Overview of my Mixed Media Textile work so far

My work uses bobbin lace making as a starting point for my ideas, I have included here some artists that have inspired me to develop this traditional craft into a versatile contemporary technique.  Last year I set out to learn how to make bobbin lace, a task that proved to be both challenging and rewarding.

I was able to develop my lace making ability so that I could create forms based on conventional lace stitches, including whole, half, cloth and star stitch.

The design used for the Mississippi River piece, above, involved a complicated thread pattern to ensure that all the stars were created using the white thread, without breaking up the blue too much.  I not only learnt techniques whilst completing this piece. I came to understand that as long as I have a rough plan and an idea of what I want, I can go ahead and start creating with the lace as small technicalities will be sorted as I progress. I also learnt that I need to leave myself a lot more time to complete my work – this piece for example took 10 whole days from 9am until at least midnight each day.

I enjoyed working with lace, and now needed to develop my skills further so that I can work more creatively.  This will allow me to work on some new ideas based on ‘marks of time’ that will bring my art and textile work closer together.

During my investigations into contemporary lace makers last year I discovered a relatively unknown artist from Poland called NeSpoon.   

NeSpoon

She uses lace and crocheted doilies to create a type of street art that she calls ‘outdoor art’.  The purpose of her art is to make public places look better, prettier or more interesting.  In 2011 she was invited to take part in the FAME festival in Italy, where the idea is to upgrade aesthetically-depressed areas of the city [Grottaglie].

The work shown here is amongst that produced for the festival.  It shows a collection of delicate doilies, strung up in the alter of an abandoned monastery.  It is this idea of using lace to enhance and enrich the appearance of old disused items that I continue to be inspired by.  In an attempt to learn more about the art of lace making, I followed the instructions for this freeform lace design of a thorn apple.

 

This experience taught me a great deal about creative lace making, including how to construct lace patterns, decide on suitable threads for any given design, and how to attach sections of lace together correctly.

At this point I began to think about what sort of idea I could work on that would convey my concept of ‘marks of time’.

As I live on a fossil beach my first inspiration for marks of time were fossils: I even managed to find one whilst out walking on Watchet beach over the summer.

I did a collection of initial drawings and made some embroidered or cut fabric samples to look at what kind of designs would work best.  Yet I was always aware that it was bobbin lace that I really wanted to work with.

However, whilst burning out a fossil design into fabric, elements of the design became echoed in the surface of the wood that I had placed underneath. The result is shown here. 

I love this intricate design on the wood, and feel that it looks skeletal and more in tune with the ideas I had been attempting to create in my fine art.  Initially, I had intended to incorporate my own bobbin lace with old wooden furniture to create sculptural works, which echoed the bench pieces I was making last year.  My art ended up going in a different direction so it wasn’t an idea that I developed.  However, when I noticed these marks in the wood, it triggered off those ideas anew, and I felt that they would be well suited to create strong textile-based pieces.

 

Taking a closer look at my wooden furniture I noticed several small unnoticed details on them from squashed flies to blobs of paint and a variety of different styled cobwebs. I suddenly began to notice lace-like cobwebs everywhere I went. I made a series of photographs of these with the idea of manipulating them in some way, or using them for inspiration for cobweb structures, etc.

The spider’s sticky silken strands have been unsettled, and have gathered up pieces of dust, dirt and leaves.  The inclusion of the spider in this image helps balance the composition of the piece, and I feel that I would like to include some elements like this in my work later on this year.

I am now really excited about creating these unnoticed elements from a traditional craft used in a contemporary way.

Yoshihiro Suda

The artist Yoshihiro Suda also looks at the unnoticed from the world around us. He creates hyper-realistic flowers and weeds from wood making each new work more lifelike than the last. He painstakingly carves and paints each piece, using traditional Japanese tools, and may take many days to complete a single petal or leaf.

Suda situates his pieces in surprising places, growing unexpectedly out of pristine gallery walls, or pushing up out of forgotten corners. His interventions reveal the beauty in the simple and apparently unconsidered.  This is very similar to what I hope to achieve with my own work, involving small intricate lace interventions.

Suda said, “I think art can change our perspective and ways of thinking. It encourages us to see things that we otherwise might miss.”

Another artist I have been looking at that works with cobweb like contemporary lace pieces is Shane Waltener.

Shane Waltener

 

His large scale work is created in unexpected venues such as abandoned buildings, where he leaves behind knotted fibre spider webs that have a lace like appearance.

Aunt Peggy has Departed, shown here, is installed in an abandoned London subway station that was used as a bomb shelter during World War II.  The use of old wooden structures relates back to my idea of placing cobwebs on my wooden furniture.

In other works, Waltener has left the constructive nails in the work to show the crafting process.  I want this to be a focal part of my work also, as it is important for me that the audience see that my works have been meticulously crafted by hand.

The traditional nature of Waltener’s work really corresponds with my current ideas.  Like NeSpoon and Waltener, I too wish to create my lace structures in unexpected places which viewers may find almost by accident.

In an attempt to get an idea of how my lace forms would sit on wooden furniture, I heat pressed a few of my photographs onto a thin tissue-like paper. I then built up a small section of free bobbin lace, and incorporated metal wire and other threads to create additional elements of the image.

I had intended to make small pieces of dead leaf debris from free embroidery on dissolvable fabric, but decided that the loose threads looked more effective draped loosely and uncontrolled across the piece, and far less contrived. 

The soft elements of the lace and fine paper are contrasted well by the pins and the wooden structure.  The torn edges of the paper also add an antiqued feel to this piece.  However, the solid edges to the printed photo would probably have worked better with softer blurred edges.

What this experiment did tell me was that I needed to find out more about cobweb construction.

I therefore set out to ‘capture’ cobwebs – not an easy task I might add.

 

The cobweb shown here was gathered using a sheet of clear sticky back plastic.  Although difficult to illustrate here, the resulting image is truly fascinating and tells me a little more about how these superbly-built natural artworks are made.  This cobweb – like my earlier photograph – contains bugs and flies that have been trapped in this spider’s lair.  The composition again works well, providing a focal point to begin viewing the piece.

I really want to create something that could mirror this delicate yet deadly form, maintaining the almost transparent strands yet adding the strength that could capture and hold its prey.

At this point I was fortunate to discover the work of Machiko Agano.  She uses knitting and paper in this work to express a kind of nostalgia for the nature we are losing.

Machiko Agano

 

I love the cobweb appearance of Machiko’s loose, delicate and compositional work, and strive to recreate this in my own.  As she demonstrates here, it is possible to produce a cobweb-like piece that is both delicate and strong.

Her concern for the simplicity of materials is contrasted with the complex nature of her works, in which structural tension, form, space and light all play a significant role.

Machiko’s preference, much like my own, is for materials of neutral or no colour, which allow the colour of the surrounding area to permeate the work.

I realised at this point that light and materials would also play a vital role in my own cobweb pieces, this was something that I would need to seriously consider when constructing my pieces and that a series of small samples would be required to test for the durability, strength, texture, light reflexion qualities and colour of the threads I will use.

At this point I decided that I needed to start looking at constructing some simple lace patterns – this is my first attempt.

Using one of my cobweb photographs I drew a series of straight lines following the design of the original broken cobweb.  I am quite happy with the design as the actual piece of lace created will be far less angular than this prototype pattern by the nature of the materials I will be using to construct it. 

I have begun creating this design using a clear nylon thread and am so far quite pleased by the results. As the piece is incomplete, I do not yet know how well the design will hold its shape, or how visible the thread will be.

I also want to try and create the scraps of dirt and bugs that get trapped in the web as a means of exploring whether this will add or detract from the composition.

I hadn’t considered ‘containerising’ cobwebs until I was given this large brown glass jar.  

I placed some fine thread inside the jar and held it up to the light: the outcome was quite surprising.  The delicate web-like form could barely be seen through the dark glass of the vessel – yet you could see just enough to be intrigued as to what was inside. 

Whilst trying to get a useable image of the cobweb inside the jar I discovered that the lighting of this particular part of my work would need serious consideration.  I have since done some research into lighting that would fit inside the lids of jars, and have come across illoom balloons.  These contain a small led light which would fit easily within the lid of even my smallest jars without producing too much heat.

How difficult could it be to build a lace cobweb inside a jar?? – I am currently on a journey to find out.

An overview of my Fine Art work so far

My work in art last year was based on the concept of ‘trace memories’ which, as an inevitable result of human interaction, are left on the world around us. 

The works explored the history of everyday objects.  In the case of the above, the simple marks and words of the occupier leave an imprint of time upon the bench.

I really enjoyed working on this project.  However, I felt that this year’s work needed to take a slightly different direction in order to allow me to utilise and develop some of my other skills whilst continuing the theme of trace memories.

I began this year making observations of specimens within the natural history collections at Corsham Court and at Bristol City Museum, as well as of few specimens I had collected myself.  The drawings created formed the basis for this year’s work and got my hand into drawing once again.

Yet although I was enjoying this process, the underlying concept I wanted to achieve in my work was not there. 

I asked myself – how could I take my interest in these small unnoticed specimens, and develop them so that they could convey the idea of trace memories?

At this juncture in my thought process I was fortunate to attend a lecture by Tania Kovats.  I was inspired by the starting points for some of her work, which Tania referred to as ‘marks of time’.  I realised that this was the definition of what I was trying to achieve in my own work.

Tania Kovats

Two hundred and eighty two, 2009

During the talk Tania also spoke about her use of drawing.  Whenever she experiences a block in her creativity, Tania uses drawing as a way of emptying her head of ideas and thoughts, allowing her to move forward within her art. 

I used this method to try and work thorough my own artistic block, which I was experiencing at the time. This seemed to work well: it generated new ideas without my being worried about meaning, and focused my attention on to what I really wanted to look at, which were the objects themselves.  It also allowed me to enjoy drawing again, which had sadly become absent in my working practice.  
So I set out doing more drawing, discovering my own ‘marks of time’ whilst trying to maintain the link to my initial studies of specimens.

My drawing style is slow, detailed and methodical.  As a result it took me some time to work out where I was going with it.  Perhaps because of my slow and deliberate style, I found that I really enjoyed doing these drawings.  They record the small, almost forgotten elements of today’s natural world such as the effect of insects on our environment. 

I always worry that my work needs to say something really important about politics or the environment or the like, and I find it difficult to let the work just speak for itself and let the audience engage with it.  As a result, I felt that I needed to develop my drawings further.

Whilst experimenting with various fabrics during a textile workshop I discovered that I could create a paper like material by heat treating a certain fabric with a high heat.  

I experimented with different times and numbers of layers.  A variety of results immerged – even when using the same timing and number of layers the results would be different, adding a pleasing random element to my otherwise very rigid and precise work. 

Although these works are random and as such are uncontrolled, they seemed to visually echo the patterns I was finding within nature, although these are often based on mathematical patterns and controlled movements.

I decided to utilise these heat treated papers and incorporate them in my work.  Looking further into science within art, I came across the work of Michelle Stuart, who studies themes of time, ecology and natural biology.

Michelle Stuart

White...Moon Minister in the Marriage of Earth and Sea, 1985-86

Stuart said about her work that “It’s the depiction of the passage of time that is the most salient characteristic of my vision… [T]hat started out with an interest in what is visible about time in nature.”

Stuart’s work is created using compositional grids and natural materials to create organic textured surfaces.  These textured surfaces inspired the next progression within my work as the paper I had created had a lace-like, perhaps exquisite quality which was both tactile yet fragile, like the wings of an insect.

I set out to understand how I could use this further.  To develop my work based on the tactile quality of my heat treated paper, I made a series of rubbings from them using layout paper and graphite pencil.

Although I do not like the general appearance of the rubbings I can appreciate the marks made from this method.  In some ways, the work looked even more 3-dimensional than the original, and wanted to recreate this using another technique.  I chose to make a soft ground etching.  Soft ground is very sensitive to its environment, and will pick up markings from anything that touches it.  A soft ground was applied to an etching plate onto which I laid my heat treated paper.  These were then passed through the press.  I put the plate in the acid bath for about 20 minutes to etch the plate.

A mix of Matt Black RSR plus transparent white ink was used for this print, allowing me to create a more subtle contrast compared to one I printed using just black.

In addition, the ink combination appeared to give another positive outcome as its consistency allowed a greater concentration of ink to remain in the solid areas, producing darker open areas alongside the finer detailing.

Interestingly, Michelle Stuart has said that she thought of her early works like etchings, the dirt and rock-scored paper holding the pigment as if the sheets had been pressed onto an inked plate.

I am really pleased with the result of my print, but it seemed to say little to its audience, and I felt that it needed to take on a new dimension in order to bring life and character back into the work.

I looked at the print and my heat treated paper for inspiration, and noted their lace like qualities.  Deciding to investigate this, I did some research into paper craft.

Noriko Ambe

Tracking II, 2010

Noriko Ambe’s organic structures built from meticulously hand cut and layered paper really attracted my attention. 

Her non mechanical approach creates natural distortions that convey the nuances of human emotions, habits or biorhythms.  I find that these distortions and inaccuracies create a drawn quality within this 3D work.  I therefore decided that I would like to combine these two elements when developing my own work.

Looking at the scale of Ambe’s work I wanted to see what my prints would look like on a larger scale.  I scanned in my print on a high resolution then got them printed onto Somerset Satin paper, to give me an idea of what the print could look like when enlarged.  The resulting piece was exciting: the new scale gave the print a new lease of life, drawing the viewer in and allowing them to look more intently at its finer details.  One of my samples had been printed onto acetate and so decided to project this print onto a large piece of Fabriano paper taped to the wall, so that I could reproduce its fascinating markings.  

As I began to replicate the large scale image by hand, my progress reminded me of my earlier drawings and the effect of insects on our environment.  Realising this I decided not to redraw the entire image but just small sections to resemble paper is being eaten away, much the same as the traces of a bookworm with a book. 

Susan Hiller continues to be an influence my working practice, both in terms of her use of materials and of her interest in the forgotten and unnoticed in the world around us.

She says ‘My starting points were artless, worthless, artefacts and materials – rubbish, discards, fragments, souvenirs and reproductions – which seemed to carry an aura of memory and to hint they might mean something…’

Not unlike Hiller, I believe that too often everyday objects are taken for granted, so I decided to look at the actions of insects upon nature, and found not only interesting photographs of wasps nests and similar structures, but the work of Soo Sunny Park.

Soo Sunny Park

Vapor Slide, 2007

This sculpture by Park evokes the idea of a paper wasps nest, which is the current direction I am looking to take my work.

Her piece has been created using many everyday items including chain link fence, plastic cups and paper clips.  One of Park's greatest strengths is her ability to create astonishing effects out of simple everyday materials, without transforming the original materials altogether: We see what they are, yet accept the illusion they create.
I mentioned earlier of my wish to record the effect of insects on our environment.  

This image shows my work-in-progress of the construction of a wasps nest as an attempt to convey this message.

It amazes me how such a feared creature can create something with such a calm and unassuming presence.

I have used plain white paper for this maquette.  The template used here has worked well for the shape, but the construction was tricky and I am not happy with the joins at the back.  Therefore I am currently working on a slightly altered template to test.  I intend to use what I have learnt through the process of making this to create a larger than life wasp’s nest, using my heat treated papers.

The thought of combining this fragile material with the strength of the wasp’s nests structure is very appealing to me.