Roanna Wells

When I find an artist whose work I admire, I really enjoy exploring further. This may be someone a friend has mentioned, a name referred to in a book, or someone's work seen in a gallery or found on Google.

Looking at good work is instructive - and such a pleasure. I've come to the conclusion that those artists I like best seem to produce work with a simple graphic quality, and are able to express an idea without over-embellishment. I just wish I could restrain myself and produce work of such clarity and depth ....

Scattered Five - Roanna Wells

I came across the work of Roanna Wells for the first time in Gwen Hedley's book Drawn to Stitch and then saw her at Art in Action in Oxfordshire, a couple of years ago. Her basic idea is so uncomplicated - just fine black thread on a cream wool ground, the stitches seeded across the surface.

Two years ago, I bought the little piece shown here - Scattered Five - and I look at it everyday. I never tire of it. The patterns seem to represent whatever you wish or nothing in particular at all. Perhaps it represents a high cumulus cloud on a warm summer's day - or maybe a murmuration of starlings over the Somerset Levels .... and maybe it just doesn't matter what you see....

Obama Inauguration, Washington 2009
(Reproduced with permission of the artist)

However, more recently Roanna's work has interpreted the forms within crowds as seen from above on significant occasions in her series Interpersonal Spatial Arrangements. It's such a clever idea and very effective. 

The two pieces here are currently to be seen on Roanna's website (along with several others) and I love them both. I think though that the Obama Inauguration piece is my favourite. The sweeping, arcing shapes are wonderful and the crowds depicted in stitch are beautifully suspended in that moment of expectation that swept the world on his election.

Roanna can be found on her website, www.roannawells.co.uk

I feel sure she is one to watch ......

Drowning Victim, Coney Island Beach,
New York 1952
(Reproduced with permission of the artist)

GREAT WESTERN EMBROIDERERS EXHIBITION

I promised details and a poster of the GWE exhibition in Malmesbury starting in February and here it is.

We're all stitching madly and, seeing the developing pieces of work at meetings, I think we can promise our usual wide range of styles and subject matter. Given a broad focus, it never ceases to amaze me how differently people in the group interpret the brief.

The poster is one example and features a piece of machine embroidery by Shirley Watson. Shirley digitises her own designs using her Bernina computerised embroidery machine and software. 

I shall be exhibiting my geology pieces, although I'm not sure how many I'll manage at this stage. I may struggle to complete all of the three large pieces I mentioned in a previous post - but time will tell. I'm always optimistic till time catches up with me....

We very much hope we will see some of you there - do identify yourselves if you come. The exhibition will be stewarded quite a lot of the time and the group are very friendly and always willing to talk about their work.

AFTERMATH

..... And now it's all over. Everyone's gone home and we're left in a post-Christmas haze with a huge pile of discarded wrapping paper and enough food for a week. (Why do I always over-cater?)

Our three grandchildren with
stockings, reindeer food
and Father Christmas' glass of wine
on Christmas Eve

Fond relationships have been cemented and the family bonded, which is what makes it all worthwhile. We had a wonderful time - greatly enhanced by the grandchildren who kept everyone amused when there was any possibility of boredom. All those capable mucked in and helped with food preparation and clearing up. Thanks to all for everything.

Mother and daughter in the garden
checking that the reindeer had eaten
their food on Christmas morning....
....they had ....such relief!

As always after Christmas, the soup factory is now in business. It is warming and comforting and a great antidote to all that rain and dismal weather .... and it uses up the left-overs and so makes me feel virtuous ....

This afternoon, I will start some stitching - a small piece to break me in gently as I focus my mind ready for something bigger after New Year.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS ALL

This is one of many stitch cards that didn't quite make it into full production as it took too long but I like the colours anyway so it comes with good wishes for Christmas.

Hope there's a great time had with family, friends or however you choose to celebrate or maybe you ignore the whole thing - but enjoy the holiday anyway.

We'll be 14 here altogether,  including 3 grandchildren under 3 - a noisy time will be had no doubt - but hopefully it will be happy - and after it's all over we will rest and sleep..... We'll need to!

Blogging is fun and it's great to be read so I'll be back in the New Year after the pleasure of family is over.

I look forward to having the time to stitch and complete rather than just imagining and designing in my mind as I do when I'm busy.....

Sandra Meech - Connecting Design to Stitch

At last I've found time for a proper read of Sandra Meech's lovely book, Connecting Design to Stitch, bought at the Festival of Quilts. There are some great exercises to try when I have the time to do them justice.

Arctic Snow  - Sandra Meech
(Reproduced with permission)

Meanwhile, I've been taking inspiration from the close-ups of the quilting lines she's used in the examples of her work. I particularly like Arctic Snow on P 21 for its simplicity and the way the eye is focused on the small area of strong colour and the movement and shape of the machine stitch.

Machine stitch sample
in my planning journal

If you've read my blog before you may know that the group I stitch with, Great Western Embroiderers, have an exhibition focusing on the Cotswolds coming up in the New Year. At the moment, ready for this, I'm working on a textile version of a geological section, representing the folds, faults and strata of the oolitic limestone. (This is not an original thought, I know.)

I'm finding it difficult as everything seems to become very linear and strip-like (no surprise really ...) . Making the work lively and with unexpected details is hard. I also tend to over-work things.

For better or worse, these are the results so far, in the order I did them. On each one, I've used a silk or cotton ground and painted the fabric with silk paints. Either before or after painting, I've machine quilted them.

Limestone layers with machine quilting and handstitch
ex[eriment and 8" square for group project

On the bright yellow one, I hand stitched with running stitches as it seemed to free things up and make the work look more unplanned and natural. As well as being a try-out, this will be my contribution to the group compilation of 8" squares.

Although I like the effect I've produced on it, I'm not sure it's going to be practical on a big piece like I'm planning. It will take ages. My dead-line to finish it is the of the middle of February and I have thoughts for THREE large pieces!


I always seem to have ideas beyond my ability to complete them.

I may have to think again.

Hand painted on a cotton ground
with lots of machine stitch, much
of it using distorted in-built stitches

Image taken from: Sandra Meech 2012, Connecting Design to Stitch, Batsford P21 - reproduced with permission from Sandra.

FROST, MIST AND PHOTOGRAPHS

Frost and fog like we have had this week are not that common here so have to be relished. The effects had me reaching for my camera and set me looking at past photos. I have lots as I love the sight of frost on grasses and reeds, branches and twigs, and cobwebs and photograph them whenever I can.

This was the view across fields from the bottom of my garden this morning. Every twig and frond was covered in ice crystals. I was fascinated by how the hoar frost had attached itself to the (not very effective) rabbit-proof chicken wire and the barbed wire along the fence.

The rime had also picked out cobwebs on trees, fences, this wooden gate and even my car wing mirror.

Later in the day - but when I didn't have my camera to hand - the sun broke through the mist, low in the sky, and a soft pink light was cast across the fields - quite lovely.



The winter before last, we had very heavy frosts and I took a drive around the neighbourhood with my camera. I'd no time to do that today so had to make do with these photographs.

I'd found a frozen pond surrounded by reeds and bull-rushes and a dried umbellifera all coated in hoar frost. It had taken many days of continuous temperatures below zero to give this build-up and to pick out every stem, seed head and twig.

I'm sure these images, like so many things, will find their way into my textile work, though right now I'm not sure how.