Snippets from Lydiard House

We opened our exhibition at Lydiard House, Swindon yesterday with a private view - a lovely afternoon with excellent attendance and much kindness from all who came.

Those of you who read this blog regularly may remember the beginnings of the woven piece shown below - or at least the small snippets shown as I went along.

This is what it turned into - a twisted, gently wired Möbius form, playing with the contours and colours of the Cotswold Hills. I've called it Stroud Form and it's part of my Cotswold Edge series.

You may also recognise the small pieces on the table beside it, all set out in the staterooms of the house, alongside the artefacts and furnishings.

It's a most interesting venue in which to exhibit and makes us look afresh at what we are doing.

It was hard to pick favourites from amongst all the variety but I've chosen a very small selection from other members of the group that seemed especially to speak to me. I hope they show something of the range of the work and reflect the setting within the house. 

First of all there is a beautiful 3D textile pot by Ruth Hayman called Smocked Pot. Ruth stitched and smocked in a wonderfully random fashion onto a transfer dyed ground and then wired the whole to give the piece a quirky, mishapen form. It's even more of a delight than this trickily lit photo can suggest. 

The next is Painted Window, a lovely cushion by Jane Smith which refers to a fascinating, brightly coloured window at the far end of the house. I've struggled to show the textures of the piece in this photo. It's done in scrappy collage and has lots of machine embroidery - but to me it's very satisfying and tactile.

Then there is The One Who Is by Anne Hayhoe, a response to the parable of the Lost Sheep. This is a mixed media textile hanging with, among other media, charcoal, paper, acrylic paint, and foil. The lost sheep is hard to find but it is there ...

I could have chosen much more to show and maybe I will do so before the exhibition ends on June 1st. 

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