Playing with sunflowers

Bloom, the recently started theme for my new group of stitchers (Brunel Broderers) has been giving me much to think about. It has been good to be prompted to think afresh and in a different direction. I have had many thoughts in mind but, sadly, I've had little chance to do anything except think. My much used PC with all its software and thousands of photographs was completely inaccessible for nearly 6 weeks due to a major malfunction (which also explains my recent blogging silence).

However, I am now back and able to access everything (what a relief!). I spent this afternoon reminding myself of where I was going and what I was thinking about before the cut off and re-exploring all the many photos of gardens and flowers that I took in August and September with Bloom in mind. I am now relieved to be able to work on them all.

So far, I’ve been attracted most to sunflowers - their strong colour (I do do colour!), their shape and structure and, above all, their sheer size. I began simply by overlaying images of two sunflower heads on top of one another, playing with the juxtaposition of the images and their relationship to one another.

I then used layer and crop or layer and cut again to isolate small sections of four slightly different images. I selected parts of the images and overlaid layers shapes one on another and altered colour and opacity. There is much to play with as can be seen here.

It always interests me to see how changing the colour in one element can so alter the whole effect.

 And how changing the focus to a different shape can seem so different.

Whilst some thought when beginning to develop new work is not a bad thing, for me there is always a strong urge to get on with things. This business has taught me two things. First of all, just how much my processis tied up with my photos and my ability to work on them. Secondly, how important it is to backup to an external drive so files can be accessed from elsewhere!

Stitch and shape and not much else?

These little cards have been prepared for Swindon Open Studios next weekend, 22nd and 23rd September. As I posted here previously, I will have work on show and for sale with Great Western Embroiderers in Cricklade United Church Hall and will be manning my table both days, ready to talk about what I do. It will be a pleasure to see you if you live close enough to come.

They feature tiny abstract pieces (around 3 inches square) and are a different approach for me since they are simply impromptu experiments in stitch and cloth. There has been no preliminary photographing, planning through sketchbook work or forethought of any kind - and there is no conscious underlying imagery at play. I just went to my fabric stash, chose a small selection that appealed to me and selected threads in an appropriate palette.

Thus the pressure was off and I played. My main thoughts, I suppose, were with stitch (as both construction and decoration) and with shape, although there was some conscious use of texture and pattern. I also explored diagonals and intersections and the careful posititioning of stitch. 

The whole thing has been a very entertaining break for me, though it was surprisingly taxing to do with every decision to be made on the spot. Stitch in my abstract pieces is mainly for construction and in my more representational pieces is generally for decoration and the development of imagery. It is rarely both in the one piece ... something to take forward, perhaps?

Another thought (not a new one for me) was that more is often too much and simpler is better. I always have to remember that. 

So, nothing is ever done completely in isolation, whatever one may think!


*Full details of Swindon Open Studios and the other contributors is to be found on their website here. 

Brunel Broderers

I have recently been accepted by Brunel Broderers, a small group of textile artists and embroiderers who (currently) come from Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Bristol.

The work of the group is very varied and there is much experimentation with members frequently pushing at the boundaries of what is usually considered to be embroidery. For the first time in a while, I feel excited at the textile challenges ahead.

I joined them recently for a small exhibition of  work at the West Country Quilt and Textiles Show at the University of the West of England, north of Bristol. Each member chose a few pieces of recent work that they wanted to display and we stewarded for the four days of the show.

It was a good beginning for me and I have been made to feel most welcome. I am looking forward to meeting regularly with the group and exhibiting in the area ... and I'm very much looking forward to the future!

Swindon Open Studios

I will be taking part in Swindon Open Studios with Great Western Embroiderers this year.

My work will include much that I've posted here before plus cards and some small pieces such as  these, on photographs manipulated in Photoshop Elements, printed onto cotton and hand stitched  ...


and others similar, several of which are still to be finished!

We will be in Cricklade on Saturday 22 and Sunday 23 September. Details (including opening times and address) are given in the poster in the side bar, right.

I will be manning my table throughout the two days, along with 6 other members of our group. For those living close enough, it would be a pleasure to see you.

Aftermath at Tate Britain

Recently, I met a friend in London for a visit Tate Britain to see their current Aftermath exhibition. This traced the developments in art in the wake of World War 1 and evoked powerfully the horrors of life in the trenches and the lasting effects of the conflict after it had ceased. It was a most challenging and thought-provoking day. There were so many heartrending images of suffering to view and many will stick long in the memory.

Unfortunately, however, my choice of images has been limited as photographs were not permitted. I've relied therefore on those shown here on the Tate Britain website.

The first painting below was by French artist Paul Jouve and was to be seen towards the start of the exhibition. An abandoned helmet became a poignant symbol of suffering and destruction for many artists caught up in the conflict. Here the sense of pointlessness is highlighted by the cherry blossom on the tree in the background - a poignant link to the normality of the past. In a similar vein was a painting by Sir William Orpen. Standing in front of both these paintings, the desolation and sense of loss were palpable. In both, the heartless destruction of everything was highlighted by the apparently sunny colour palette.  They each evoked strongly the silence and absence of all life once the fighting stopped.

Paul Jouve - Tombe d'un soldat serbe a Kenali 1917 (Grave of a Serbian soldier at Kenali 1917)

Sir William Orpen - A grave in a Trench 1917

I found another by Sir William Orpen in my searches after I returned home. It seemed to evoke especially strongly the utter devastation and futility and the undervaluing of life in the wake of the battles.

Sir William Orpen - Destruction: part of Zonnebeke 1918

There followed powerful evocations of both the terrible wounds incurred by many survivors of the trenches and the effects of the conflict on the women and children left at home where homes and lives were destroyed. 

Otto Dix - Prostitute and Disabled War Veteran. Two Victims of Capitalism 1923

Christopher Richard Wynne Nevison - Ypres After the First Bombardment 1916

After the war, many artists returned to prewar classicism (among them surprisingly to me was Picasso), seeking the comfort of the known. Yet others reflected on the utter pointlessness of the conquest. They called into question every aspect of society, seeking to destabilise conventional gender roles and social order. Out of this questioning arose Dadaism and Surrealism, represented in the exhibition by the work of Hannah Hoch and Max Ernst among others.

Hannah Hoch - Cut with the Kitchen Knife Through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany (1919 - 20)

Max Ernst -Celebs 1921

A simple piece of sculpture by Wilhelm Lehmbruck made a particular impression on me.

Wilhelm Lehmbruck - The Fallen man 1915 -16

Lehmbruck was a German sculptor. This displayed so graphically that the horror and sense of pointlessness were felt equally keenly on both sides of the conflict.

The exhibition is on until 24 september. I highly recommend it, though it was a gruelling ride. We had booked our visit as part of a package which included lunch in the Rex Whistler restaurant. This provided an excellent meal and some much-needed light relief to the challenges of the exhibition.

I suspect that this is a formula we will repeat, though perhaps next time we will find more cheerful subject matter.

Gardens

It just so happens that we've visited several beautiful gardens this summer. This has given me much food for thought and some hints on new work, perhaps this time involving colour.

This afternoon, since our return from Scotland yesterday, I've downloaded my (many) photos and begun playing. I consciously sought out individual speciment flowers and architectural features but there were many other things that caught my eye. In the short amount of time available today, I worked especially on individual flowers or pairs, selecting parts of the images and applying layer by copy and layer by cut in Photoshop Elements.

First of all come two images of individual sunflowers photographed in the gardens of Crathes Castle, Aberdeenshire. In these, I've played mostly with cropping and cutting the images and filling almost the whole page with the image.
The other images are of Inula hookeri (commonly known as fleabane, I believe). These I found in Biddulph Grange Gardens, a delightful National Trust property near Stoke in Staffordshire. Here, I selected, cropped and adjusted colour somewhat.

And last of all, a single fleabane, with colour greatly enhanced.

Like the sunflowers, the fleabane has the merit of being a circular and fairly robust flower with a clearly defined shape. It seems so far that these work best when the aim is to fill the whole page with the image. They are also presumably the same plant family as the sunflowers (Compositae), though Google refused to confirm this for me. Perhaps there is something of a tentative theme emerging already ...

However, this is very much feeling my way. All so far is very representational and I have done almost no abstraction. This will come later no doubt. It usually does.

It seems that the more I work with a theme, the more abstract my work becomes.