Indholdsfortegnelse for May - June 2023 i Embroidery

■ OF ALLTHE ART genres textile art, in particular, has the power to soothe and heal. Working with fabric brings to mind familiar connotations, as clothing to keep us warm and as decoration in our homes to make them cosy. But textile art still retains the power to highlight social inequalities and give voice to the minorities; it has political punch. As a group activity it can promote social cohesion in communities that are drifting apart. Sometimes the act of stitching can be enough to turn around lives that once seemed lost. For contemporary artist and textiles professor Alice Kettle, it was the perfect medium to achieve these outcomes when her daughter introduced her to the plight of refugees through her charitable work. Thread BearingWitness, a project that uses textiles…

AMELIA FERN GETHING At 19, Amelia Gething left her home town in North Wales to study hand-embroidery at the Royal School of Needlework at Hampton Court Palace. Amelia comes from a creative family so making was instinctive, leading her to specialise in hand-embroidery. She graduated in 2022 with a BA honours degree. Gething’s work is driven by concept. It is important to her to feel connected to the subject material in order to create work that is both expressive and explorative. The theme of mental health has been an important area within her creative practice, and she has explored portraying the topic through metaphor, symbolism and pattern. She utilises traditional hand-embroidery techniques but gives them a modern twist by using subversive colour palettes and stitch combinations. Gething is most drawn…

■ NOTORIOUSLY ANTIPATHETICTO INTERVIEWS, whether in person or by phone, Mister Finch, that maker of fantastical anthropomorphic creatures, remains an elusive figure. Forced to communicate with him via email, his responses come through the ether in fits and starts. Not unlike Pyramus andThisbe speaking to each other through a chink in the wall, our conversation is a nebulous one. Lacking form and corporeal reality, it’s an interchange whose result teeters towards fictive speculation. Admitting to living somewhere in Leeds (or is it Stafford?), working from home (or possibly not?) and to being a confirmed hermit, Mister Finch’s studio is undoubtedly a private place. ‘My friends come in but that’s about it. I won’t allow anyone to just come in; it’s far too personal, especially if I’m working on a book,…

1. PICK A PELARGONIUM WORKSHOP What could be more lovely than taking part in a pelargonium pin workshop at London’s Chelsea Physic Garden in its 350th year? Since 1673, the garden has occupied four acres on the edge of the Thames. First established by apothecaries to grow medicinal plants, it has a secret garden feel. Led by Pippa Haynes, whose Lemon Pepper Studio creates nature-themed kits, all materials are provided and all levels of stitcher are welcome. 29 June, 10am-1.30pm, £70. CHELSEAPHYSICGARDEN.CO.UK 2. GO FOR GOLD, WHATEVER YOUR SKILL LEVEL Hand and Lock is Britain’s oldest embroidery house and the leading goldwork supplier. You may just catch the Coronation Crown online class on 5 May, 2pm-5pm, £35, a chance to celebrate the coronation and discover the art of using metal…

Gold and precious metals have always been held in high esteem and seen as the pinnacle of luxury. I enjoy pushing the boundaries of traditional goldwork embroidery, with innovation, craftsmanship and the inspiration behind the pieces taking the designs to a new level. It’s a celebration of the materials that goes beyond their face value to everything that the artwork encompasses. My pieces are one-of-a-kind and highly-specialised. Often taking inspiration from the natural world, I enjoy creating with a sense of realism and emotion that highlights the beauty of nature. I design my works as a complete piece to draw the eye of the onlooker, which then allows them, upon closer observation, to appreciate the time involved within the layers of intricacy and detail. As a student I studied fine…

Saima Kaur sews for the joy of it. A maker of Phulkari-inspired figurative textiles, she relishes the directness of its forms. ‘When I look at a Phulkari I see skill, imagination and cultural richness in the characters. The human beings and the creatures in Indian indigenous folk art are all made of simple blocks which are then imbued with colour, pattern and texture.’ Too ready and too quick to say that she can’t draw, Kaur has learnt to adapt Phulkari motifs into a highly personal formula. ‘I can draw a triangle; I can draw a square, so there are my basics. Then, as I sew, I develop things.’ Free drawing as she works, the imagery – Paul Klee-like in its naivety and airiness – begins to play out in front…

How did Hook, Prod, Punch, Tuft come about? My editor proposed a new edition of Rag Rug Creations: An Exploration of Colour and Surface (published by Bloomsbury, 2014). I felt it might be nice to reference both older and more recently used textile processes and tools, such as latch-hooking and the punch needle, which have gained visibility because of social media platforms. Hook, Prod, Punch, Tuft (2023) includes new projects and looks at how tools and techniques can be combined to create sumptuous surfaces. These processes have gained popularity since the pandemic. Why do you think this is? When the pandemic took hold in 2020, our lives became disrupted, restricted and transformed. Creativity and crafting were coping mechanisms for many people; they were a way of trying to restore equilibrium,…

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TEXTILE ART HAS BEEN part of my life for as long as I can remember. My mother is an avid maker, often knitting, embroidering and crocheting. During my childhood I enjoyed being creative and wanted more than anything to be an artist when I grew up. I’m not sure I have grown up yet, but I feel like I’m becoming the artist I always wanted to be. My art journey started over 10 years ago, making conceptual sculptures with artist and poet Robert Montgomery. Together we created large-scale works worldwide, including for Miami Basel, the Kochi Biennale and the gardens of the Louvre. During this time, I started experimenting with various textile mediums, including embroidery. Having studied weave and print at Central St Martins for my degree, it seemed very…

The Royal School of Needlework’s Collection and Archive features an incredible 60,000 unique and priceless items, highlighting the passion for embroidery throughout history. The collection includes several fascinating items from past coronations, which capture the precious moments of these historic occasions, Emma Doggart reveals. Coronation of Edward VII in 1902 1. Black & White magazine cover: In 2012, an employee of the Royal School of Needlework (RSN) found a special magazine cover for sale on ebay. It was the front cover of Black & White magazine from April 1902, featuring a drawing of the RSN workroom with RSN embroiderers working on coronation regalia. At the bottom it says: ‘The finishing touches to the King’s Coronation Robes: Embroidering the Royal Mantle.’ AlthoughtheRSNis a charity and cannot afford to spend money on…

■ It’s sometimes hard to understand with experimental work where the artist is coming from. ‘Why?’ is the question that springs to mind when confronted with some avant-garde art. That is not the case with the work ofTaiwanese-born artist Yu Mei Huang. Now London-based, the artist’s voluminous works in white are instantly likeable, their curving forms pleasing to the eye, and their textures demanding the question: ‘Can we touch it?’ The answer, if Mei is in the gallery is, ‘Yes!’ Constructed from knitting yarn and bubble wrap in circular form on a domestic knitting machine, although Mei has a plan for each work, the materials take over at a certain point, directing the form where they will. Mei often makes use of elastic yarn for its interesting shape-changing property. One…

ateToms is the first to say that her work is very stylised, with her gallery of skinny elongated people acting as a cohesive whole. With the deft droop of a boob on a nude of an old lady, or the lost expression of a dog that can’t find its ball, she hones in on her characters’ demeanour with an impressionistic wisp of felt. People often ask her how she establishes the manner and facial expressions of her needle-felted models but she is more than likely to give an oblique response. What she does admit to is always having been a‘gazer’: ‘I love people watching. I’m always really absorbed by people and their mannerisms.’ Toms was brought up in a creative home. Her dad was a model maker by trade and…

■ seam collective is thrilled to present A Visible THREAD, a dynamic touring exhibition of thought-provoking and experimental new works. Through their unique perspectives and a diverse range of textile disciplines, seam collective artists are exploring ways to make thread visible. Thread, as cloth, is woven through our lives. It surrounds and accompanies us from the moment we’re born till the day we die. It’s like a second skin. Yet, despite these close connections, it becomes almost invisible to us. The first iteration of the exhibition was installed for a month at ACEarts, Somerton, in November 2022. It’s touring to four more venues in the next 18 months. Threads of meaning: Covering a wide range of subject matter, from the more public issues of fast fashion, sustainability and identity politics…

Warhol: The Textiles Geoffrey Rayner and Richard Chamberlain ‘In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes,’ said AndyWarhol. The remark could not have been more prescient, with the rise of social media, fromTikTok toTwitter, meaning anyone can be a star. Best known for his Pop Art portraits of Marilyn Monroe, a Coca-cola bottle and can of Campbell’s soup, Warhol lived his life in the media glare so one’s first thought is what more can there be to say? Plenty. Before his meteoric rise to fame in the early 1960s, Warhol was a successful commercial artist. Over 30 of these designs feature, with motifs from ice cream sundaes to acrobatic clowns. Authors Geoffrey Rayner and Richard Chamberlain have also curated the accompanying exhibition, AndyWarhol: TheTextiles at London’s Fashion andTextile…

■ INITIALLY TRAINED AS A weaver during the 1960s, Charlotte Johannesson (b.1943, Malmö, Sweden) began her career making experimental woven artworks that aimed to question the social and political circumstances of the time. In 1978 she swapped one of her woven pieces for an early Apple computer at a time when neither textiles nor digital technologies were taken seriously within mainstream art circles. Johannesson found parallels between traditional craft and textile processes and computer coding in relation to scale and proportions, and the labour-intensive processes required for both. She noted: ‘There was a great synchronicity between the two machines, which I thought I could use: on the computer there were 239 pixels on the horizontal side and 191 pixels on the vertical side, and that was exactly what I had…

On show ARUNDEL Earth Materials including work by Alice Fox, Susie Gillespie and Zena Holloway until 10 June. Gallery 57, Tarrant Street, Sussex BN18 9DJ. gallery57.co.uk AYLESBURY BloomingThreads: 400 years of embroidery blooms – an exhibition delving into the Embroiderers’ Guild Collection. Until 2024. Discover Bucks Museum, Church Street HP20 2PQ discoverbucksmuseum.org BARNSLEY Landscape! An Artisans North Exhibition with textiles, painting, printing until 7 May. Cannon Hall, Bark House Lane, Cawthorne S75 4AT. Free. cannon-hall.com BOVEYTRACEY Summer Show 2023: The best work by maker members 27 May-2 September. MAKE Southwest, Riverside Mill, DevonTQ13 9AF. crafts.org.uk BRISTOLThreads: Breathing stories into materials 8 July-1 October. Arnolfini, 16 Narrow Quay BS1 4QA. arnolfini.org.uk COMPTONVERNEY Making Mischief: Folk Costume in Britain until 11 June. ComptonVerney Art Gallery and Park, Warwickshire, CV35 9HZ. comptonverney.org.uk DORCHESTER…