Visit to Denmark - photography

Once a year I travel to Denmark. This year I was lucky to catch some open studios that were going on and some of the work was very good. There were guest artists from Sweden, Iceland and Germany, some textile art and we managed to visit a large art group that have been set up in  a now closed town hall, resurrected as an art studio.

It was all very enjoyable and of course I stayed with my family and there was time to relax and do a bit of photography.

This is what I will mainly deal with in this blog. in the village I grew up in there are buildings now standing there decaying, as no-one seems to want to live there, as the young people move away, the remaining population becoming elderly and so not having the energy to spend on buildings that are becoming broken with time.

I will start with a few from a building that was leaking water, concrete bleeding minerals and creating stalactites, leaving old electrical equipment rusty and walls and ceilings flaking, dripping and cracking.

It is kind of sad seeing a building which once housed a family and which has had the beginnings of a new extension now left unused and worn looking. Of course decay is photogenic, and the light was bright, so shadows were hard in the sun.

The concrete ceiling and its stalactites

A concrete panel with green (likely to be algae of some similar organic growth) was striped with water

And even in the decay some signs of life 

Catching up - the Autumn of 2017 -

Well, it has been a long time since I caught up with the blog and instead of writing about everything I have done since May I thought I might do a quick summary of our holiday to Helsinki and Stockholm in September, and then do a separate post about the dyeing and spinning I have done during the Autumn.

So, in September we visited Helsinki and Stockholm - both very beautiful cities and with their own particular characteristics. I have to say of the two I liked Helsinki more: it is very grand in its robust architecture, many severe, stark and brutal facades and there are rocky outcrops you stumble upon as you walk around the city.

We visited a number of museums including the Finnish National Gallery where they had an Alvar Alto exhibition on and the Suomenlinna fortress. We also visited the older parts of town walking around, falling over a small fleamarket where I bought two bound volumes of Bygmastaran from the 1940s, a Swedish architectural journal, with descriptions of good Swedish modernist housing and public authority building projects. There was time for a chamber music concert and shopping at the Stockmann department store and more shopping in an other flea market where I bought some 1970s Finnish cast metal jewellery.

Here are some impressions from the city:

 

The national museum had a bear at the entrance - in fact bears can be found in many places, they are great, heavy and stony.

 

 

 

The boat yard on the Suomenlilla island

 

 

 

A rocky spot with a tree - I am endlessly fascinated by the way trees find ways to grow on even the most shallow and potentially difficult spot.

 

 

Mosaic mural by Tuula Lehtinen in the ladies toilet at the Helsinki Art Museum - there were many interesting works of art there by abstract artists and a temporary exhibition of Tove Janson's work - but not many Mumins in view, a good gallery to visit.

 

And further impressions:

 

 

More rock

 

 

 

A brutalist carved sculpture by Lauri Kristian Relander

 

 

We have been to Stockholm before and this time we again went to the Royal Armouries and Gamla Stan, but I also had time to go to Thielska Museet and went up Drottninggatan where I found an enclosed Art Nouveau garden with a pond and a beautiful tree and another Art Nouveau corner: a ceiling in a door way which was another momentarily quite place. Stockholm feels more hectic than Helsinki. People running about a bit like in London, streets more closely packed and large office buildings filled in around shopping streets so visitors, shoppers and people working in offices milling around each other. I liked the Thielska Galleriet very much, enjoyed the Scandinavian art work there, we visited the Historiska Museet which had a good Viking period room and interesting exhibits, including an ancient organ.



 

 

Glimpses from the Art Nouveau garden off Drottninggatan

 

 

A door in Gamla Stan

 

Doorway off Drottninggatan

 

Detail of an embroidered tablecloth at Thielska Galleriet

 

 

 

West Berkshire and North Hampshire Open Studios

This May has been a month of exhibition and making at the Open Studios. Together with two other artists we have been showing at City Arts in Newbury, which as an old chapel has large spaces to fill.

In order to fill the space in interesting ways the last two months or more have been spent making hangings and felt pieces. These have been hung together in a bit of an installation and I have used some tables to show other things, as well as a table for me to work at. It has all worked out well, and I have had time to do some tapestry weaving whilst there.

Here are some impressions from the exhibition:

 

This is an overall view of one end of the exhibition space, you can see the hangings, the folded book hanging from the ceiling and some of the tables.

 

These two pictures provide details of the green hangings, with a drawing (top) and green felt piece (below)

This image shows an interesting effect in the book: perforations from stitching lets the light through

 

 

A view of the full length of the book

 

A table set out with experimental pieces, felt and embroideries

 

A second table set out with small tapestries, sketchbooks and drawings on the theme of trees.

 

A view of the other end of the exhibition space with the table we have been working at - my friend came for a few days to learn tapestry and I have been working here on a small piece.

 

And finally - a couple of bookcases have been very useful in displaying the small tapestries. I had bought some perspex stands to show them off in a gentle sort of way, and you can also see the weaving frame ready to be used with a couple of reference books.

 

 

It has been an interesting event: the number of visitors has swung, with an increase over the bank holiday Monday, and I have been pleased that some people asked whether I give courses, which suggests that some are interested in the work. What people haven't done is bought anything. It is not a climate conducive for people to spend, and as textiles are relatively specialist I did not really expect many sales. I think people still prefer paintings or prints as primary art works for the home - textiles as decorative items are not common and my works are necessarily easy or ready for hanging. There has been a lot to learn during this last month and I am pleased to have been part of it, what will happen next year is another question and something I need to think about quite hard.

 

 

Completed tapestry woven works: Crapapple in white and green and a white textured piece

Crab apple

Throughout December until now my work has mainly been on tapestry weaving. In a previous post I showed a work in progress where I wove on a wooden block and it has turned out to be a fairly respectable piece in two parts.

I should say that these blocks were quite hard to weave; I used a kebab stick as a shed tick and had to needle weave to complete the surface. When the work got to the top and the last rows had to the be woven I had to sometimes/often lift individual warps with a pointed implement to get the needle underneath - a very slow and laborious process.

The warp was linen and the weft was a varying mixture and blend of all manner of handspun and commercial yarn: wool, silk, paper, linen, angora, viscose, latex covered yarn and more. I used only natural and white for one block and white-greens for the other. The greens were mainly dyed using Dylon cold water dyes.

They were photographed in more of a studio setting and so the colours seem a bit more enhanced, but they work together and suggest plant shapes as I had planned:

 

Here are some details of the different sides of it:

 

Basically I have wanted to work with interlaced wrapped elements for a while so this was opportunity to try this out, and as you can see the top of the white block was a mass of interwoven twisting elements.

 

Trying to work out how to finish off the linen warps around the nails, I platted the threads around the nails and tucked them under which in the end was the tidiest and allowed the threads to be cut and they now lie flat against the wood. 

 

 

Another couple of detail images showing each side of the green-white block: Here I used some twisted wrapped elements but used more as features on the surface rather than as a mass, and on the other side I woven in a more graphic pattern partly inspired by Bauhaus type compositions, weaving it flat without any surface additions.

 

 

White texture

 

Over Christmas and into January I was working up a largish sample (26x54cm) in white tones using a mixture of handspun yarns, commercial natural and synthetic fibres. I had bought this raw silk which had a very interesting texture, quite stiff to the touch (although it went soft in handling during the weave) and I had wanted to wrap a number of warps to enable the yarn to be shown off properly.

 

I set out to create a sample that would be big enough to be a wall hung piece and would show off the different textures of mohair, paper yarn, rayon, wool, cotton and linen, and which would provide a neutral background to the raw silk.

Here's the final tapestry, off the loom but quite finally mounted:

 

You can see that I built in some areas using small squares woven in paper yarn to make the background area a bit more interesting than eccentric weft only - the squares were pretty randomly placed and spanned either 3 or 4 warps.

 

Close up you can see how the texture on the right works - the raw silk lies in bunches over 3-5 warps:

 

Looped mohair was also used and I think this needs to be used sparingly if used in this sort of work, or as features in large tapestries as it projects out from the surface and can be a bit too much of a contrast if the surface needs to be flat. In general I should mention that with so many different thicknesses and qualities of yarn I needed to keep an eye on how thick the weft became. Sometimes it probably got a bit too thick or thin, although overall the final piece feels fairly even. I think that you can use the density of weft to good effect in a textured tapestry and I want to explore this some more once I get onto my new loom (an old Dryad rug loom - more to follow soon).

 

I am quite satisfied that the bunches of yarn around the warps worked as I had planned. I wonder whether you could wrap around even more warps and then use that effect in particular ways, but this would probably need a larger piece. As it is a couple of people have said that the  final effect feels like fungus on trees or perhaps more like the texture of birch bark, so I am happy that the organic feel of trees has been captured in this way.

I like the use of paper as a design detail in the squares, but see that I probably need to continue learning to control my edges as they tend to move in and out a bit depending on the thickness of the weft.

West Dean 5th course - Intuitive drawing

So, it has been a while since I did a course at West Dean and in late August I attended the 5th course in my series of 10. Half way through, and having looked back at soem of my work for the OCA I have to say I think the work is improving, and going to West Dean somehow gives you permission to think in a focussed way about what is happening with the work.

The tutor was Christopher Gilvan-Cartwright. A thoughtful and inspiring teacher who brought us many techniques to try out to give us a tool box of ways of creating surfaces, textures and mark on paper with charcoal, graphite, acrylic paint and ink. There were flattish marks and heavy textures, there were analyses of line and working over te paper in blocks of colour or mass of substance in charcoal or ink.

We each got a table and an easel and he pointed out that we could think about how we want to work - at three levels: on the table, on an easel or on the floor. I tried all three and they each gave something different to how the work developed: in the table  or floor your pour ink, on the easel you can sit back and really look at the work as it progresses.

Here is my table and bit of the floor with work in progress in sketchbooks and on paper (drying where ink or oil bar was applied):

Surprisingly I tried to keep tidy, as the space on the table was quite limited. We were mostly working on A1 or A2/A3 depending on whether finished work was being made, or test pieces to try out techniques were being made.

The 'intuitive' bit in the title suggested we were going to work with Dada automatic drawing, which we did do on the first day, but after that we simply worked very freely with the new techniques being taught. He did mention the idea of the exquisite corpse drawing and I read in the course description that we would be sharing work, but in the end we didn't do much of that, and just got on with our indendent work.

I used up paints in mt sketchbook, used collage and added to some books I had brought that needed to be thought about in a drawing sort of way. The tutor gave some very valuable feedback for the FDAD side of things, so overall it was a helpful and valuable course.

Here are some works I made over the weekend:

A lot of the work was done in black and white, but I did use some of my XL graphite as it leant itslef well to the large scale of the work and sits well with the charcoal and ink,

These long coloured things are the concertina books I had brought from home to add to - I have also started stitching on them, so this brief piece of work was just to add a bit of texture in paper or paint.

A drawing based on the moon's light that looks better in reality - the black sugar paper is already greyish, but looks even more so here.

Assignment 5 - Further reflections

My tutor asked me to expand a bit on my reflections of the work in assignment 5, she included some questions that may provide a useful starting point:

What are your thoughts on this body of work; blurred photo, drawings, colour palettes, collage and textile sample conclusion?  What did you learn about the design process? How did the drawing work affect your thinking?  Where did your ideas come from and how did you respond to them?  Was the final outcome what you expected, not just in regard to techniques but also in its aesthetic? 

I am relatively happy about the work I did in my ‘tree’ theme book, which contains various scribbely drawings, photographs of trees, both ‘straight’ and more experimental, responses to colour in mixes, some wool wraps and collages. (I had also included a sections on rugs used in interiors to show that the notion of the heavy woven cloth for interiors is still valid – although I did not look at where these things are made, they are more likely made in India and China to keep costs low; raising questions of tradition, fair trading and what happens with tapestry weaving in the West when such imports become more common) .

I was fundamentally inspired by the texts by Herman Hesse in a small book called ‘Trees’ – Bäume (in German) which contains some beautiful passages on his responses to trees and nature (see this post). I am interested in nature and natural things and the way we as a human race are affecting nature so dramatically. To contain the work I wanted to work on the tree theme, working in tapestry. 

My work is mainly experimental. I like to play with materials and with the technology of the camera and so some of the work in the theme books reflects this. I am not sure the drawing work directly influences what I do. I need to learn to look and so to draw more, but in fact when working with process the main point is the materials and the technique as starting points, although for the final pieces it was the photographs that directed the colour choices. You don’t always know where you are going with the work when responding to materials, but in the case of assignment 10 I knew I had limited time, I had decided to contain the work by using tapestry technique and used photographs to lead the colour decisions. 

Overall I believe I have already spoken of my inspiration (the theme book, the pictures) in various posts, but I might need to comment a bit on the final impressions of the pieces. Both the green piece and the flower piece are separate works with their own individual integrity. They are contained by their sides, although the green sample is more open and experimental in its expression, as it was a test-run of a technique I had only seen worked by others. The colours work well together and the green sample shows that using a coloured warp will help create interest both from the weaving and its structure. The final sample works as a sample and reflect my intended experiment with pulling the warp to tighten the weft, and it has resulted in something, which if mounted on a dark background, might even be seen as a final piece.

The blue sample with the flowers also works quite well. Again, it is a sample to try out sewing with the silk strips, and seeing how the smoothness of the silk against the textured woven background creates a sense of interest and tension that evokes the lightness of the petals against the hard ground on the photographs. Of the two samples this is the ‘pretty’ one, the flowers evoking white flowers in general, whilst the green sample is an abstracted sense of the green in leaves, just as the photograph indicated.

I enjoy photographing and considering colour. I do not necessarily contain the final piece in my head before it is made, althouh I sometimes do, and so the final sample may look incomplete as its function is to practice and work through thoughts. In both cases I think this has worked well, and I am content that they stand alone, each an expression of a particular mood, ‘Spring’ and ‘Summer’, density of leaves, lightness of petals, trees as element sof growth and change, affected by the seasons, the weather and how we see them.

Textiles 1 - Assignment 5 tutor feedback

After each assignment we receive feedback from our tutor. The OCA asks that we publish this on our blog, so here it is. I have had mixed feelings about the course overall and how distance learning works in the creative arts. Text in blue is my commentary, text in black is my tutor's words:

Overall Comments

Congratulations in completing this final part of Textiles 1: A Creative Approach.   It is clear from the work you have sent me you have worked hard to use the design process to develop ideas and final textile pieces.  You have used research material to inspire drawing work in a range of mediums.  However there is a lack of evidence that you have worked through a number of textile samples in order to come to conclusions about the direction of your final design.  Having said that your final weave piece is a clear development of your blurred tree photographs. 

Feedback on assignment

Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Quality of Outcome, Demonstration of Creativity

During this assignment you have created a theme book based on trees, exploring their forms, colours and design potential through drawing and collage.   Though your drawing skill still needs developing you have used it regularly to explore your theme with some success.  There is a pleasing use of mark making to explore the structure of trees, for example the page where you use lightly painted some what watery lines accompanied by splashes of colour in blue and pink.  I suggest you develop this loose style further, using mark-making exercises to develop your style.  Mark making video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LrZGoW6-iw

Comment: yes, I agree, I am still a novice at drawing and have not done as much as I had intended. This last module fell at a time when I was also doing professional studies and an exam for my work, and I have to say that splitting your mind into work and art is not easy when there is pressure on.

I try to work loosely when I draw. I find that as a new person to drawing I get quite tight and worried about drawing which takes the enjoyment away from it. So I try to be more playful, although it is difficult. So, useful feedback.

Throughout your theme book you have used collage to develop and play with ideas.  I particularly like the collage you have built up using different green papers in a linear arrangement that reflects the image opposite of a pine forest.  There also appears to be a conscious effort to investigate texture through collage that works well in this project. 

It would have been good to see a group of textile samples that came from this work, placing the samples alongside the work to illustrate how your ideas developed.  It’s possible you conducted your sampling earlier in the course, if this is the case I suggest you organise your work in way that explains how drawing influenced you sample making. 

Comment: I didn’t have time to do much sample making. I was nearing the absolute final date for submission and decided to work straight on the loom as I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to make. It is worth repeating here that I primarily work through process, i.e. I work with the material and experiement as I go along. The course material suggsted we could work through process and I chose to work in this way, which is my preferred approach. I knew what colours I wanted to use, and the technique (in the case of the green sample) I wanted to try out. There was little point sampling when the final thing was itself a sample and the process of working through it was the main concern of this method. It would have been different if I was planning something that needed careful thought and working out for example in terms of size, blends, representation or interpretation, but that was not necessary in the case of either samples as they were worked through on the loom. Tapestry weaving is a slow process and there is quite a bit of time to think during the work.

You have sent three larger textile samples (including the book cover) with the rippled weave being your final piece I think.  This is quite an exciting piece of textile work with its free use of colour and energetic texture.  It clearly is a development of your photographic experiments.  It has been crafted with care but also feels like an inquiring piece of work that captures the blurry movement in your photograph.  

Comment: Originally I had intended to make four pieces for the final work, to reflect trees through the seasons. This was a bit ambitious in the end and the two woven pieces I have included represent an exploratory work that resonates with the ‘summer’ theme that is based on the abstracted photographs my tutor mentions, and the ‘spring’ theme, based on the photo-manipulated images of magnolia stellate from our garden. The feedback is useful and clear, I am encouraged that the work is seen as careful craft work, that is my intention with creating samples, and final work.

What are your thoughts on this body of work; blurred photo, drawings, colour palettes, collage and textile sample conclusion?  What did you learn about the design process? How did the drawing work affect your thinking?  Where did your ideas come from and how did you respond to them?  Was the final outcome what you expected, not just in regard to techniques but also in its aesthetic?  This reflective thinking and recording that thinking is an essential part of the course, making up 20% of your mark.  I suggest you include a reflective piece of writing of about 500 words on your learning log to conclude this journey.

Comment: I am a bit confused about some of these questions. I put a lot of effort into describing my process for the ‘stellata’ piece, looking at the image and choosing wools, selecting colours, working in sections etc and referencing Fiona Hutchison’s work for the green sample etc. I will add some more words into the blog in a separate post, and will consider the aesthetic dimension. Some supporting wording is also included in the final reflections section. Maybe my blog isn’t clearly set out?

Research

Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis  

For this assignment you have conducted an in depth study into trees, using this as your theme to inspire design.  This spread nicely into architecture in particular church interiors.  You have collected the information in the form of photographs and cuttings.  It is nice to see you have mixed paints to create colour palettes from these images.  You have also used drawing and collage to explore the potential of the images too.  These are all really good ways to explore your research material so I suggest you continue to do this in your future studies.

Comment: yes, I like collaging, using texture and working out colours, good to hear she likes this technique. I went on a Cas Holmes course on creative journal making which was a good introduction to how to work with papers, samples, sketches etc. I think the box I made for the sketchbook course earlier in the year was useful in that respect as well. I believe that I pick up impressions from many different sources, including from an in-visible source such as music, and they all leave traces in the subconscious that get worked through when I am developing my ideas in some way.

You have also gathered imagery and information about other practitioners, for example Fiona Hutchinson whom you explain you met taking part in one of her summer schools.  You include some lovely imagery of her work, including sample pieces on her studio wall.  To get the most from this experience and from other workshops and talks you have attended it is vital to explain what you have learnt.  Not just in terms of techniques but also ways of working - how an artist develops their ideas, their design process, how they use drawing, sampling and times of reflection.  From this you ought to spend some time considering how what you have learnt will affect the way you approach your own creative process.  This critical reflection is essential when studying towards a degree but it will also assist you creating more meaningful and considered textiles. 

Learning Logs or Blogs/Critical essays

Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis  

Further to what is written above your learning log is well organised with imagery of your work and details of techniques and methods used.  I suggest you develop you critical thinking skills by writing about how your ideas come about, how you respond to these ideas through drawing and making and then write an evaluation of drawings and the things you make.  This will assist you in gaining a good mark at assessment and it will also encourage a deeper understanding of your own personal design process.

Comment: OK, this is a similar comment to the one above about writing about process and ideas generation. I mentioned that I felt I had done this already, but will do a bit more. There is something personal about idea generation and process development that I feel should not always be revealed and disclosed to the world, and I am still not sure what it is that is being asked here. 'Telling all' is almost turning oneself inside-out in public, and although there is a movement for people to open all to the world on the web I do not necessarily want that. There has to a space for one's own self and quiet making. For example, one of the course tutors whose course I attended was quite sensitive about her process and did not want this shared with the world on another person’s blog.

My first tutor on this course thought I should spend more time making and less on writing - I have since been asked to write more. I have spent several years in university undertaking critical writing on art and design, and reviewing design thinking (design history to MA level), and I continue to have to think hard and write in my daily work. 

I believe that practice is itself a mode of expression, and yes, there should be words attached, but in the design and art disciplines surely making, as praxis, should be the primary mode of expression. The work is the embodiment of the learning and the thought process. Perhaps this is a limitation of distance learning that there is no immediate discussion of the work. In classes with tutor feedback and real presence we discuss the work using language to describe and reflect, but it is an immediate and responsive environment to support the work and we find essences in the spoken rather than writing long realms of text. Writing so much on a blog feels artificial and can become a chore, it ditracts from the work to some extent. Add to that the expectation of participation in on-line environments (sometimes with more self-revelation) and there is little time left for making.

For me it is the process that is the important thing above everything else.

Pointers for further study

• To work within the time scale provided by the OCA (you work arrived 2 days after you course finished) – yes, I submitted late, but that was due to work pressures and over-reaching my project
• Develop your drawing skill – agree – I am going on a couple of drawing courses at West Dean college soon, and will take life drawing classes locally to where I live
• Include your reflective thinking and analysis of the work you make – Hmm, see my comments above
• Write about what you have learnt during workshops, talks and when looking at your research material.  – again, I thought I had done this. I am keeping the writing slim-lined and will try to write just enough, as I still think the making takes precedent over writing.

 Pointers for assessment

• Reflect on this feedback in your learning log
• Make suitable adjustments to your work in line with tutor feedback.
• Reread your feedback forms to check you have used all the tutor suggestions.
• Look at the learning outcomes and the assessment criteria to judge whether your work has met the requirements.
• Refer to the assessment guidelines on the oca website, Research ▷ By Course Area ▷ Textiles ▷ scroll down to page 2 ▷ Assessment Guidelines: Textiles
• Aim to organize your work so that it tells the story of how you went about achieving the outcomes.  You did this by conducting research, doing drawing and making samples.