Some exhibitions attended in May

Over the bank holiday weekend we went into London to go visit a couple of things - firstly the Hilma af Klint exhibition at the Serpentine and secondly re-visiting some select galleries at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

The reason I wanted to see the Hilma af Klint exhition was that curators frequently claim that she was at the forefront of abstraction, and having bought a catalogue of an exhibition that was shown in Hamburg in 2013, I throught it would be good to see the work in the flesh - to see the works in full scale to see how she had applied the pint and worked out her compositions.

There is an excellent documentary about Hilma af Klint on Youtube. In it the curator claims af Klint as an abstract artist working before and at the same time as Kandinsky and Malevich. There is a suggestion that she was somehow written out of the modern art cannon because she was a woman. However I have some reservations about this reading of her art. The curatorial discourse does not hide af Klint's deep interest in spiritualism and Theosophy and it is from these spiritual roots that her work arises first. The catalogue I have shows work by an American spiritual artist, Georgiana Houghton, who also worked with abstract scrolling and wavy loops in her work, using many different colours and some representational elements. She worked in the 1860s, so even earlier than af Klint. Basically both were committed spiritualists and their work was channeled by them as mediums.

And I think that is what makes their work different from the 'grand masters' of Modernism. As far as I understand it, Modernism was about seeing things in radically different ways , challenging historicism and trying to find a new language for art, where non-representation and elemental forms were crucial. And this was often accompanied by a political stance to society. If, as af Klint, you are making art works that speak about a spiritual life of esoteric spirit, and add text to create a view of spiritual and religious life then this is something different. I didn't see any hints of any way that af Klint was working out abstraction in these terms. Her work was definitely 'abstract', but this was in the context of her belief system. In a small annex to the main gallery there were some small drawings of circular designs. In Swedish (af Klint's native language) each drawing was described according to various religion's relationships to certain concepts such as 'image of God' and so on. And nowhere had a curator attenpted to describe this or interpret what might be going on.

This left me with a distinct feeling that reclaiming af Klint's abstraction as a missing 'link' somehow in the history of Modernist abstraction is a bit of an art historical contrivance. I enjoyed af klints doodle-like large paintings. There was much to reflect on in relation to how this work was informed by a (possibly) particular woman's sensitivity, but I think this work should be seen as part of that line of work - through spiritualism and Theosophy - and perhap think about Mondrian in that connection (rather than Kandinsky).

After this we went to the Victoria & Albert Museum. This is a great museum and on this occassion I went to the jewelry and the tapestry galleries. The Devonshire Hunting Tapestries are always worth a visit, the colours fine, the stories interesting, and this time there was a Morris & Co tapestry with some designs by Phillip Webb drawings hanging near by showing the designs for the weaving. Very good and always inspiring - and of course the jewelry was equally fine - some great pieces of interesting designs.

A textile exhibition

I also managed to sqeeze in a visit to the World Ikat Textiles...ties that bind exhibition at SOAS, University College London. This was an excellent exhibition, showing ikat weaves from many different nations and continents including Japan, China, India, Thailand, Africa and other countries of the Far East and South America. There were shawls and garments - both old and contemporary. The European examples were mainly 18th century used in dresses and accessories, these were not as strong in their designs as some of the finer ones from Africa or Japan for example, which were some of my favourites. The breadth of the items on show showed different uses of dye, whether printed or dipped warps and wefts, single ikat and double ikat weaves. The recent weaves included works made in Thailand designed by young designers in an effort to keep the traditional craft alive. They were long beautiful runs of large bold circles and other elemental shapes in pure colours and others in finely graded muted colours. There was also a film showing ikat preparation and weaving in progress, as well as weavers from India weaving on a large loom in the gallery, and people could stop and discuss the work as it progresses.

The exhibition runs until the 25th June and is well worth a visit if you enjoy textiles. 

First tutorial on the FDAD at West Dean

I thought I would share a couple of things that was said during my first tutorial. On the Foundation Diploma in Art and Design at West Dean you get two tutorials. I had planned to have done four courses before my frst tutorial but having swapped a course I have only done three and a drawing day, which coincided with the tutorial day. In the end I decided that it might be good to have a tutorial at the start and maybe have the other at the end, and if need be I could pay a bit and get a third somewhere in the middle of the course.

You get one hour with one of the art tutors and are asked to bring some work for discussion. I saw a tutor who is a print maker. He is interested in a variety of things and was keen to discuss anything that I showed him. I brought my computer to show him the things I had done at West Dean so far, and I brought a couple of sketchbooks from OCA to discuss approaches. This included the box of bits that I had done as part of the sketchbook which I had been quite satified with, but which my OCA tutor had not commented on. So, in short, a variety of things that might trigger conversation.

Anyway, I found the tutor positive and interested, and he had several suggestions for my continuing work and artists to study. 

His first impressions were interesting:

Although purposefully placing herself within the sphere of constructed textiles, Lorna is    operating akin to a sculptor that has a painters’ feel too. This is very healthy and can only benefit her approach to making in general. She has very eclectic research material and is open to possibilities offered by materials, techniques and outside influences. This, again, is an excellent creative habit to continue with and I suggest keeping this intensity of research/sketchbook going.

Michael Brennand-Wood had said I used 'gestural marks', and here was a perspective that suggested some of my work is sculptural. This is encouraging as I have been thinking about free-hanging and voluminous making, and it also fits in well with my process approach. I asked him about 'voice' and he said I had this already.

On my sketchbook box of different elements he said:
 

You display a great sensitivity to materials; some of your ‘samples’ (although I see them as finished pieces) use minimal colours and texture to great effect - many textile artists fall into the habit of overworking pieces so that the viewer becomes overwhelmed by a mass of conflicting information.

.........

Consider working in a vein similar to the sequences made for your OCA course - A4 pieces (hundreds of them!) that can have small gestures applied in small yet significant moments. Over time these will build into a concrete body of work. Whilst working towards an open studio next year is a positive goal, don't pre-empt what it is you could be showing. Consider hanging different/ important work (made on Cas Holmes’ course) in studio to show how differently you can work when pushed.

This last bit refers to a goal I have for this year to make some works that can be shown at next year's Open Studions in my area. Overall there were useful pointers as to how I could build up some coherent works in a smaller format - and it might be useful to just keep making and then decide whether to show things in series.

He concluded by saying

We discussed 'design' which you felt to be difficult - however making small thumbnail sketches to adjust positioning/placement of elements will hone and improve this skill.

You are visually astute, embedding different media well; continue to question, make and enjoy.

I had showed him my themebook, which he looked through and suggested I continue making books like this as they are concentrated ways of working.

So, overall a good session with plenty to think about. I have a couple of studio days coming up so will carry on working on felting and weaving, and will try to work out how this will sit with these suggestions. Definitely a worthwhile exercise to get a bit of feedback occasionally.

Dyeing and more preparation

So, you could say that instead of making I have been diverted into preparing. Whilst tidying up I came across a bunch of cold water dyes that were just waiting to be used. And, having bought a bundle of sheets and having also found some nettle yarn I bought some time ago, I have over the last 6 weeks or so been dyeing all manner of fibres (but just not wool).

I am here just showing a small collection of fibre and fabric that is now ready for using in some interesting projects (the light on our kitchen is a bit bright, so the colours are over-exposed, in reality they are richer than is visible here):

This is mainly nettle yarn, coarse linen and some fine viscose weaving yarn. The dominant colour here is a rusty red.

Here is some more nettle yarn, but also some very shiny rayon croche yarn. I was also given a linen table cloth with lace corners from Denmark. Unfortunately I am not sure about the turqoise colour I gave it, so I am hoping that another colour will come along and I can over-dye it to cool down the brightness.

And finally from this batch: some hessian, silk, cotton fabric and cheesecloth, as well as cotton perle croche yarn. The dye works on all these different fibres, mainly cellulose, but for some reason silk also takes the dye well. Although you may think I only dyed a couple of baths, there are also greens, blues, yellows, oranges and reds in my stash now. I think these dyes are really very good - you can over-dye and changes hues, make bold, true colours on white bases or add fabrics/fibres later in the immersion to make paler notes, which is handy, especially if you want to make a set of different toned threads for a particular project. 

Here are some more fabric pieces in linen damask, cotton and a cotton-linen mix:

The tones were pale blues (the dye was called Moon Blue) - this was a very nice colour, it has a certain luminosity and lightness and will be good without too much layering of stuff.

Although the next picture shows greens, it does not do justice to the variety of fairly solid deep greens on cotton and linen threads:

There was also an orange coloured dye (Mandarin) that was so much sharper than I thought it would be. It worked well on cotton and will be useful in small amounts for bringing interest and focus to pieces: 

There are no longer any obvious dye pots lying in wait in a box somewhere, and so there is unlikely to be any diversions in that direction for a while. In fact, my landlady at the studio sold me some amazing large pieces of canvas she had dyed, which I want to do some applique and embroidery on, so now it is time to do some designing and thinking about making. I am planning to use some of these dyed pieces as part of that work.

I have also been preparing knitted fabrics for sampling for other projects. I got this knitting machine and have had trouble understanding how to cast on, but eventually I discovered, when reading the manual again, that I had placed the needles in the wrong position(!) - Once you do get started the knitting progresses very quickly which delights my impatient side. Soon it will be time to start working on this knitting, I am quite looking forward to that stage.

In the end I guess all this preparation will be good for something - it is the basis for the work to come, weaving felting and embroidery. Alongside this I continue to go to West Dean and there has been some encouraging feedback from tutors there that has made me think of what I am doing, how the work is expressed and what I may do in the longer term. I am glad I am doing that diploma, although quite precious it is a treat and helpful - speaking to other students can be quite enlightening and give helpful pointers. For example, I went on a drawing day and someone there was finishing her diploma; she had brought in her portfolio of work fro the full set of courses she had done. She was already trained in art, so her work was very good, but she was also a teacher and asked perceptive questions and gave pointers in discussions - helpful and interesting, stimulating to learn in this way.