New work for Japan

Finally finished some new pieces for Japan. These are all free hanging and not stretched to make for easy posting. I have begun a series depicting the craftspeople you can see in relief on the outside walls of the Victoria and Albert museum in London. The only disappointing thing is that all these figures are men. The only woman depicted is Queen Alexandra and that's only because she was married to King Edward V11. Click on the pictures below for a larger image.

I have just done 3 figures so far. The others are Christopher Wren and St Dunstan. See below. As you can see from my stitched versions the figures are standing on a column and we the viewer are gazing up at them.

Screenprinting Workshop

I am doing a screenprinting workshop with Sam at Sew Not Strawberry Jam on Sunday March 24th.
Here are some pictures of the kind of thing we will be doing. Using old picture frames as screens and cut paper stencils from magazines and plain paper. Should be fun. We'll also be printing on bags.
www.sewnotstrawberryjam.co.uk

Hotel Ampersand

I have just discovered these rather nice photos of a commission I completed in 2012 for a hotel in Kensington. Its hanging on the wall of the Library of the Ampersand Hotel.

Looks like a rather nice library!

Here's a close up. It consists of screen printed images of the V&A and the Natural History Museum as well as South Kensington tube station. Alongside stitched drawings of people rushing about as well as some people just hanging around. Nice to see the work in situ.

The Voyagers and new workshops

The Voyagers exhibition is up in Dover Museum and looks great. We used all the names people stitched and created a kind of boat cloth. This is now hanging next to the Bronze Age Boat. But also there are lots of paper boats hanging in the space and also a fantastic film showing in the space called "Un Bateau Albanais" you can see it here: http://www.philippebazin.fr/index.php?/video/un-bateau-albanais/ if you can't get to Dover.
I will post some pictures here soon. 

Meanwhile I am updating the website with new workshops. The next one is on Saturday November 10th at Sew not Strawberry Jam near Tenterden in Kent. It's a lovely place to stitch. We'll be drawing and stitching our drawings using your own sewing machines or the ones there. We will be putting together your drawings to create artworks which you can take home and hang on the wall!
Go to www.sewnotstrawberryjam.co.uk to book.

The Voyagers

I have begun stitching some names for The Voyagers project run by artist Clare Smith.

Click here for more information http://www.studio308ltd.co.uk/Projects/Entries/2012/8/3_The_Voyagers_%283%29__boat_cloth.html

I am stitching the names of girls I was at school with in Liverpool in the 1970's. Well the names I can remember anyway. I should think they all have different names now and are scattered all over the world. See my samples below.

If you would like to join in all you have to do is stitch names of people you remember from your past, it could be people who are no longer with us or people you have lost touch with, or who live far away.

I will be running workshops on September 15th and 22nd in Dover but you can just do it at home and send me the results.

All the names will be stitched together into a Boatcloth which will be hung in the museum in Dover.
Here's some ideas to get you started. They can be any size or style you like, handstitched or machine, preferably onto darker coloured fabrics.

Port Moody Exhibition

The Port Moody show is up and looks great!

Its so exciting to be showing my work in Canada. I would love to go there and see it myself, but if you are in the area go and have a look. (and send me some pics!)
http://www.pomoarts.ca/

Collography

Today I took part in a collography workshop at the www.coalshedpress.co.uk I wanted to see if I could print some stitched fabric. The picture shows my printing plate. I found the inking of the plate was the hardest part. I did 3 prints of which the last one was probably the best as it had less ink on it. Great fun and something I would definitely like to explore more.