Author: Textile Study Group

This week we are in conversation with Sarah Burgess.

Sarah Burgess

For my work as part of the Insights project I wanted to continue to investigate the theme of rising sea levels that I began to work with for the Textile Study Group DIS/rupt exhibition. But this time I felt I needed to investigate what is happening due to the climate crisis in the UK; so last year I travelled out to the Norfolk coast several times to walk, draw and talk to people. One of the places I visited was Hemsby where it is very clear to see how the land is slipping into the sea. Increasing storm surges have meant the loss of homes, walking on the beach the remains of lives lived in those houses are obvious; broken pots, rusty metal reinforcement and cascades of plaster litter the sandy cliffs and concrete and tarmac paths are broken off.

I live about as far from the sea as it is possible to get but even in the middle of the UK we are not immune to flood and the effects of torrential storms.

Back in the studio I try to immerse myself in what I have found and also to research what’s happening elsewhere so that my ideas are not limited to one aspect of sea level rise. This is a worldwide issue. I like to use a large sketchbook so that I can draw, collect news clippings and add trials and tests so that I can try and move my ideas on. I also like to write – just notes and questions at this stage. I think I am trying to ask myself both objective and also crazy questions to provoke myself and stimulate further thoughts and ideas. Once I start working with mono-print on fabric or paper it becomes easier to be spontaneous and less in control which has become, for me, part of working with the climate crisis as a theme. We are not in control. Print enables me to have something to react to – with stitch or further layers of print – or scissors. It stops me becoming too precise and measured which can sometimes kill the life in a piece of work. Adding liquid dye has become very exciting and watching the take up of dye across different fibres is fascinating.

Just a reminder that each week we will feature a different TSG member, so if you haven’t seen our first two interviews, scroll down to read Siân Martin and Mandy Pattullo’s response. This week our conversation is  with Penny Burnfield  

Penny Burnfield 

Sometimes it is good to change direction.  The Insights Project has made me  review my work and has led to new ideas.

Recently my art work has had its origin in outside sources: for example, an exhibition in a museum of clothing, the title of a proposed show, or a curator’s brief.  I have enjoyed this approach, it has challenged me and has broadened my artistic practice.  But I wondered how my work might evolve if the title, brief or venue was entirely my personal choice.

My twin passions are art and gardening.  I have the good fortune to live in the Hampshire countryside – 50 years ago I moved, with my husband, into a small cottage with an acre attached.  The house was nearly derelict, and the land was a jungle of weeds and household rubbish. Gradually it has developed into a garden and now it is open to the public with the National Gardens Scheme.  It is a very long-term work-in-progress.

My very first piece of embroidery designed by myself, was a picture of my garden, but that was 40 years ago. Since then I have avoided using the garden as source material, although it is a popular subject for textile artists.  Perhaps that very popularity was the cause of my anxiety – how could I find my own voice?

It takes me time to see a way forward.  I gather ideas in a note book, a sort of brainstorming – this takes the place of a sketchbook. Slowly my thoughts coalesce. I spent time in the garden, absorbing the ‘spirit of the place’, and made a collection of things I found there, both natural and man-made.  These, together countless old samples and scraps, have developed into a series of collages and assemblages, which give me further inspiration.

There is a saying that the way to make better art is to keep making art – I just needed to ‘just go for it’.  I wanted to capture the feelings and emotions evoked by the garden – and the way to find my voice was to see what emerged.

My starting point was to look at what was already in my studio, and see what I could do with it.  I had a bag full of silk organza, space-dyed in shades of green and brown, which I had used as a background for an installation in a Biology Museum.  I also had a large cardboard box full of green yarns and a collection of brightly coloured silk threads

I experimented with overlapping the pieces of organza and stitching them together.  They looked beautiful with light shining through.  I found that the stitching needed to be minimal and long strips of fabric with an irregular lower edge worked well.  I’m attempting to capture the tranquility of the morning light, but it will need something more – just a little bright colour to set again the green?

And in the past I have enjoyed making free-form tapestry weaving. I have used the box of yarn to make a small square using a wide variety of embroidery and knitting yarns.  There is a gap left in the weaving – for something more exuberant to spill out perhaps?  I am working on how to do this  – making samples – whilst continuing to collect ideas in my notebook and to make collages.

This is an exciting change of direction for me.  Bringing my two passions together will hopefully enrich both.  I am looking forward to seeing what develops.

Continuing with our exciting interviews, this week we have the pleasure to speak to Siân Martin.

Siân Martin.

As a visual artist was it a challenge to write about your practice ?
This was such a challenging topic, to write about how I develop a project. I’ve always thought my stages of making were in a neat linear, logical progression. I smile as I now acknowledge that it is more of a criss-cross jumble of a network of connections that occasionally make glorious and unexpected connections. I suppose this is the joy I find in the creative making process.

During  this project have you looked at a new way of working ?
My project for ‘Insights’  is a new one for me, although I’ve always enjoyed doing textile-like processes with non textile materials. In this instance I was keen to use discarded plastics to make textile pieces that hint at and question the polluting effect of plastics dumped in the sea and along our coastlines. This is a huge topic, so I started by limiting the focus, initially looking at redundant plastic drinks bottles.

A bottle shape is one that connects benignly as a carrier of water, but also one that has come to symbolise the curse of plastic pollution. Initially, I found plastic an unfriendly material – uncompliant and hard – not the usual qualities of handling textiles, which appeal to feelings of warmth and softness. I associate the plastic bottle with ugliness due to a dislike of the damage that discarded plastics are doing to our planet. I discovered other qualities as I worked with this material.

Insights is a reflection on creative practice in textile art. Through the exhibition and accompanying publication, which is launching at the Festival of Quilts, the Textile Study Group share their varied approaches to artistic practice: where ideas come from; how we develop and make work; where we work.  All approaches are relevant, and our differences are celebrated. 

Insights is curated by June Hill and the accompanying publication is edited by June Hill and Dr Melanie Miller, with additional essay contributions from Jane McKeating, Polly Binns, Kay Greenlees, Claire Barber and Lois Blackburn.

The Textile Study Group members’ work is varied in the themes addressed and techniques employed. Methods of work include hand stitch, machine stitch, quilting, constructed textiles, pieced textiles, lace-making, mixed-media, sketchbooks and drawing, print, dye, in both two and three dimensions. The Insights exhibition includes work in progress and elements of process, as well as ‘finished’ work.

Book launch & exhibition:
Festival of Quilts, NEC, Birmingham 30 July – 2 August 2020

Exhibitions:
Mercer Gallery, Harrogate, North Yorkshire  7 September – 18 October 2020
Tweeddale Museum & Gallery, Peebles, Scotland 14 November 2020 – 6 February 2021
Please check precise dates and opening times with the venues.

Artists Interview :   

Over the course of the next six months we will  post a series of short artists interviews.  Each week showcasing a different member of the group, giving you a sneak peek into their creative process .  The first member to be interviewed is  Mandy Pattullo.

Mandy Pattullo  

What is your favourite part of the creative process?

My favourite part of the process is towards the end when I have made all the colour decisions, chosen the palette of fabrics I am mixing up, laid out compositions many times, evaluated, and then finally sewn it together. It is not enough for me however to just have a collage and the favourite part comes when I make my mark on the surface through stitching. I use the stitching to blur boundaries and either like it to be formalised into a pattern ( like cross stitch) or to think of it as a scattering of stitches across the surface. The scattering doesn’t have to be just seeding but can sometimes be French knots, cross stitches, fern stitches, bullion knots. At this stage I might start stitching and then unpick several times until the shape of the stitch and the colour of the thread is right and then it is plain sailing. I usually have a scrap of linen to hand and even though I know all the basic stitches I practice first as it is very important to understand the difference the size of a stitch can make and whether it looks better clustered, overlapped or scattered.The intention with the stitching is to draw the viewer in to look at the textures and marks on the whole collage. It is my favourite part too as it is slow and mechanical and my mind can empty of the project and I can listen to podcasts. Over the last five years my whole process has been heightened by accessibility to streaming, listening back and podcasts. I have felt that I have become a better educated person as I sew!

As a visual artist was it a challenge to write about your practice ?

I do not find it a challenge to write about my practice as it is aways a good opportunity to  to formulate the ideas behind what I do.I have experience of writing having published Textile Collage ( Batsford) in 2016,  and have a new book Textiles Transformed coming out in September 2020. I try to write every day about what I want to achieve, inspirational words for the mood of a piece and things and people I want to research. In producing a body of work I never start with a concept or idea but the cloth itself and how I can respond to it in mixing it with other cloth, sometimes from other cultures or eras.I call this textile collage but really I am continuing the patchwork tradition and writing about this alerts the reader to the way my work is made within a historical context. By patching on to and stitching into in a sense I am just decorating, and I have come to terms with this  realising it comes from my training as a Surface Pattern designer for Interiors. Through writing I can remind the viewer that this is my design background and  and why I am not content with an undecorated surface.  For centuries women have made clothing and domestic textiles  more beautiful through stitching on to and sensitively patching and I am just continuing that tradition.In the writing I want to express my love for old textiles and the stories they tell and to connect with the viewer and their own family sewing histories. I love to tell others about my processes and inspiration and writing I think encourages others to have a go.