Book Review: Rosie James - Stitch Draw

Figurative stitch has taken great strides in the last few years. It has taken on both a popularity and a much needed contemporary feel. Embroidery in general today is much more relevant, much more topical, much more strident – stitch has become a home for protest, examination, observation, and for solutions. There seems no better time to release a book of where we are regarding contemporary figurative stitching, and how to help produce the drawing of stitch, than now.

Stitch Draw by Rosie James is a comprehensive guide to figurative stitching, giving techniques and tips regarding free style stitch – drawing with stitch.

Rosie guides the reader through a whole series of techniques and working methods, from setting up a sewing machine, through to drawing exercises that take you from pencil to stitch. This is a book that liberates the artist. There is no tight framework of the ‘right’ way of doing things, this is very much a book that expects the artist to liberate, to literally run with the stitch.

From the background of tradition to the forefront of contemporary art, stitch has made an extraordinary run through the last few years, in no small part due to the high profile artists who have pushed the limits of what can and should be achieved by stitch. These artists have taken stitch and placed it at the cutting edge of contemporary life, and often of contemporary protest. Artists who examine the world that we find ourselves in, and find aspects of that world wanting, are now firmly ensconced within the techniques of stitch, and particularly figurative stitching.

Rosie James gives voice to that element of contemporary figurative stitch in Stitch Draw. She celebrates the extraordinary depth of her own work, which liberally illustrates Stitch Draw, but also highlights the work of some of the best contemporary artists that are using stitch today. Artists such as: mags James, Maria Wigley, Hinke Schreuders, Nike Schroeder, Tucker Schwarz, Leigh Bowser, Sophie Strong and more.

This isn’t a book limited to textile artists, or those wanting to enter the textile art field. This is a book for artists – of any discipline, it is a book for artists who want to explore another way of expressing themselves. That is the important message of contemporary stitch, stitch is a drawing technique and can be experimented on and by any artist. It is a message stated loud and clear in Stitch Draw.

Rosie James is a textile artist with a fine art background. She studied textiles at Goldsmiths College London and runs workshops on her stitch-drawing techniques throughout the UK. Her works are exhibited in museums around the world.

Stitch Draw: Design and Techniques for Figurative Stitching by Rosie James, is published by Batsford and is available from October 4 2018.

Book Review: Cas Holmes Stitch Stories

Where do ideas come from? Where can interesting source material be found? What is inspiration and how can it be developed? How can you sustain interest in your work from source material to finished piece? How do you tread your own authentic and unique creative path? What can you add to the world of creativity that is a definition of you? Who are you as an artist, and where are you going?

These are just some of the questions that are answered in Cas Holmes new book Stitch Stories. It is a book full of headings, sub-headings, lists of intent, ideas, prompts, and helping hands. Each segment of the book goes into great detail on its particular method, expanding to incorporate a wealth of tried and tested, as well as novel ideas, in how to approach a level of uniqueness that is the role of the artist in us all.

Stitch Stories is aimed at a textile and mixed media audience and is therefore geared towards artists who work, or intend to work, in those fields. The book is full of rich colour photos of Cas own work, as well as the inspiring work of many other artists as well. There are full colour photos of completed works, as well as many works in progress, and most importantly photos of sketch books, one of the areas of work in progress that so many either get stuck on, or are unclear as to what they should contain.

To run through the different chapters of the book in order, will probably give you a good inkling as to why this book is such a valuable addition to the artist. It is often a difficult task looking for rich and useful inspirational starting points in which to pursue a series of work, the journey that those inspirational points should take in order to produce work that is both a reflection of those starting points, as well as being an important part of who you are as both an individual, is perhaps the hardest of all.

Places, Spaces, and Traces - deals with the recording of your experiences, your observations, your feelings of the world that you observe around you. This segment deals with creating a journal, sketchbook, or other form of recording, such as photography. Collecting information is always the starting point of any form of creative development, and choosing what appeals to you personally is a large part of whether your work will develop or not.

Seizing Inspiration - explores a range of potentials for inspiration and exploration, and includes such ideas as using memory and history as reference points, using drawing and simple collage as valuable exercises in focused or unfocused inspiration, allowing the mind to wander, allowing it to draw inspiration from a line, a colour, a texture, all vital elements in the creative journey.

The Natural World - gives a number of starting points, with the idea of nature being their source. Nature is all around and within us, so it is equally relevant and a ready source of inspiration, whether you live in a rural or urban environment.

Studying and observing the natural world, whether it be in a woodland, or a backyard, is connecting with that natural world. It can be observing, identifying, and recording the differing elements to be found in a canopy of trees, reeds along a riverbank, or indeed tough weeds growing out of an urban wall, all are relevant and all have value to the environment as they do to the artist.

Cas also makes it clear how important the cycle of seasons is to anyone interested in using the natural world as a source of inspiration. To observe the same environment through the change in seasons is to understand the layers of change and meaning that can be found within that framework.

All in the Detail - deals with the details that are so much a part of any piece of artwork, those details often come from source material themselves, or indeed from the ambience in which those materials are found.

The world is a complexity of meaning, and we are part of that complexity. Cas gives us a range of artists work that deals in those details of intricacy that they find in inspirational source material, and that they then project out through their work.

Off the Beaten Track - looks at the artist and their responses, through work, of personal themes and interests, rather than generic. A number of artists show their self-expression through an interest in personal family history, social history, comments on historical or contemporary society. Cas gives us a range of artists who have used textiles, both specifically and generally to make a point.

Telling Stories - the last segment continues from the previous, but gives examples of how you can tell your own story, how you can express what you need and want to say, through a range of helpful examples and that is what it is all about, giving you a range of tools in order to effectively express yourself.

It is so important that self-expression be encouraged. Your own story, your own viewpoint, your own perspective on the world, is a constantly unique one. There may well be seven billion people on the planet, but there is only ever one of you. Cas is fully aware of this and has spent a large proportion of her art career guiding and encouraging others to express themselves through creative paths that only belong to them.

If you have the tools and you have the vocabulary then how you use them is up to you. This book is not a book that wants to show you how to work like Cas, how to produce work that copies where Cas has been and where she is going artistically and creatively, it is a book that shows you how to work like yourself, to find your own centre, your own creative strength, to be able to express yourself as your own true self, and not like another, and for that reason, amongst many, I highly recommend Stitch Stories.

SUE STONE EXHIBITION

Sue Stone: Faith, 2017 (mixed media, hand/machine stitch, acrylic paint)

Sue Stone: Displaced

April 28 - May 28, 2017

Owen James Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

Time, memory and family are at the heart of Sue Stone’s mixed-media works. She merges the past and the present to connect personal histories and local identities through dream-like narratives. Starting with old family photographs, she interprets and transforms them through techniques that include hand & machine stitched embroidery, fabric collage, writing and painting.

Stone is also deeply influenced by the history of her native Grimsby, England. For many years, Grimsby supported a major seaport and fishing industry, and where Stone’s father was fish merchant. The industry declined over time, but allusions to it remain in her work.  Stone started sewing early on, learning from and working with her mother who was a tailoress until her early death. This sense of loss, and of displacement, in both emotional and economic terms, is an ongoing theme for the artist.

Sue Stone: Fate, 2017 (mixed media, hand/machine stitch, acrylic paint)

Sue Stone: Hope, 2017 (mixed media, hand/machine stitch, acrylic paint)

While she will often make preparatory designs and studies, Stone “draws” her figures by directly stitching on fabric. At times she will use odd swatches from a piece of clothing once worn by the figure she is creating. At other times she carefully creates the figure’s clothing through a series of exquisite stitch techniques. We see parts of the unadorned base fabric come through, an indication perhaps that what lies beneath is as important as what is above. Hand-stitched text, relating a certain figures’ story, will sometimes also be added into the background.

Sue Stone: Remember Me Study #7, 2014 (mixed media, hand/machine stitch, acrylic paint)

Sue Stone: Study for The Boys Go Down To London Town, 2014 (mixed media, hand/machine stitch, acrylic paint)

The figures that populate Stone’s imagery waft back and forth through time. In some works she shows several generations of relatives, all at once but at different ages. For example, in The Boys Go To London Town (2014) we see the artist’s father-in-law, along with his own father and uncle. They are dressed for a jaunt about Grimsby, with a classic car from the period. However, they are standing in a present-day London street. Interestingly, sometimes the location is Grimsby Street, in London’s East End. Sharing the same name as her home town, the area in London has also seen seen better days in the past, but is now currently undergoing gentrification as one of the city’s more interesting artistic hubs. Stone photographs graffiti during her travels, and has recently been incorporating it into her works. Graffiti can serve as a liberating symbol, a statement of fact to the world that an artist once existed in a certain place at a certain time. In this same way Stone often incorporates the image of a fish, a personal symbol of Grimsby’s economic past, and of her own. This combination of the real and the unreal, and of the then and the now, is also a balance between playfulness and intimacy.

Sue Stone: Study For The Unknown Statistic (Never Forget), 2014 (mixed media, hand/machine stitch, acrylic paint)

Sue Stone: The Boys Go To London Town, 2014 (mixed media, hand/machine stitch, fabric paint)

Sue Stone is currently the chair of The 62 Group of Textile Artists, an international select membership of textile artists. She studied fashion at St. Martins School of Art and embroidery at Goldsmiths College, London. 

Check the Owen James Gallery for more details of this exhibition, and much more.

All imagery and text were kindly supplied by the Owen James Gallery.

Sue Stone: When Will This Ever End?, 2014 (mixed media, hand/machine stitch, acrylic paint)

The Creative Life and the Work of Martin Ebrey

Illustration: Martin Ebrey. Moby Dick.

Running along on the general theme of the Inspirational magazine, inspiring and aspiring others, I thought that it might be nice to feature one of the many artists that have recently come into the creative arts. 

Many of these individuals come into the creative arts for a range of reasons, running from redundancy and retirement, restlessness and disillusionment with the norm, to seeking new and better horizons, a way of becoming the authentic individual that they always knew they were meant to be.

Illustration: Martin Ebrey. Archangel Orifiel.

Many come from strictly non-creative backgrounds, though to be fair there is little in our lives that cannot be counted as creative in some form or another. Many have no formal training, many in fact have never been near an art college before. However, that is not necessarily a good or bad thing, it often depends on the projection and perspective of the individual. Many creative individuals thrive in a collage environment, but on the other hand, many do not. To me, it is a personal choice on whether you take that road or not, and you shouldn't be judged either way as to that decision.

Anyway, today we are featuring the work of the artist Martin Ebrey. Martin is a mixed media artist who specialises in textiles, although as with most mixed media artists, certainly not exclusively. Martin has a truly energetic and eclectic style, pulling in inspiration and reflection from many avenues. Each piece of his work is like a many-stranded story, all told through the medium of reclaimed fabrics, vintage jewellery, buttons, driftwood from the local beach, stories, observations, sentiment, and insight, all are meaningful and all have purpose.

Illustration: Martin Ebrey. Blackbird.

Martin was until recently a teacher, but because of health issues had to abandon that career, so he started another one. He bought a sewing machine and has never really looked back. Along with his partner John, also a teacher, they have formed Ebrey Decorative. They produce and sell mixed media artwork that shows a sophistication and sensitivity well beyond their relatively short period in the wonderful world of the creative arts.

I think that it is important to be able to highlight the lives of individuals like Martin. These are people who have become drawn to the creative arts, some simply, others in extraordinarily complex and circuitous pathways, but they all end up at the same place. Whether you are a newly graduated individual in your twenties, a career switcher in your forties, or a retiree in your sixties or seventies, professional or amateur, it matters little. What does matter is the enthusiasm, the positivity, the focus, and the inspiration you give others, these are the important markers of your individual path towards a creative life, and they are markers that only you can make and only you can understand. 

Illustration: Martin Ebrey. Summer Stream.

It is always important that you tread your own path within the world of the creative arts, but it is also extremely important that you try to help others along your way. To be creative is not, as many believe it to be, a selfish choice, but is in fact one that is selfless, it is showing the life that should be led, one that is supportive, cooperative, reflective, thoughtful, compassionate, the complete opposite of what we are often told is the real norm of us as humans, to be confrontational, to be singularly motivated to the detriment of all others, quick to judge, slow to forgive.

If more and more individuals are led to this wonderfully dynamic and energetic world of creativity, then the world can only become a better place. The expansion of artistic creativity through such individuals as Martin is vital. For communities across the planet to understand through example that to be an artist can be the norm, rather than the exception, is one of the most important of steps. 

Illustration: Martin Ebrey. Miss Haversham.

So to me, the real expansion of this precious world of the creative lifestyle, one in which Martin has now made his home, is one that needs to be encouraged and fostered as a norm, rather than as a puzzling alternative. The more individuals who are happy and content within their creative careers, the more examples we have to show that there is a different and better way to see the world than the one we were handed as the perceived norm.

That is why I have taken on the project of Inspirational, and that is why I decided to feature the work of Martin on ttb. Life is changing, the creative arts population is expanding, becoming more complex and inter-dimensional, constantly bringing in more and more practitioners into the community, from so many avenues of life.

Illustration: Martin Ebrey. Atargatis, the First Mermaid.

I am sure that we all wish and support Martin and his partner John in leading the best of lives, having the best of creative perspectives, and the best in happiness, and contentment in their life within the community that is the creative arts.

Martin and Ebrey Decorative have a great visual website at Ebrey Decorative as well as a comprehensive Etsy shop 

The Woven Work of Stanley Bulbach

Illustration: Stanley Bulbach. 'Agate Stream'.

It is always interesting to see how different creative individuals approach their work and their medium, but it is often just as interesting to see where these individuals originated, where they gained their core influences, and what sent them along their unique creative path. Many are not always walking along the clear-cut path you would imagine.

The artist Stanley Bulbach has a BA in History of Religion and an MA and PhD in Near Eastern Studies. Although these qualifications do not automatically suggest that a career in the creative arts is imminent, it also doesn't necessarily disallow it. There are so many avenues and pathways towards a truly creative life, how you get onto that path can be just as interesting as the path that you follow as an individual. 

Illustration: Stanley Bulbach. 'Agate Stream' detail.

It is often assumed that the creative arts are reserved for academic underachievers, those who couldn't make it in the academic world. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Since starting The Textile Blog, I have come across a range of individuals who have taken up creative arts careers from a diverse background of degrees, diplomas, and lifetime work that have seemingly little in common with the creative art world, but then of course all paths are linked, often on a much subtler level than many can see.

Whatever you do in life is part of your ultimate path. If you decide to be a car mechanic, and then thirty years later shift focus into 3D sculpture, then that is your path. If you work in admin for forty years and then decide to take up quilting, then that too is your path. If, like Stanley you take the road from seeming academia, research, and then the development of a fascination with North African carpet weaving through a trip through the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, then that is another path towards the creative arts.

Illustration: Stanley Bulbach. 'Bridges'.

Stanley has a deep knowledge, understanding, and sympathy for the history and traditions of carpet weaving across the Islamic world, particularly those traditions that are found in North Africa. He has an exhaustive knowledge of traditional weaving found across North Africa. However, with Stanley it isn't a matter of imbuing his carpets just with a flavour of North Africa. These are not carpets that focus on reproducing the traditions of a cultural heritage half a world away from his New York City base. These are not therefore merely extensions of the magic and passion of North Africa, though they are inevitably imbued with it, they also importantly contain part of the personality and perspective of the artist.

Stanley may well call his woven pieces 'carpets' and they are definitely within the general genre of that medium, but they are much more than the name 'carpet' could suggest, and shouldn't necessarily be treated as practical domestic accessories. These are pieces of personal artwork, artwork that could and should equally be expected to have a place reserved for them on a wall, rather than a floor. It would probably be best to describe them as somewhere between a woven tapestry and a woven fine art carpet. The description doesn't really do Stanley's work full justice, but it does give some indication of where his artwork should be.

Illustration: Stanley Bulbach. 'Gotham'.

However, perhaps more important than artistic freedom and the focus on individual perspective that automatically comes with the creative arts, Stanley is also aware of the unique symbolism that is encased in the history and continuity of woven carpet-making as well as the usage of the carpet. To many in the world it is still a vital ingredient of domesticity, and through that, is intimately connected to human life. Woven carpets have been used for all of the major celebrations of human life from birth, through marriage, to death. Carpets can be seating, bedding, used for birthing or for shrouds for the dead. They can be given as gifts, or kept as heirlooms within families as remembrances of generations past and those yet to come. Carpets are also significant partners in prayer; many of Stanley's woven pieces derive at least an element of their origin from the widespread use of prayer rugs that are seen across the Islamic world. 

Weaving itself has always been used as a wide-ranging symbol, particularly when used in the context of the ideals symbolised through the singular weakness of isolated threads compared to the strength achieved by those isolated threads when woven into a fabric. When expanded into weaving as an art form, an artistic statement even, it can be seen that weaving could easily be used as a metaphor for the contemporary world we live in today. 

Illustration: Stanley Bulbach, the artist.

Through our expression of endless and unique diversity as individuals, we can with effort, weave ourselves into the fabric that is humanity. By weaving together the diverse strengths of each of us, we create a fabric that cannot easily be ripped apart. In this respect, Stanley sees his work as a weaver, and with his local community work looking for solutions to the problems of such a large and diverse population as New York City, the two very much become the same thing. Whether you are weaving with yarn or you are weaving with people, a harmonious and interestingly diverse outcome is always hoped for.

Stanley himself weaves a complex subject of research, practical knowledge, and theory that is far too complex to touch on much in this short article, more can be seen and read at Stanley's website, a link to which is given below. However, I hope this has been a good introduction to the work of Stanley Bulbach, and if you are in the New York City area, Stanley's work can presently be seen at the Jason McCoy Gallery.

Stanley Bulbach website

Please be aware that all photos of artwork illustrating this article were kindly supplied by the artist and are therefore copyrighted to him.

Jette Clover and the Graffiti of Life

Illustration: Jette Clover. White Wall 1, 2009.

The work of the textile and mixed media artist Jette Clover deals with the graffiti of life. She has chosen to represent the visual language of the human species through the use of the written, rather than that of the spoken language. This is an important point to make, particularly as the written word becomes evermore increasingly vital to the everyday running of our contemporary world. However, although written language itself is relatively new in comparison to the age of the human species as a whole, representational markers of our presence have long been seen as a necessary part of our lives. Whether writing with recognised lettering, pictograms or other symbols, all are representations of both the individual and the culture they inhabited. It is this recognition of the potential of the individual through mark-making in whatever fashion, which seems to be at the heart of these particular pieces of textile work.

Illustration: Jette Clover. White Wall 2, 2009.

The six pieces of work shown in this article were produced by Clover in 2009. It is relatively easy to recognise the influence and inspiration of the partial layering that can be found on a poster plastered wall in any contemporary town or city. These multi-layered poster walls can easily take on the guise of fragmentary messages that are visible through layers of information. Clover has cleverly drawn analogies between this imagery from our contemporary world, and given it meaning and dimension well beyond its immediate remit.

Illustration: Jette Clover. White Wall 3, 2009.

Clover is interested in not only the scattered and disconnected markers left by generations of the human species, but more importantly to all of us on a much more personal level, the wish to leave a presence of ourselves in some form. Graffiti itself can be seen as a wish fulfilment of the human spirit. I was here is perhaps the crudest but most effective form of at least partial celebrity if not full-blown immortality. To be remembered, if only partially, is all that many of us wish, and future generations may well understand us only on a level that can be recognised through Clover's work, a letter here a number there, all the rest has been obliterated.

Illustration: Jette Clover. White Wall 4, 2009.

It is this obliteration that is interesting within this specific set of work by Clover. It is called the White Series, and although, to some extent it is an exercise in the exploration of the lack of colour contrasts and the simplicity that can be found in shades of white, it is also a representation of much more.

We as individual observers have to peer at the visual vocabulary that has been set out for us. Very little is made clear to us and we can only surmise as to the messages that were originally intended. This gives us a very acute awareness as to how future generations observe and portray the past. All that was our lives has been truncated and randomly edited. This is not who we were, but it is who we will eventually become. To see and interpret the human species, and through that the human condition, through a partially whitewashed wall is an extremely clever and sophisticated analogy, and all admiration has go to the artist fir portraying it as such.

Illustration: Jette Clover. Whitewash, 2009.

The visual vocabulary shown in these pieces of work are of such a permanent and instantly recognisable nature. They so clearly represent the human capacity and longing to project meaning with words. More importantly still is the longing to project life and longevity into those words. What appears at first to be nothing more than the transitory nature of poster art becomes a need for both the continued representation and even hope for the perpetuation of countless successive generations.   

Jette Clover has shown her work extensively in both North America and Europe. She has been featured in a number of publications, also on both sides of the Atlantic. She has a comprehensive website where much more of her work can be seen, along with an extensive list of exhibition highlights where her work can be seen through till Summer 2011.

Illustration: Jette Clover. Whitewash 5, 2009.

All images were used with the kind permission of the artist.

Reference links:
Jette Clover website

Erin Wilson's Quilted Short Stories

Illustration: Erin Wilson. Short Story #4, 2009.

The textile artwork of Erin Wilson at first seems effortlessly simple. Small boxes are repeated in a composition that includes regular rows and columns. However, when you consider that each small frame has been individually and consciously designed as a unique composition, and that some of Wilson's finished pieces can incorporate a large number of individual small framed art pieces, then the task set by the artist becomes much more one of quiet construction, with each individual square being seen as a world in itself.

All the fabrics are hand dyed by Wilson and so therefore, each compositional piece of artwork takes that hand dying into consideration, bringing a harmony and balance to the many individual works that go into making Wilson's textile pieces.

Illustration: Erin Wilson. Short Story #5, 2009.

In some respects, the artist has taken the idea of the mechanics of quilting and the production of pattern work into the realms of personal exploration and identity. Each one of the squares shown in these examples of Wilson's work is a window to a creative story. What is impressive is the number of unique creative stories that the artist has incorporated into some of her finished pieces of work. There are textile compositions where the artist has incorporated up to 168 individual squares, each one personally produced with the optimum in balance, proportion and harmony.

Wilson's work is one of both dedication and a unique awareness of the many individual aspects of creativity that layer each piece of textile artwork. She works hard to harness the compatability of all strands of her compositions. Her work can be seen and appreciated in both close detail and as a larger whole. There is an accord between each individual frame and its neighbour. All can then become part of a much larger and more dynamic framework. 

Illustration: Erin Wilson. Short Story #3, 2009.

In many respects, Wilson's compositions can be seen as representations of tenements or housing blocks. Overall, housing blocks are standardised and constructed from mass produced elements with no room for personal flare or individuality. However, within these externally standardised communities each window bares a slightly different vista to the world, despite the regular repetition of each frame. This gives us an analogy whereby we become aware that even though all windows are the same, the people looking through them are all uniquely individual with a life story of achievements and dreams that are unique to them and shared by no one else. However, all the unique windows go on to make a larger whole, so while we are all relatively isolated in our uniqueness, we are still all part of the human community and the ongoing story of that community. In fact, as the titles suggest, these can all be seen as varied and universally distinct short stories.

 Illustration: Erin Wilson. Short Story #1, 2008.

Perhaps Wilson is giving us a glimpse of our own potential to be creative within the framework of our lives. We may all be made from the human template, but we also have the ability to create the parameters of our own distinctiveness.

Erin Wilson is a full time textile artist and has shown her work across the US. She has a comprehensive website where much of her unique work can be seen. The link to her website can be found below, as always in the reference links section.

Illustration: Erin Wilson. Short Story #2, 2009.

All images were reproduced with the kind permission of the artist.

Reference links:

Erin Wilson website

The Textile Art of Linda McCurry - Colour, Texture and Pattern

Illustration: Linda McCurry. Tork.

By Linda McCurry's own estimation, she has been involved in textiles ever since she was able to reach the foot pedal of a sewing machine, and it shows. Here is a lifetimes experience collected from a number of professional guises in the worlds of fashion, pattern prints, and ultimately textile art.

McCurry has brought all the elements of her career into the textile artwork she now produces. There is much going on in the pieces that I have chosen to show in this article. Included are copious amounts of dynamic and energising compositional work, tied together with the experience of constructional tailoring, along with a very knowledgeable and balanced approach to surface pattern and mark-making.

Illustration: Linda McCurry. Tork, Bridge to Hope.

It is the combination of McCurry's experience in the tailoring and pattern making areas of the textile world, which seems to have added so much to the depth and experience of these compositions. There is a timeless, almost primal quality to the overall appearance of the compositions, which inevitably leads you to question whether the work is inspired by the natural world around us, the internal world of our own thoughts, or indeed an element of both. Her own dyed and textured fabrics add so much to the overall nature of her work and her manipulation of the tailoring of colour, pattern and texture is very finely tuned.

There seems to be a large and persistent reference, at least in colour, pattern and structure, to the early human world. One that was full of myth and meaning, coloured by texture and gesture. These compositions seem to show us an element of a world that though seemingly forgotten in the largely urban structure of the twenty first century, is still only just out of reach, just beyond the senses of most of us.

Illustration: Linda McCurry. Tork, Bridge to Hope (detail).

The vertical structure of the main composition signifies the powerful appearance of construction, as if each creative piece was a stand alone three-dimensional sculpture. This dominance of the vertical, shown in both layering and stitching could appear overpowering and even severe in some cases. However, the clever use of a number of small diagonal and horizontal aspects of the composition, throws the vertical off-balance allowing the eye to roam over the whole composition instead of being fixated with the vertical. The ploy works and is very effective in calming down the composition to that of an element of contemplation and introspection.

Illustration: Linda McCurry. Veeds.

It is notoriously difficult to make textile compositions work and work well. Both balance and optical interest have to be observed, with the subject being engaging enough in colour, texture and pattern. Enough indeed to make the piece memorable in a world of so much instant gratification and visual overload. That McCurry succeeds and succeeds well is a testament to her incomparable judgement and skill.

Linda McCurry has exhibited her work extensively across the US. She also holds classes in both colour theory as regards quilting and a number of dye classes. These can all be found, along with many other examples of her work, on her comprehensive website, which can be found below in the reference links section.

Illustration: Linda McCurry. Water Haiku.

All images were used with the kind permission of the artist.

Reference links:

Linda McCurry website

Brenda H Smith and the Strata of Landscape

Illustration: Brenda H Smith. Strata 3, 2006.

The textile artwork of Brenda H Smith deals largely with the landscape settings and environment of her native northern Arizona. Through a system of colour tones, textures and pattern, she is able to breathe life into the textile medium that she uses, infusing it with the in-depth characterizations of the environment that she experiences around her.

Illustration: Brenda H Smith. Betatakin, 2007.

One of the themes of Smith's work and the one I have chosen to highlight in this article, is that of geology. However, to be more specific, it is the layering of strata that the artist incorporates so effectively into her work. That is the process whereby different coloured and textured layers of silt, sand and mud are set down on top of each other over a time period that is so vast that it belittles our four million years or so on the surface of the planet. It is the geological map of the history of the planet, as well as the contours and undulations that that history has placed on the present landscape, which gives Smith the inspiration for these particular art pieces.

Following the contours of the history of the land as well as the contours of the present environment, has allowed Smith to produce compositional pieces that can engender a multiple and indefinite number of scenarios in both colour and texture. Her work can be seen as a study of the long history of the planet and how its very nature impinges, or even complements our contemporary world. However, it can equally be seen as a grand celebration of colour and texture for its own right.

Illustration: Brenda H Smith. Strata 7, 2008.

It is a joy to see so many earth tones and natural textures within the same compositional series. The geological landscape has infinite variations and that variety can sometimes be overpowering in its complexity. However, Smith takes each and every layer and gives it a separate but conjoined identity, so that each strata can be experienced as a unique lesson in colour and texture, while adding to the compositional identity of both the subject and its artistic and creative result.

Illustration: Brenda H Smith. Strata 8, 2008.

Brenda Smith has exhibited her work throughout the US, as well as having her work published in various periodicals. She has a comprehensive website where much more of her work can be seen. The link to this site can be found below in the usual Reference links section.

All images were used with the kind permission of the artist.

Reference links:
Brenda H Smith website

Sandra Woock and the Function of Movement

Illustration: Sandra Woock. Backspin.

The textile artwork produced by Sandra Woock is very much open-ended as far as experience and interpretation are concerned. The artist seems intent on both personal observation and understanding originating within the individual, rather than that of the artist.

Although much of the creative interpretation and analysis of artwork is subjective, many artists do try to limit, or at least set some forms of parameter around the interpretation and explanation of their work. Woock however, has decided to rely instead upon the freedom of the individual to evaluate her work as a personal experience. She seems more than happy for the individual to internalise specific feelings, ideas and conclusions that have been arrived at separately by each individual viewer of her work.

Illustration: Sandra Woock. Retro II.

However, there are some universal elements that help to explain some of the factors that link Woock's work. One of those factors is the overpowering imagery that portrays movement and a dynamic energy that seems so much a part of much of her work

The five textile pieces that I have chosen to illustrate this article with clearly show an almost industrial reaction to movement. The expressionist interpretation of the swirling cogs and gears of massive machinery play out their pre-designated pathways, producing nothing tangible or material in itself, but instead function purely for the process of movement itself.

Illustration: Sandra Woock. Spinout.

There is a technical balance found in these pieces that is rare in both fine art painting and more particularly that of textile art. Each textile fragment seems to have found its optimum place within the greater composition, adding its uniqueness to that of the whole. Just as in mechanical machinery, each cog will have its specific task and place within the greater machine, producing efficiency and harmony, so too with Woock's compositions.

There is almost a tangible feeling that there really is some form of physical momentum in the work along with the repetitive lullaby of the relentless but unfailingly constant exercise of the machine.

Illustration: Sandra Woock. Unchained.

These exercises in expressionist composition and styling are effortless in their message, but are equally incredibly complex in both format and composition. They may well give the impression of the internal workings of a giant complex and multi-pieced machine, but they are also the result of a complex and multi-creative artist.

Sandra Woock has exhibited her unique and distinctive style of textile work across the US. She has a comprehensive website where a much larger portfolio of her work can be seen. The link to her website can be found in the reference links section below.

Illustration: Sandra Woock. Pipedreams.

All images were provided with the kind permission of the artist.

Reference links:

Sandra Woock website

Wen Redmond and the Complex Nature of Observation

Illustration: Wen Redmond. Trees Seen, Forest Remembered, 2008.

Of all the images and work produced by textile artist Wen Redmond, I have chosen a sequence of work produced by her over a couple of years. An observational and emotional tie to the theme of the tree links the images together, but it is perhaps her wide ranging and varied working methods that make the link all the more apparent.

Redmond is an artist that has strived to incorporate some particularly personal elements into her work. Photography seems to loom large, but it is the personal nature of observation and an emotional link with the subject that has guided the artist. An artist with a camera is a powerful combination. They tend not to randomly choose subjects that may prove useful at some point in the future, but are guided more to that of  individual elements within the environment, elements that are not always explainable individually, but become segments of a composition that may well be built up over a fairly considerable time period, or could well fit into place at an early stage of the creative process.

Illustration: Wen Redmond. Tree Forms, 2006.

By taking her own photographs and then printing them onto various textile formats, Redmond is able to control a much wider aspect of the emotional attraction that her work instils in the observer. Although only part of the process, it is an intrinsically important one. The layers of painting, dyeing, and stitching overlap the initial observation, helping to guide and support the composition so that many more aspects of Redmond's bond with the subject matter, becomes apparent.

Although abstract in nature, the narrative in each of these examples of Redmond's work is still very much linked to that of the real world around us. That the artist has chosen to show us much more and at a number of different levels, including colour, texture and dimension, allows us a glimpse at least of the thought processes, both analytical and emotional, that powered that initial photo opportunity, an opportunity that is at the root or foundation of the complex composition that has been built around and over that initial creative judgement.

Illustration: Wen Redmond. Winters Patience, 2008.

One of the most important aspects of Redmond's work is the question of observation. What is observation? How many aspects or plains of thought are involved when looking at a tree for example? By observing the complex nature of Redmond's work, we are made aware that what we observe around us contains a whole raft of layers full of meaning and context. We are aware that we are observing a tree, but so much more information is gathered at the same time. We are usually unaware of the depth of our understanding of one initial focus of our eyesight, but Redmond shows us through her work, the process that is continually being played out between observation and evaluation. Our eyes may well be open, but are we really seeing?

Illustration: Wen Redmond. Turn Around Tree, 2006.

This is one of the fundamental tools of any artist, allowing us to see what we really see. That Redmond has successfully achieved this aspect through the often difficult medium of textiles is doubly in need of praise. Her work will allow us to reach levels in which we can observe her understanding of observation.

Wen Redmond has exhibited her work since the mid-1980s and received various awards along the way. She has a comprehensive website where much more of her work can be seen and she also maintains a regular blog where those interested in her creative and thought processes, can follow her work.

Illustration: Wen Redmond. Root of the Matter. 2008.

All images provided with permission of the artist.

Reference links:

Wen Redmond website 

Wen Redmond blog