The Book of Crow

The Story of Crow

This piece of work started life sometime last year as a sample piece for some workshops I'd been asked to run in connection with the upcoming Anselm Kiefer exhibition at Tullie House. The idea of the workshops is to look at different ways of preparing and reclaiming paper to make mixed media books. I was inspired by Kiefer's use of diverse and sometimes unconventional materials and by the variety of different books he has created throughout his career.

Page One

Page Two

Page Three

As I began working on the sample it sort of grew and became a bit more than I anticipated until it eventually evolved into a piece of work in it's own right. It's been a slow burner, I think I started it back in November and it's only this week that I've finally finished it. It's one of those pieces that I keep doing a bit on and then abandoning before coming back to, doing a bit more and then abandoning it again.

Page Four

Page Five

Page Six

Collage of the pages

The book tells the story of crow; in certain mythologies crow starts off as a pure, white bird . As with most stories there are many different versions of what happens next and, in true storytelling tradition, I've picked the bits that I like best from a range of stories to make my own version of the story. My version is partly based on a Greek myth, in which crow is the favoured companion of one of the gods. When crow reveals that the god's lover is cheating on him he is so enraged that he turns crow black and banishes him. I was interested in this idea that telling the truth isn't always the best policy and the idea of the insider becoming the outsider.

Front Cover

Back Cover

Collage of Reverse Side

The book is a simple concertina construction, with a hard cover at each end and a ribbon and button fastening. The pages of the book are mostly black and white photocopies that I worked into in different ways. I've used paint, ink, collage, printing, drawing and stitching. Following the story, the book is white to start with and gets darker and darker until the last page, which is black. I like the visual re-enforcement of the story and continued this theme on the other side of the book by using white fabric that I dip-dyed with black dye. This didn't go quite as smoothly as I hoped but I think the patchy, uneven colour actually works well with the rest of the book.

Drawing Detail

Collage Detail

Print Detail

Stitch Detail

To join the paper pages I used insertion stitches, the patching together echoes the way the story is patched together as well as adding a different texture. I wanted the book to look inviting and to provide a tactile as well as visual experience so I made two sheets of felt, one white and one black, for the book covers. It took me a long time to decide on the fastening; I played around with various ideas including felted cords, ties, loops and buttons before settling for a simple ribbon loop and handmade button fastening.

Button Detail

The Sea: Rag Rug

Finished Piece

This week I finished my rag rug piece inspired by the sea. I began this piece when I started working with Jame Rennie School on a textiles project inspired by the sea and have been doing bits and pieces on it since. It's a very relaxing thing to do, like knitting it is simple and repetitive but produces a beautiful fabric.

The back at the start

Starting off

Growing

Originally I had intended to make it into something practical but I actually like the back almost as much as the front so I think I will probably mount the piece between pieces of mount-board and use it as a teaching sample.

The almost finished back

The finished back

Detail of the back

Detail of the front

Quiet? Not a chance!

It's all been a bit quiet over here on my blog, but that's because I'm in the middle of a great project which you can find out all about by visiting this blog! If you're in Carlisle and would like to join in please do come on down and add your stitches. I'll be at Tullie House all week between 10-2 so come and say hi!

Melty Stuff

Melty!

I've been up to my old tricks, crocheting plastic bags and melting them. I can't help it, it's an addiction!

Before the melting...

Stitching Friendships

Tea and Stitching, this is my kind of prep!

Today a Community arts project that I'm working on truly got off the ground. Today was the first of hopefully many workshops that my friend and colleague Helen Tuck and I will be running. This morning I worked with a group from The Prince's Trust to get them started on their patches. Although none of them had done any textiles work before they all picked it up really quickly and it was a surprisingly quiet session as everyone was deep in concentration!

Cutting out patches to applique

Design work

The guys had some great ideas and had come prepared with some sketches. I'm very much looking forward to seeing their finished patches. I also started my patch off last night and when I've posted this I'm off to do some more stitching on it! You can follow the progress of the project here or on Facebook.

Stitching

More stitching!

Lovely Lacey Birds

New Dress (needs a press)

I bought this dress in the sale last summer with the intention of customising it but it has sat in my to-do pile for a while. A couple of months ago I used a printing block I'd made to print some birds on it but because I used a dark green they didn't show up too well. Then last weekend I was looking at the lace bird cushion covers I'd made and thought that it would be a good idea to use the same technique on the dress. So I did. I used the printing block as my template to cut out the lace birds and I used fusible adhesive web to attach the lace to the dress. I then secured the birds with free machine embroidery and gave them buttons for eyes. I'm really pleased with this dress now, I got lots of comments when I wore it to work this week and I think it will become one of my favourites.

One bird

Halter-neck  purple jersey with lace birds

Another bird

Five birds

Top bird

The Map Project

Detail of my Palm Map

Sometimes work just doesn't work. You have a great idea, you know how you want to do it but for some reason it's just not right. I had this problem whilst working on my piece for the Art House Co-op's Map Project. I had, it's true, left it a little to the last minute as life generally seems to have been insanely hectic recently. However, I had a pretty clear idea what I was going to do and how I wanted it to look. But it just wasn't happening, whatever I did it just didn't work which was very frustrating. I tried changing media and technique but to no avail. So, I left it alone which is sometimes the only option (well, that or complete insanity.)

Had I still had plenty of time to work on the project I wouldn't have been so bothered but as it was I only had a very small window to complete it if I was going to meet the postage deadline. As sometimes happens in these situations I rattled off a piece of work and ended up being far more pleased with the results than with all the other failed experiments. So, here is my completed piece. I had originally intended to do a large drawn and stitched map 'of experience' incorporating images of my hands and various layers of text, image and stitch. This piece would then have folded down to 4x6 inches, as stipulated in the brief. However, things did not go according to plan but I still wanted to keep the basic idea the same; to make a personal map of experience and what is more personal than your hands?

My Map 

Detail

I began by photocopying my hand as I liked the correlation between fingerprints and map contours and the palm readers ideas about love lines and life lines and being able to tell a lot about a person from their hand. I then added washes of white paint and ink and when that was dry I began writing my experiences over where the lines in my hand would be. Some of the stuff I wrote was positive, these are the lighter areas, and some was negative, the darker, more densely written areas. I then added some stitching and cut it down to 4x6 and got it posted. Although it is not how I envisaged it I am pleased with it as it is personal and I think visually it is quite interesting.

Stitch Detail

Stitches and Folds

Smocking sample (detail)

Way back in August last year I entered The Sketchbook Project, run by Art House Co-op in Brooklyn. Since then I've been so busy with other things that apart from occasional "I really should do that" thoughts I've not got much done on it. However, last week it suddenly popped into my head and I realised it must be getting pretty close to the deadline (it is) and I better get on with it.

The theme I chose was stitches and folds as I thought it would be a good chance to experiment and play with some different techniques. Today I have been experimenting with smocking. I've had this see-through fabric for ages and thought it would be interesting to try smocking it to see what effect the gathered fabric would create.

Taped down whilst in progress

In progress

I'm pretty pleased with how it's turned out, although it was the devil to work with. When I'd put the gathering lines in and pulled them to gather the fabric it curled all over the place and it was really hard to find the pleats, but I persevered and via the gift of masking tape I got it stitched. I just did a basic honeycomb pattern using knots rather than stitches as I thought the short threads would stand out nicely against the soft folds of the fabric. The finished sample has a lovely soft, shadowy look to it that I'm very pleased with.

Finished sample

I also made a stitched button for the front of the sketchbook, using rayon thread and a plastic ring. Time consuming but very pretty!

Hand stitched button in progress

Finished button

From the side