice. Some artists consider the process of making and elements of it; the design and weaving of cloth and the pattern, pinning, cutting and sewing of a garment. Other artists take a more narrative and personal approach to the meaning. The techniques used include stitch, knit, casting, drawing and film; sculpture and installation.  The exhibition is also a celebration of 10 years of culture at Sunny Bank Mills where cloth was produced that was used primarily in the making of suits.

I'm going to give you a whistlestop tour through some of my favourites...

Sian Martin - Process

Sian Martin's Process (above & detail at top) is inspired by one of the mill workers at Sunny Bank Mills and Sians's own beginnings in dressmaking.  Sian was fascinated by tailor tacks and their ability to transfer marks through layers of cloth.  This piece celebrates those traditional dressmaking skills.   Also the repetitive and rhythmic stitching of this piece celebrates that stage in the process of making a tailored garment.

Hannah Lamb - Deconstructed Shirt & Dressing Up

Hannah Lamb's work is always interesting.  Taking a vintage man's shirt, with it's overtones of  masculinity, formality and appropriateness, Hannah has used a devore technique to deconstruct it and to question whether those overtones are valid or a camouflage behind which someone is hiding.  In Dressing Up, Hannah has developed this theme further using cyanotype imagery of the Deconstructed Shirt to suggest the different layers of our private and public selves.  The mannequin between the images offers a different body image playing with ideas of size, gender and identity.  Are we dressing to fit in or express our true selves?

 

Hannah White - Fluidity & Rigidity: No 4 

Hannah White "tailors" her weaving into a customised, sculpted form using conductive threads and a process called electroforming. This creates a metal skeleton on the conductive threads around which the fabric folds. Hannah describes this as engineering with thread.  I don't pretend to know how this actually works but would like to know more about the process and even see it in action.  The results are impressive.

Teresa Whitfield - Woollen Stockings for the Mending Girl

Teresa Whitfield was inspired by a circular knitting machine at Sunny Bank Mills.  Typically they were used for knitting worsted stockings but the one here in Farsley was actually used for knitting dyed samples that would be used for the woven cloth.  Here she imagines it used for knitting some stockings for one of the female mill workers and wonders about their living and working conditions and the inequalities of the textile industry.  Her work is a drawing of knitted fabric.  Teresa sees a parallel between the repetitive and meditative act of drawing knitting and of the act of knitting itself.

Shuna Rendel - Thread in the Air (detail)

Shuna Rendel has the Asian tailorbird as her inspiration.  This small creature stitches together leaves using spiders' web or plant fibres to make a cradle for its nest.  Shuna has created a series of possible cradle variations using avocado skins, vine tendrils, gladioli sepals, vetch pods and waxed linen thread.

Ann Goddard  - Tailor-Made

Ann Goddard was also inspired by the tailorbird and by the bespoke clothing made by Master Tailors.  Both the bird and the Master Tailors create something that will blend into the environment of the user.  Here Ann used the pockets of a pinstripe suit, the fabric of which was similar to that woven at Sunny Bank Mills, as the cradle for the nest which is represented by the abaca fibre inside.  The suit used was made by Master Tailor Beno Dorn who btw made the first suits worn by the Beatles.

There are plenty of other interesting pieces in the exhibition.  This is just a small taster.  You'll have to be quick to catch this one as it closes on 2 July 2023.  Do go if you get the chance.

Sunny Bank Mills is a great place to visit.  Apart from the Gallery and shop on site, there are various cafes, a Scrap Shop, the Sunny Bank Mills Archive, artists studios, shops and more.  There's also plenty of car parking.

Jeanette Orrell – Drawings on Indigo - Ruthin Craft Centre, Wales

Jeanette Orrell - Untitled (Indigo blanket) XIV

I have long wanted to visit Ruthin Craft Centre. I have read about their exhibitions, particularly their textile and mixed media exhibitions, and wished I was a little closer and able to visit. Having seen that Jeanette Orrell was exhibiting, I made arrangements to go - and was not disappointed.

Jeanette Orrell was born in Leigh, Lancashire in 1964 but has lived in Wales for more than 20 years. Originally trained in ceramics at Camberwell School of Art, following graduation she travelled between London, Japan and Greece before returning to the North West to continue her art and bring up a family. In 2017 she was awarded an Arts Council of Wales Creative Wales Award to study indigo dyeing on a farm in the foothills of Mt Fuji in Japan. Orrell brings fine art and craft together informed by familial ties, making, nature and motherhood.

Jeanette Orrell - Untitled (Indigo blankets) & Untitled 

(Indigo plant drawings) I-VII

Orrell's work combines a daily drawing practice with the art of indigo dyeing. This particular body of work was developed following the death of her father and contemplates mourning, recovery and regrowth. Jeanette found she had chosen a tradition that has a longstanding connection with mourning. Indigo was woven through the funerary wardrobe of Tutankhamun, the hand dyed ikats of Central Asia and the uldebe funerary cloths of the Dogon people of West Africa Here abstracted botanical forms are painted on to woollen fabric with a resist paste and then dyed in indigo. Dyeing a single blanket can take days. There are also hand stitched appliqued botanical collages using naturally dyed linens...

Jeanette Orrell - Blue Poppies I & II

Whilst the work employs simple forms they are stunning and the large indigo blankets are breathtaking. I also found the samples and ephemera that were exhibited fascinating...

Jeanette Orrell - Samples, notebooks & ephemera

Jeanette Orrell - Samples & ephemera

I loved the indigo samples where white thread had been couched down to form elaborate patterns...

Jeanette Orrell - Indigo sample with couched white thread

There were also a number of short films made by Jeanette's daughter, Ellie Orrell, illustrating Jeanette's practice. This exhibition continues to 2 July 2023. Jeanette and Ellie Orrell are running a two day indigo dyeing workshop at Ruthin Craft Centre on 1-2 July 2023. You can book here.

Other exhibitions on show were Animal Rites - celebrating fauna in clay. I loved Susan O'Byrne's work which looked like patchwork...

Susan O'Byrne - Hare 2023

(Hand built and printed paper porcelain)

Susan O'Byrne - Hoopoe 2023

and Louise Bell's Endangered Species that looked like pull-along toys. Louise fears these representations may be all that is left if humans don't change their actions in relation to these animals.

Louise Bell - Black Rhino 2023

Love the angels coming out of the elephant's trunk...

Louise Bell - Elephant Finding Hope 2021

All of Louise Bell's work was fantastic.

The other exhibition was Zoe Preece - In Reverence. Zoe Preece has created a series of ordinary domestic objects – intricately carved by hand from porcelain or turned from plaster on a lathe. Each piece takes many hours to create. For Preece, the repetitive and unseen activity of her craft resonates with the ceaseless, invisible domestic labour undertaken within the home. It is this often unnoticed, undervalued work that Preece tries to capture in this installation.

Zoe Preece - Spoonful

Zoe Preece - Carved Tools

Ruthin Craft Centre has a large car park and a spacious cafe. If you need somewhere to stay try Manorhaus Ruthin - nice rooms, lovely food & great welcome from Gavin. Also, lovely to see Julie Arkell and Dionne Swift represented in the artwork on display at Manorhaus.

New fabric necklaces head to cambridge contemporary crafts

Hippystitch Liberty Print Fabric Necklaces

 

A new selection of fabric necklaces have winged their way to cambridge contemporary crafts recently.

Hippystitch Liberty Print Fabric Necklaces

There are lots of lovely Liberty prints to choose from...

Hippystitch Liberty Print Fabric Necklaces

Why not go and take a look? cambridge contemporary crafts have lots of great things that would be perfect for a present or a treat.  As well as jewellery, there are ceramics, prints and paper, sculptures, glass, textiles and cards.  Find them at 5 Bene't Street, Cambridge, CB2 3QN.

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham - Hatton Gallery - Newcastle upon Tyne

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham

 
Wilhelmina Barns-Graham (1912-2004) was a Scottish artist who became a leading member of the St Ives School of artists. This exhibition - Paths  to Abstraction - at the Hatton Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne concentrates on her work from 1935-1972.  During this period her work develops from the representational to the abstract.

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham - The Episcopal Church, Aviemore 1938

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham - Sleeping Town 1948

Colour was very important to Barns-Graham.  She often associated a particular colour with people, places, names or letters which was characteristic of her synaesthesia.  The colour red runs through a number of her works...

Wilhelmina Barns Graham - Snow at Wharfedale 1957

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham - Red Square 1954

Wilhelmina Barnes-Graham - Artist's Materials etc.

In 1949 Barns-Graham visited Switzerland and the Grindelwald Glacier which had a profound impact on her resulting in the Glacier Series which she continued to paint until the early 1950s. These shows her increasing interest in geometry and her aim to capture the scene in form and colour which continued in her Rock Form Series based on the Cornish landscape...

Wilhelmina Barnes-Graham - Glacier Chasm 1951

Wilhelmina Barnes-Graham - Three Rock Forms 1951

Her notebook and photos from her time in Switzerland were on display...

Wilhelmina Barnes-Graham - Notebook & Photos

In the 1960s, Barns-Graham's work became more abstract featuring squares and circles...

Wilhelmina Barnes-Graham - Untitled 1958

Wilhelmina Barnes-Graham - Assembly of Nine 1964

Wilhelmina Barnes-Graham - In Tension 1968

My favourite painting in the exhibition was "Snow at Wharfedale" and in general the semi-abstract forms of Barns-Graham's work in the 1950s.

Go check it out. It's on until 20 May 1923 so there's still time!

New Stock Arriving At The Ropewalk, Barton Upon Humber

Resin Button Brooches

 

A whole new selection of Hippystitch stock is winging its way to The Ropewalk in Barton upon Humber.

There's a selection of vintage button brooches including these small mother of pearl button brooches with brightly coloured thread.  A new selection of resin button brooches (pictured above) is also en route.

Small Button Brooches

There's some larger button brooches too...

Button Brooches

and some People & Places brooches...

People & Places Brooches

There's also a great selection of fabric necklaces...

Fabric Necklaces

Do you have a favourite lucky number or a birthday coming up that one of these vintage domino brooches matches? 

Vintage Domino Brooches

Some of the vintage coin brooches have birds and animals on...

Vintage Coin Brooches

and there's more vintage button brooches, some ceramic button brooches and some screen printed bike bags too. 

Screen printed bike bag

Why not take a trip to Barton upon Humber and take a look.  The Ropewalk has exhibitions on in its galleries as well as it's Craft Gallery Shop.  There's also The Ropewalk Museum and a coffee shop not to mention some nice walks nearby. It's well worth a visit!

Cecilia Vicuña - Brain Forest Quipu at Tate Modern Turbine Hall

Cecilia Vicuña - Dead Forest Quipu (detail)

 

Chilean artist & poet, Cecilia Vicuña, is currently exhibiting her Brain Forest Quipu in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, London.  Her installation references the Andean Quechua people's use of the quipu or knot, used instead of writing to record and remember things such as statistics, poems and stories.  Vicuña calls the quipu "a poem in space". They originated 5000 years ago and were banned after the European conquest in the 16th century. Many were burnt and destroyed at that time but their symbolism remains part of Andean culture today although the exact meanings behind their formations and colours is not now known.

Cecilia Vicuña - Dead Forest Quipu (detail)

Cecilia Vicuña - Dead Forest Quipu (detail)

Cecilia Vicuña - Dead Forest Quipu (detail)

This multimedia installation is an act of mourning for the destruction of the rainforests and its subsequent effect on climate change and the violence against indigenous peoples.  The installation comprises 3 elements. Firstly, two Dead Forest Quipu sculptures which are 27m textile pieces hanging from the ceiling.  These include different materials woven together with found objects, unspun wool, plant fibres, rope and cardboard. Then there is a Sound Quipu including indigenous music, silences, new pieces by Colombian composer Ricardo Gallo and field recordings from nature. And lastly a Digital Quipu which shows films of indigenous activists and land defenders from around the world who are using digital platforms to get their voices heard.

Cecilia Vicuña - Dead Forest Quipu (detail)

Cecilia Vicuña - Dead Forest Quipu (detail)

Cecilia Vicuña - Dead Forest Quipu (detail)

Some of the items included in the sculptures were collected from the banks of the River Thames by women from local Latin American communities.  This is typical of Vicuña's use of modest, imperfect found materials which she calls "precarios" (precarious)

Cecilia Vicuña - Dead Forest Quipu (detail)

Cecilia Vicuña - Dead Forest Quipu (detail)

The bone white colour of the sculptures evokes the bleached bark of trees killed by drought or intentional fire or other dried out substances like snakeskin.

Cecilia Vicuña - Dead Forest Quipu (detail)

I saw this when also visiting the Magdalena Abakanowicz exhibition - plenty of textile art on show to whet your appetite! 

The Cecilia Vicuna exhibition is on until 16 April 2023.