Of beads and pearls and memories of St Ives

Today I have been mostly stitching and beading - with a little felt making thrown in for good measure.  I have been finishing off some pieces which have been sitting around for a while, awaiting the final stages in the transformation from fibres to art.  Also the silk I dyed recently with onion skins has found its home, layered with (and glowing through) some cobweb felt in dark teal.  Bronze sparkly beads in a drift were all that was needed to make a piece that feels 'just right'.  Autumnal felt (wool and silk) was stitched with toning threads of cotton in feather stitch to evoke harvest, and an experiment in undyed organic merino and silk throwsters waste, which I have been looking at for a while knowing that it wouldn't do as it was, no matter how much I loved it, suddenly sprang into life when I selected a small part of it in a 4 inch square mount window, and added some tiny Japanese beads.  I even did a little feltmaking - I was inspired by some salvaged freshwater pearls, and my notebook with sketches taken off the quayside during a visit to St Ives two years ago, to create an aquatic scene with ripples, seaweed and sand (in silk!) and the pearls drifting across the bottom.  Very satisfying to see several months of creativity finally coming together.  Off to the framers tomorrow, as I want to take these to the Summer Art and Craft Fair at Craft Renaissance Gallery, near Usk, where I shall be selling on Sat 14 July.

These pictures aren't as good as I'd like, as I have had to do them indoors with flash because of the continuous rain and gloom outdoors, but they give an idea of the work.  Each picture is 4 inches square,  mounted in 12x12 inch mounts, which are then framed in narrow, dark wood frames.  Unless I am framing a complete piece of felt or weaving (ie attaching it to the front of the mount, with the edges of the work showing) in which case the shape of the mount and frame is dictated by the shape of the work, I often choose a square format with a wide border (with these pieces, the border is as wide as the aperture in the mount) as I find it draws the eye into the work, and gives it more impact than if the frame crowds in too closely.  Having a framer with a good eye helps!

Seashore 2012

Sky 2 2012

Teal and gold abstract 2012

Harvest 2012

Natural dyeing - my first attempt at dyeing with onions skins

Having collected prodigious quantities of onion skins, I finally got around to my first attempt at natural dyeing.  I had some pongé silk and also a piece of vintage French linen in rather bad repair, which I wanted to dye and incorporate in my work.


I followed the instructions in Jenny Dean's excellent book, and mordanted the textiles overnight in a solution of alum crystals and Cream of Tartar (the stuff you bake with!).  Mordanting helps to make the dye fix more permanently.  Meanwhile, I prepared a dyebath by simmering my onion skins in water, and then leaving to steep overnight.  Next day, I sieved the dyebath to remove the onion skins, and then removed the fabric from the mordant and transferred it to the dye, which was by now a wonderful port-wine colour.  Brought to simmering point and kept there for 45 minutes, it yielded the following rather amazing colours:

The silk is slightly darker than the linen, which is what I would expect (animal fibres like wool and silk are structurally easier for the dye to penetrate than vegetable fibres like cotton and linen).  Interestingly, the linen is a bit patchy - running my fingers over the fabric, it appears that dye uptake has been better (and hence there is a deeper colour) in the parts where the linen is worn and the surface slightly roughed up - presumably breaking down the surface smoothness of the fibres has made it easier for the dye to 'take'.


Warned that excessive heat might lead to the silk losing its lustre, I used my jam thermometer to ensure that the temperature of the dyebath remained below 80 degrees C, and as you may be able to see from the pics, there has been no loss of lustre.  It would seem that I now need to have two jam thermometers, as it's really not a good idea to use the same implements for dyeing and cooking!


Being able to dye my own yarns, and especially the scrims, linens and silks I use in Nuno felting, will add a whole new dimension to my work, and I fear that I am, after just one foray into the wonderful world of natural dyeing, completely addicted...

In search of Ryeland fleece - medieval history on the hoof

My latest quest is for Ryeland fleece - I have a contact consulting the flock book for me to track down a source for me!  Why am I pursuing Ryeland fleece?  Well, my current project is connected with Tretower, a historic manor house north of the Brecon Beacons, and I am looking to use some wool in the felting process from a breed of sheep which would have been familiar in the house's heyday between the 14th and 17th centuries.  The Ryeland sheep (named after the rye-growing area around Archenfield in South Herefordshire which was its heartland) was developed by the monks of Leominster in the 12th or 13th century, producing a remarkably fine wool which was greatly in demand - its value was such that its alternative name was 'Leominster Ore'.  As a high-status dwelling in the later Middle Ages, only a relatively short distance west of Herefordshire, it is very likely that Ryeland wool would have found its way to Tretower, which is why I am keen to use this breed in my Tretower project.  Few breeds of sheep in the UK now, other than the 'primitives' such as Soays, can trace their origins back as far as the Ryeland - the 'improvement' of native breeds which resulted in the breeds we now have was largely a product of the 18th century onwards, and continues even now - as with, for example, the Beltex!

Art or Craft? - lengthy musings

I have recently been working on my submission for an award for emerging artists and crafts people.  This turned out to be much more traumatic that the ‘write up to 500 words and send up to 3 images’ brief would have led me to expect.  The problem was about categorising myself and my work – art or craft?  This is hardly a new dilemma - has been much discussion of it, especially with the recent revival in interest in 'craftsmanship'.  It was clear from the blurb that they were expecting painters or photographers in the art category, and textiles people in craft.  However, the craft category’s entry brief was about giving instructions for making the things you make.  The artist brief was to describe your work and inspiration.  This set me thinking.

I describe myself on my website and business cards as ‘textile artist and maker’.  My real interest is in textile art.  However, because the medium I mostly use (felt) also lends itself to making things like corsages, lavender hearts and other homewares and accessories, I do make some of these as well because they sell.  And because of the media I use, my art does involve making – I make the felt, often having first worked through a whole lot of processes from fleece to felt.  This is even more true of weaving, where I may have processed the wool and spun it before weaving with it.  And for me, as an artist, the process is part of the art – the meaning is, to some extent, in the making.  I am excited about the medium, about the provenance of the materials (especially if it’s rare breed wool – I may even have met the sheep!), and the processes involved, many of which have been part of human history for millennia. 

Good craftsmanship (I’m happier with 'craftspersonship', especially as many of the skills I am using have traditionally been practiced by women, but it doesn’t seem to have reached the lexicon yet) is key to the integrity of what I do, and indeed I think it is key to our economic sustainability as a country and as a planet.  I’m not in any way denigrating that sense of the word ‘craft’ – in fact I am celebrating it.  I am just uncomfortable when one of my pieces (say, a tonal abstract exploring the colours and textures of wool from several breeds of sheep) is described as ‘craft’.  I have no issues with describing my beautiful felt lavender hearts as craft – I am using craft skills, and craftsmanship honed over the years, to produce and attractive and functional object.

It’s all very nebulous and difficult.  I know some feltmakers who describe what they make as ‘wearable art’.  This confuses me, and analysing my confusion takes me towards a possible definition for me (I wouldn’t presume to impose my definition on anyone else) of art as non-functional.  Its function is to make us step back from the everyday, to look at life in a slightly different way.  I produce beautiful craft objects which have a practical function of some sort (even if that function is simply embellishment, as with my corsages) and are aesthetically pleasing, but do not point beyond themselves as objects.  I also produce art, which instead of paint uses textiles, created using craft skills, to take the viewer beyond the immediate usefulness of the object (a framed picture, for example, has limited practical usefulness).  These works inspire reflection, evoke responses beyond the aesthetic, they challenge or intrigue or move.  Some works tell a story – a story not limited to the narrative of their production.

If I never made another corsage or felt heart, I might be worse off financially, but it would not grieve me unduly – and I could teach someone else to make them.  But if I never created another piece of art, part of me would have died.  And although I could teach someone the skills, no one else can see the world quite how I see it, or be inspired to create this particular piece of work.  I must therefore conclude that what matters to me is the art, and that my identity is fundamentally as an artist.

If you’ve followed me this far (in which case, thank you for your persistence! - I don't often venture into navel-gazing of this sort, as I am always worried I will descend into pomposity), you will not be surprised to learn that it took me nearly three weeks to get the submission written – for the artist category!