Paper and Stitch

 

Last year I created a series of woven pieces worked in raffia and paper weft on a paper warp.  I loved the texture of these pieces and now framed (and two sold) they still delight me. The little essay that follows extends my response to the recent work of artist Alice Fox whose graduating collection at Bradford College and New Designers I wrote about last month. Alice has subsequently been selected to exhibit in the graduate showcase at next month’s Festival of Quilts 2011 at the NEC, Birmingham between 11-14 August.

Untitled piece from Impressions of Stitch: paper and stitch 25 cm by 25 cm from a series of 9 by Alice Fox

For the artist the medium of paper remains the most immediate of surfaces. It is usually a ready-made in a range of standard dimensions, textural qualities and weights, though can be ‘made’ from vegetable sources and customized in size. As a surface upon which to construct an image flowing from the hand, its possibilities are bewilderingly various. Paper always responds; it meets the artist’s gesture, touch, pressure, imprint; it is not inert but active; it has a living quality about it.

Fabric of the Building: the material-led art of Alice Fox

The composer Morton Feldman is supposed to have said to his students ‘If you haven’t got an artist for a friend you’re in trouble’. Feldman could call on a number of the great names of American abstract expressionist art as his friends, and it’s possible he was counted too as a friend by some of these illustrious painters. Friendship between creative people can be supportive and enriching, not least as a mutual sounding board, a way of obtaining critical reaction with the safety net of trust and respect usually founded upon shared knowledge of context and method.

Hands, calico and stitch in linen thread - photo by Caroline Evens

Once physical communities of artists came together informally on a day-to-day basis; in the studio, in the street, in the café, in the home. This still happens of course, but we now have an additional and potentially valuable meeting place: the virtual community of the Internet and the artist’s blog. Artists are becoming practiced in sharing the detail of their creative journeys, the nitty-gritty of discovery, experience, failure, influence. We know what books lie beside their beds, where they travelled last weekend, even what they cooked for tea. With the aid of a digital camera and the application of an hour or so at the computer an artist can use the blogging medium as a way of posting a regular report on artistic progress and process. This is often undertaken as a means of making a self-explanation of where work is going to; it can be a valuable form of both self-criticism and self-knowledge. The premise of such revelation, judiciously managed by making reference to techniques or the work of other colleagues, can quickly build an international community of interest. For some artists their blog is solely focused at their work, even to the extent of safeguarding their anonymity, though this is increasingly rare. Others, and these seem to be in the ascendant, demonstrate how their practice (what a loaded word that is) integrates with the minutiae of their daily life. There’s also lot of showing off; who we met, where we’ve been, when the next significant exposure of work will be. That said, there are out there in the bloggesphere occasional examples of sustained engagement with the medium that have the potential of adding a layer of informal interpretation that can enhance and enrich a viewer’s experience of an artist’s work.

A Letter from Stroud 2011 (Part 1)

Dear Alice

I know you enjoyed last year’s letter from Stroud so here’s one for 2011. Last year was my first visit and I only managed a day – to attend the Slow Movement in Textiles conference. I managed a whole weekend this time and it was the richest of two days.

Saturday was Studio Trail day, and after encountering torrential rain on the journey down, the sun was out in Stroud. The regular Farmers Market was doing great business and this small Gloucestershire town with a rich textile heritage was en fête, enlivened by the bright pink and yellow signs for the Stroud International Textile Festival.

Alex Caminada

My first step on the Studio Trail was to the home of Tim Parry-Williams. I introduced you to this artist in previous blogs – he was represented in Warp + Weft. He lives just a 10-minute walk from the town-centre in what appears to be a detached 2 up 2 down with an all important attic space – of which more later. Let me paint the scene as from the moment I entered his house: the idea of taking a photograph seemed intrusive.

Sampling, Colour and Writing about Weaving

Can it really be May? It feels more like early June with a long spell of glorious weather. Everywhere you look spring is riotous in colour and growth and it seems a shame to be inside. But that’s where I am most of the time, sadly. The only compensation has been getting back to weaving after a long spell of forced inactivity (a broken arm). I’ve dedicated a whole warp to sampling with some rug wool yarns with the notion of weaving my first rug. In a day or two I reckon to start doing just that.

End of a 1/3 size sample for a rug using a pattern by Anni Albers

In my April blog I showed my first attempt at Clasped Weft technique. I’ve progressed a little with this, particularly dealing with getting the tension at the selvedge correct as one is effectively creating a turn around the selvedge at both ends simultaneously. I’ve also been playing a little with a sample bag of Nepalese rug and tapestry yarns from my February visit to the Handweavers Studio in London.

Warp + Weft

I’ve just taken a very necessary four-month break from two years of fortnightly writing on the web. Do I try and fill in the gap with a resume of what’s been happening since mid July, or just jump right in and start from now? It seems a pity perhaps to miss out on making my #2 scarf (designed by my youngest daughter Meg, but this one woven by me). Then there is my series of minimalist series of paper and raphia pieces, much delayed because sourcing the right paper proved so difficult. Both projects gave me much pleasure and meant that rarely a day went by without a little weaving taking place on my Toika loom.

Scarf #2 - designed by Meg, woven by Nigel

If I consider where I am now as a designer / weaver then I can say that I have a little more confidence in what I do, the results begin to please me, and the whole business is less of a mystery (and a worry) than previously. Just yesterday I received a card from print-maker Ann Marshall who I met when I had my two days study on colour and structure with felt artist Jeanette Appleton at Farfield Mill. The letter said she thought it must have been 2008!? It was, and I was just a few months into weaving then. I’m still a long way from my 10,000 hours (pace Richard Sennett) but in two and half years I can say, hand on heart, I can weave. Ann’s latest show is at the Jgallery and it’s a set of what she describes as ‘narrative pieces informed by two songs and how the poetry and music inspired dance choreographed for a Hollywood musical’.

Sculpture and Weaving

Having made great play last month about restarting my
writing on textiles and weaving in particular I’ve had to pass on
last fortnight’s blog. I have broken my arm, and rather badly,
enough to warrant surgery and a plate of metal to pin a fractured
ulna. Yesterday I went to the hospital to have a full cast put on
my arm and a fresh bunch of x-rays.  All seems well and with luck
I’ll be out of this plaster by the New Year.

November Steps - sketch for a small tapestry

Being unable to weave (I was just about to put a new warp on my loom) has
meant me being thrown back on reportage or musings. I still have good intentions to write more fully on my experience of the Warp+Weft shows at the end of October. In one sense this fortnight’s chosen subject – sculpture and weaving– was something very present in the Oriel Myrddin exhibition. So many pieces in that show curated by Laura Thomas were multi-dimensional: the works by Ann Sutton, Laura Thomas herself, Ptolemy Mann and others. What
is it that makes textile artists work in this way? Is it the lure of the sculptural aesthetic that continues to be such a vigorous element in our visual culture? Sculptors such as Anthony Gormley and Anish Kapoor continue to excite the imagination with work that responds both to physical landscape and to man-made space.

All about Stroud

Last May I had a particularly busy week down in the West Country. I visited three wonderful gardens, set up a music installation for the opening of  a tapestry exhibition in a unique modernist house, and finally attended an inspirational conference at the UK’s only festival of contemporary textiles. All three of these experiences I’ve written about on this blog, but the most extensive piece was devoted to the Slow Textiles  Conference at Stroud International Textiles (SIT) Festival. It’s actually a long illustrated letter, and you can read here.

At the Slow Movement conference, Stroud May 2010

A little while later I received a charming e-mail from the SIT Festival director asking if she could put a link from SIT’s website to my conference review. Well it wasn’t so much a review but a detailed resume to a colleague who hadn’t been able to make the conference. All the same, following the link to my ‘letter’ going on SIT’s website, this 3000-word piece started getting a serious number of daily hits. This is personally very reassuring, although I should remind readers of why I started this blog: it was to learn rather than report or teach. One way I’ve found to both fix (and question) knowledge and develop understanding is to attempt to explain it by writing or speaking. Assembling knowledge you can explain so often requires careful note-taking and additional research; so it rather goes without saying that the whole process is a good learning experience.

Anni Albers La Luz 1 – Pictorial Weaving

I’ve been trying to spend a little time each day stretching my mind to understand more closely the world of Anni Albers. I don’t want to lose the excitement and wonder I felt at the recent exhibition at the Ruthin Craft Centre..

La Luz 1 - Anni Albers (1947)

This morning I’ve been looking at just one piece called La Luz 1 (1947). This is Albers first pictorial weaving made in cotton, hemp and metallic gimp 47 x 82.5 cm (18 1/2 x 32 1/2 in.). It features in Ruthin’s beautiful catalogue but not in the show itself. The piece is currently in the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Connecticut, MA.

Anni Albers – Pictorial Weaving Part 2

Back in mid January I dared to select a pictorial weaving by Anni Albers as one of three pieces featured in the recent Albers show at Ruthin Craft Centre. Two of three pieces chosen were not at the show, but featured in the catalogue. Here is the second in its entirety, though  featured only as one of the excellent catalogue close-up illustrations – Black, White, Gold 1 1950 Pictorial Weaving, cotton, jute, metallic ribbon 63.8 x 48.3 cm.

Anni Albers - Black, White, Gold 1 (1950)

This weaving is quite close in spirit to a piece I already know called Code, a  smaller pictorial hanging that in 2008 I used as the inspiration for one of my Studies in Movement for solo violoncello. I have to say that the experience of seeing Code at Ruthin has forever changed my view of the photograph as an adequate rendition of a textile piece; I hardly recognised it. A  photograph simply can’t reproduce the variety of depth achieved with inlay, neither does it pick up the sparkle and play of light that the use of metallic ribbon brings to the viewer.

Anna Albers – Pictorial Weaving Part 3

This is my final blog featuring three of Anni Albers pictorial weavings. The previous two featured here were in the Ruthin exhibition catalogue, but sadly not in the show itself. The one I’m going to discuss here certainly was, and I spent much time standing in front of it in blank amazement – just how was it done? Having looked in close detail at two other pictorial weavings I have now got more of an idea. I think until I try some of her techniques on my own loom I won’t know for sure, but it’s a step in the right direction.

City by Anni Albers 1949 linen and cotton 218 x 219 cm

City was woven in 1949 and is solely in linen and cotton and set against a simple geometrical ‘frame’ in cotton thread. Everytime I look at this piece I think I understand it, but then my perception of it changes. Just a few minutes before writing this I suddenly realised the bottom sixth of the woven image seems to (could be) be water and reflections. Looking carefully at the warp ends top and bottom there is the evidence of this technique of putting together thick and thin yarn and alternate black and white colours. Having said that (and slept on the problem) I now think this weaving  is in  double weave – examine the top of warp section and then look at the bottom. By 1949 Albers had made the first of her many South American journeys and perhaps had started to investigate the double, triple and quadruple weaves made on traditional Peruvian backstrap looms. Albers talks in some detail about this phenomenon in the final chapter of her book On Designing. But it is the mysterious chemistry of selecting different thicknesses and colours of weft,  choosing what is to be inlaid and where, and how the multiple warps may be used, that is surely the clue to this extraordinary creation. Like the previous two weavings the range of colour is small, but the difference and play of texture is formidable.