Why did I become interested in lace?
Well surprisingly it was the work of Paddy Hartley (whose work I showed in an earlier post) that was my initial inspiration for looking at lace.
I’ve always loved the history of things and places and the lace detail on his pieces seem to really show the historical nature of the work.
Then during a visit to the V&A over the summer I noticed the work of Anne Wilson who looks mainly at the structure of lace. And this solidified my interest in the craft of lace making.
How do artists and designers use lace ideas in today’s culture?
Demakersvan
Demakersvan are a design house that use lace effect designs in their fences. Like brambles fences are rising rapidly around us. So why not make them more decorative?
The high-end metal fabric is meant to give us an insight on how to create unique environments through the combination of the ancient craft of lace and industrial chain link fence.
Demakersvan have integrated the lace fence on the facades of apartment buildings.
And are working on a fence to boarder a sports park - The installation is entitled: ‘Home Sweet Home’, and will contain over 80 patterns and designs which have been influenced by the cultures of the Zuidoost community, in Amsterdam. This project is due to be completed in 2011.
This work and ideas really make me want to try out different materials because although the wire is tough and robust, it still shows off the delicate nature that I most appreciate about lace.
Shane Waltener
Shane Waltener works using shirring elastic and produces pieces for his own interventions on public space as well as community based collaborations.
Waltener’s work attempts to address the balance between art and craft by discovering new ways of working.
He works on large scale pieces known as guerrilla knitting projects, leaving behind knotted fibre spider webs that have a lace like appearance, in unexpected venues such as commercial store fronts and abandoned buildings.
An example of this lace version of graffiti is Chihuly Doily #1 2004, which shows a cobweb of elastic lace like pieces encasing the Dale Chihuly chandelier, installed in the grand lobby of the V&A museum.
Chihuly Doily #1 2004
Aunt Peggy has departed 2003 is installed in an abandoned London subway station that was used as a bomb shelter during WW2.
The lace like cobwebs are hung inside 1940 phone booths and accompanied by a soundtrack of Churchill’s voice and period radio clips – pointing to the ‘webs’ of communication created through telephone conversations.
It is the scale and traditional nature of Waltener’s work that really appeals to me as a textile artist.
NeSpoon
In a similar style to Waltener, NeSpoon, a polish artist uses lace doilies in her work.
The piece shown here was created on Oak beach in the Baltic sea.
NeSpoon saw this work, named ‘jewellery of the public space’ as a way of introducing street art to the beach where people were free to move the pieces from place to place.
Though delicate in nature these pieces survived on the beach for over a week. She traditionally uses doilies as stencils but here used them to create poetic installations.
Shown here is some of her more recognised stencil work on the West bank wall in Israel. The large sprayed graffiti image has a delicately made porcelain doily in the centre, a real contrast of harsh and delicate storylines.
And it is this idea of using lace as a form of street art that I find particularly intriguing.
Henk Wolvers
In a continuation to NeSpoons porcelain doilies Henk Wolvers works entirely with this medium.
He uses strengthened porcelain slip and a painters brush to slowly drip the fluid clay onto plaster boards to form large rectangular panels.
When fired in the kiln the drawings shrink and harden creating a surface texture and composition of overlapping thick and thin lines that invite comparisons to Jackson Pollocks ‘drip’ paintings, yet giving a lace like effect.
The lace panels are mounted a few inches from the gallery walls giving the appearance of being suspended in space.
The delicate openings invite a play of light, making the piece more complex with interlacing shadows cast on the walls underscoring the glowing form.
Wolvers borrows the tracery but not the actual patterns of lace keeping the movement and transparency in combination with the structures and variety of colours.
And it’s this transparency that I believe is essential when creating lace work.
In the future I hope to go on to use more diverse materials in varying scales, adopting the scale of Waltener, the transparency of Wolvers and the outdoor art idea of NeSpoon to create a contemporary piece from a traditional craft.
We visited the Museum of Welsh Life last week and I was absolutely mesmerised by the Little bobbins and the intricacy of the workmanship. Mt work, mainly paintings,is obsessed with these little motile threads. Your work is really beautiful, incredibly modern, yet with its feet firmly in the past. I find it so inspiring.
ReplyDeleteWell Done.