Boris, or how to weave a hare...

Boris, the willow hare

One of the many great things about being an artist, particularly an artist employed by an arts organisation, is that ones training/team building/professional development tends to involve doing art stuff. Thus the Prism Arts team building day involved us all learning to make willow hares with basket maker and willow weaver Phil Bradley at the end of January.

A bunch of sticks...

Starting to add form...

A body emerges...

I was really looking forward to this workshop, last year I did a basket making course and I've done quite a bit of willow weaving to make giant puppets and lanterns so I was keen to develop my skills further. Phil is a well known and respected willow weaver and teacher and so I was looking forward to some expert guidance.

Adding structure

Can you guess what it is yet?

Taking shape

We all had a great day, it was good to have time to focus on creating something that we hadn't had to plan and to be guided through a way of working. I found it very rewarding and as well as being pleased with my sculpture I found it gave me lots of inspiration and ideas for future work. Most of all I enjoyed working with my hands, seeing my hare emerge from a bunch of sticks and spending time with my friends.

It looks like a moose...

Getting there

A host of hares

Another of the things that I enjoyed about the day was hearing about Phil's approach to work, he has an understanding and appreciation of the creatures he is representing in willow and this really shows through. He works in quite an instinctive and natural way which combined with the skill one gains from putting a lot of time and effort into ones craft leads to his sculptures having a real sense of life and movement. Whilst they may not be anatomically correct they capture the spirit of the animal. I found this very inspiring and is something I hope to bring into my own work.

Boris from the front

He casts very beautiful shadows

Weaving a Nest

Willow nest in the Cherry tree

As I wrote about a little while ago I've got a slight sphere/nest obsession thing which has been going on for some time. I recently made a piece on the theme of 'home' for an on-line exhibition based on my nest ideas. This weekend Mr. Stitches decided he wanted to cut the hedges and trim the little Glasgow Willow in our front garden, I asked him to save the willow for me as I thought I might have a go at a bit of weaving.

The raw materials

Work station

I started off with no real plan, I just wanted to have a play about with the willow and see what would happen. I'm planning to do a traditional basketry evening course this term so I thought a bit of free form messing about might be good. Obviously the willow I was working with was very fresh (leaves and everything) and I had a somewhat random selection of lengths and widths. However, I chose to embrace this as part of the project and one of the things I'm really interested in is to see how the piece changes over the coming weeks, how it weathers and if it can retain it's structure.

Willow circles

Starting to take shape

I began by making a few different sized willow circles by gently flexing and bending the willow and wrapping it around itself. As I started playing around with the circles the idea of a nest popped back into my head so I set off (very vaguely) in that direction.

Nest entrance

The finished nest sculpture

I've done a fair bit of willow weaving (mostly giant puppets!) but this was quite different. As I was working with quite short lengths and unstripped stems it was harder to see the structure emerging and I've ended up with quite dense areas and very open areas rather than a more even spread. I also was not using tape, as I have done previously, but relying on the willow itself and a few bits of linen thread (I wanted the whole thing to be totally bio-degradable) which has led to a perhaps less strong structure than I would normally create.

Finished sculpture hanging up

Weave detail

Entrance detail

Despite these challenges (and a very limited supply of stems) I persevered and I'm quite pleased with the result, which I've hung in a tree in our back garden. I'm looking forward to seeing how the nest changes and alters over the coming weeks, how the weather and nature will affect it and how long and in what format it will survive. Maybe I will wake up tomorrow to a pile of twigs and a heap of thread or maybe it will survive the winter and the climber that grows up the tree will colonise it, or maybe something entirely alternative...

Giant Puppets!

Two Giant Puppets

December is upon us and my schedule returns to normal madness rather than total madness, which is quite a relief to myself and my nearest and dearest. I can now also perhaps find a little time to post about some of the things I've been doing recently. 

Giant's evil side

Giant's good side

One of the projects I've been working on has involved making three giant puppets to go down to Chester for their Winter Watch parade. Following on from the Pageant in Carlisle over the summer Impecunious, an artists collective of which I am  a part, made a bid to the City Council to fund a project to make some puppets to go down to Chester. The aim of the project was to work with some of the participants from the summer project to help build their skills and confidence and to keep the momentum from the summer project going.

Polar Bear

We based our puppets on a local folk story about the Carle of Carlisle; a fearsome giant that Sir Gawain of Arthurian legend lifts out of enchantment. We chose to make a giant, a bear and a boar. As the project developed so did the characters of the puppets. For example, the bear became an icy polar bear. The puppets are made by first creating a willow frame which is then covered with latex and tissue paper. The puppets are then painted and costumed. 

Boar (made by Ali McCaw)

Boar

One of the participants suggested that the giant should have two faces, a good side and a bad side as in the story he at first appears quite evil but once the enchantment is lifted turns out to be quite a good character. We ran with this idea making a giant that can face each way. Costuming the giant was quite a challenge because of the size and the fact that he needed two fronts but I think overall we were quite successful.

We showcased the puppets at The EDS North Hub Christmas Fayre at the Old Fire Station in Carlisle on Saturday and the puppets head down to Chester for the parade on Thursday. Let's hope the weather is fine for them!

Jimmy Sparks the Dragonfly

Felt and willow sculpture

Over the past six weeks I have been working on a project to make a dragonfly sculpture. Prism Arts were commissioned by Tullie House and The Solway Wetlands Project to create 3 sculptures of wildlife found in the Solway wetlands. We chose to make a natterjack toad, a common hawker dragonfly and a lapwing. I worked with my textiles group up at The Heathlands Project  as well as the other artists working on the project.

Felt sample

It has been a really fun project to work on and a great chance for the guys I've been working with to experiment with different felting techniques and for me to improve my willow weaving skills. Unfortunately we were on quite a tight time scale so we did not have as much chance to experiment as I would have liked but the guys worked incredibly hard and have produced a great piece of work.

Willow wing frame

The guys started off by making drawings and some felt samples after looking at lots of pictures of the common hawker. I worked with the other artists on the project creating the frame for the dragonfly. It was great working together as we were able to help each other out find solutions for the problems we encountered.

Body frame

Head and thorax

We made the felt for the head and body first, using merino tops and lots of graft! For some of the people on this project it was the first time they had made felt and the pieces they produced are really high quality. We added lots of sparkly fibres as well so that the finished pieces would catch the light and shimmer, like a real dragonfly.

Laying out the body felt

Laying out the body felt

For the felt for the eyes we added lots of circles of net and organza to look like the many lenses of an insect eye.

Eye felt with net and organza circles

The next step was making the wings. For this we tried nuno felting. This involves using a sheer fabric as a base and then felting the wool fibres through it. Using the fabric as a base allowed us to create a piece of felt that was strong enough to use for the wings but still light and  semi transparent. We used silk chiffon as a base and lots of the sparkly fibres to create a shimmery, wing like fabric. Everyone worked together on one big piece and it was a real team effort.

Nuno felting

Nuno felting

I then worked with one of the guys one to one to embroider the wings using metallic thread and machine embroidery. We used pictures of the wings as a reference and worked section by section to build the pattern up.

Embroidery in progress

To add the bright spots of colour onto the dragonfly and to create the details on his face we used needle felting. This involves using a barbed needle to push and pull the fibres through each other to felt them.

Needle felting the body spots

Needle felting the face

With all the pieces of felt made and embellished and the frame made the final step was putting it all together. I used strong thread and a few curse words to securely sew all the felt pieces together and onto the willow frame. When I took the finished sculpture back to the guys they were really happy with it and decided to call him Jimmy Sparks.

Face detail

The underneath

Wing detail

Along with the toad and the lapwing Jimmy was delivered to Tullie House this week where they will soon be displayed.

Parade Madness!

Griffin head-this was my 'pet' project and I was ably assisted by several of the participants in the project

This week has been my annual week of crazy also known as the Impecunious summer project. This year our project was the Carlisle Parade which kicked off Carlisle's pageant week.

During the week I ran several banner making workshops

I asked people to draw something or somewhere they loved in Carlisle

These designs were then made into flags and banners

Laying out the banner of Carlisle loves

The finished banner

Banner made from work done at this years Culture Bazaar

We have been working in partnership with Chester Watch (who run fabulous parades in Chester) and the city council. We've been making giant puppets, banners and all sorts of other bits and pieces. It's been a week of late nights, willow weaving, sewing, painting and all round creativity with loads of people coming down to the Old Fire Station and getting involved. It's been great!

Our work space at the Old Firestation

Willow frame for the griffin head

Skinned with tissue paper and latex

Foam eyes and fabric feathers

More feathers

Faye transformed into a griffin!

Feathered wings

Furry lion legs

This article from the Cumberland News was written just before the project started and this one has some pictures from halfway through the week. We were on the radio and we even made it onto the news!

Puppets in our viking long boat

Turning Mark into Carlisle character Jimmy Dyer the fiddler