Stitching on the Tree Cloths

 

After sampling...

...I used the colour studies to find matching coloured threads...

...and headed outside to stitch on the cloth. 

 

Progress With Red & Students' Samples

Progress Report on Red: 3rd layer is just about finished

VCA student progress with samples
Esther's couching

Sarah's couching

Kati's couching

Garland's buttonhole stitch on her painted ground fabric
The students will be finishing off their samples and projects this coming week

'Tapestry Stone's' Narrative

While doing research on Tyndall stone that has been used extensively in public and private buildings through Canada, I was delighted to read it was also known as tapestry stone.
I took the idea of weaving and used a random darning stitch to make a woven fabric (burlap as the base cloth).
Tapestry is also associated with the idea of the coming together of many parts, and a popular metaphor for Canadian society.
Going through my stash, I selected fabrics yarns, ribbons and threads I could identify as originating from another country and used those.

When exhibiting 'Tapestry' and 'Walls Talk' (same technique and materials), I don't list all of the materials because it would make the wall label too big.
Here, for the first time is the complete list of materials in these 2 works:
New Zealand cable sock yarn - sent to me by my mother within the 1st few months of immigrating to Canada
China silk scarf
Outer Hebrides Shetland sheep tweed yarn
Brown Sheep Nebraska lightly felted wool yarn
Indonesian cotton batik fabric
European linen
Indian crepe cotton
Japanese nylon scarf
American cotton bed sheet
Finland hand spun linen thread
Thai silk fabric

'Walls Talk's' Narrative

'Walls Talk' has come back from South Korea where it was in the Canadian pavilion at the 2009 Cheongju International Craft Biennale.
It is made up of panels in the same Julia Caprara technique as 'Meadow' but in this work it is the actual materials that tell the story.
The theme of the Canadian exhibition at the biennale was 'Unity and Diversity.' With this work I commented on the nature of Canada's population and geology in those terms.

This is the artist statement for the work.

A wall is built of Tyndall stone, distinctive and unique to Canada. Fibre is stitched to suggest the myriad of marine life in the vast sea that covered central Canada, now captured in limestone. Also known as Tapestry Stone, the blocks tell the story of European settlement of western Canada.
Unlike traditional Fibre craft work, where the emphasis has been on the demonstration of mastery of technique, I have worked with minimal technique to focus on the materials as content. I acknowledge the intrinsic meanings in each textile to provoke the viewer's memories of their own textile experiences. My goal is to stimulate a dialogue between the work and the viewer.

The theme of unity and diversity is found in several levels of the work. The diversity of marine life is unified and preserved in stone as geological history. The diversity of fibres and textiles reads as a stone wall, while closer attention reveals the complex fabric of Canadian society, reference to its social history and deference to its acceptance of cultural diversity within a unified country.

'Meadow's' Narrative

This work is another in a series where i have been using a technique developed by the co-founder and co-principal of the Opus School of Textile Arts, Julia Caprara. (Since Julia's death the school is known as the Julia Caprara School of Textile Arts, of which I am a student)
.Julia published a series of articles in Quilting Arts magazine where she demonstrated several of her distinctive techniques, if you want to see how this work is done.

This work has two stories, one from my interests as a geographer and the other from my interest in the Blackfoot Nation's stories.

The Fireweed plant is known as a 'first coloniser' after an area has been disturbed by natural occurrences such as avalanches, floods, fires and man-made disturbances such as forestry, road works, urban development. Fireweed moves in and stabilises the ground so other plants can then take root.

I have continued to explore this natural process of succession and how humans fit in with it as a concept in some of the new work to be shown in Calgary next week.

At another level, i see the Fireweed as an enabler and nurturer of others, a traditional role taken on by women in our society, which is why it is appropriate for the work to be made from fabric and thread and stitched, traditionally the media used by women in their homes.

The second story comes form the Blackfoot people. A woman went to a campsite of a group of braves who had captured and tied up her lover. She started a fire in the prairie grasses at one end of the camp to distract the braves and ran around to the other side of the camp to untie and rescue her lover. They both then ran across the prairies and headed for the mountains.
When the braves had worked out how they had been tricked, they started to chase the couple. They were gaining on the couple until they came across a string of fires that blocked their way. The fires sprang up where ever the woman's moccasins touched the ground and so protected them from getting caught. After the fires died down Fireweed grew in the place of her footsteps.

If you look at any image of the Fireweed you will see magenta flowers and blue-green leaves. In this work i really pushed the intensity of these colours because i wanted it to appear strong and full of life.

Walls Talk

Walls Talk is finished - 120 hours of stitching!

John Dean is the photographer. He always does a superb job with my work.

There is lots of clear detail, which is important with this work, particularly because it is all about the materials. Click on the image to zoom in on the detail.
John can see light and he understands textiles are not watercolours. He deliberately sets up lights to make shadows. These images have shadows to show the texture which is one of the most distinctive elements of fibre art.

John's colours are true. Compare his images with my snaps in previous Walls Talk posts.

Walls Talk

Working on building up the focal point of the wall.

This is a large fossil form caught in the stone.


I will have to move the stone blocks around, remaking the wall each time to find the most pleasing arrangement.
Block #7 is having a bubble bath.
I used a lot of old yarns, worn clothing torn into strips and threads that have waited a long time for their day. Also, I dragged these blocks to many places to work on them whenever I could. One day, while sitting on a boat stitching, we both got covered by a salty wave. So they all needed a good wash before being blocked.

Walls Talk

I'm back stitching in earnst on my Walls Talk (I think that is its name). I have made 8 blocks of Tyndall stone to make the wall. I now have to add lots of detailed stitching to build up each block. Tyndall stone captured lots of different fossil forms so I'm working their shapes into the stone.

Julia Caprara's Funeral

It was Julia's funeral yesterday. On and off, all day, I was thinking of her, her family and all of their friends and how sad they must be feeling. It has been a help to me to get stuck into some stitching, particularly when this new work is in Julia's buttonhole textile technique.

I have worked the first layer of torn fabric strips and lightly felted wool by weaving into a burlap backing. The late afternoon sun has made it look a bit yellower than it is in reality.

I have assembled the palette for the next layer which will be thick yarns threaded through loops of the first layer. The photograph is my inspiration - a fossil in a chunk of Tyndall stone.

Julia Caprara's Buttonhole Textile

I found some more images of the work I posted yesterday. This close up shows the work with the 3rd layer - the buttonhole stitch starting to be built up.

The buttonhole stitch works to blend and highlight specific areas of the textile.

This is another work using Julia's technique. It is a Rockies scene where fireweed is colonising an alluvial deposit. I still need to work in more of the buttonhole stitched flowers before it is finished.

Julia Caprara's Stitching Techniques

Back in 2005 Quilting Arts Magazine featured a series of articles written by Julia Caprara. In the Winter issue, Julia wrote about the importance of all textile students building their own personal "touch palette". Since reading the article, I have followed Julia's advice and used the technique she described as "painting with fabric, thread, and stitches".

This work, called The Day the Queen Came to Tea, has the 2 outer panels worked in Julia's technique to give the feel of what Baffin Island valleys, in Northern Canada, look like in the fall. One early explorer recorded the valleys had the richness of a Persian carpet.

Torn strips of fabric were woven into an open-weave burlap to make the first layer of the textile.

Next, thicker yarns, cords and ribbons are threaded through the woven fabric to make the next 1 or 2 layers.

Then finer threads are worked in buttonhole stitch to make another layer. As the final layer I attached shisha mirrors to this work. [Mirrors to represent the tarns (glacial lakes) and the mirrors the Elizabethans traded with the Inuit that remained after the visitors left.]
In her article, Julia explains how a stitcher can change all of the variables to get many different effects. It is an exciting technique to play around with.

Julia Caprara

I am filling my blog space with colour today to remember Julia Caprara who passed away on Friday. Julia was one of the doyennes of the art world. People all around the planet will be feeling a sense of loss. Many will be wondering how they will cope without her. But no one more than Alex, her husband who has been beside her through her long illness.

Mutwa Embroidered Blouse

A Kungeree type of Mutwa blouse with embroidered panels for an unmarried girl.

The panels are embroidered flat then sent to the tailor to make up the garment, unsually with prints in the style of patterned fabrics the British brought to India in the 1930s.

The village is known for its tiny mirror glass (shisha) held in place by fine buttonhole stitches.