Textile Study Group blog

This week our  interview is with Jean Draper, her words are rather pertinent given our current situation.  Talk of  empty spaces, protection , social justice and barriers, a reflection of  society at the moment.

Jean Draper 

Are the ideas/themes for this project ongoing or are they new ?
Working towards ‘Insights’ was no exception to my usual way of working as it was my aim to show honestly how I work, rather than making one piece for the book and the exhibitions. For many years my source of inspiration has been landscape, usually barren and rather harsh areas where ‘the bones’, or structure, of the land is very evident. Whilst my source has remained similar, the work has changed and evolved as I have gradually developed ideas and different ways of seeing. A thematic way of working has huge advantages as it allows for absorption in the subject matter and the development of related ideas from one piece to the next. In the particular landscapes that ‘speak’ to me, with their huge, seemingly empty spaces, there is much to be found – many overlooked features – if one looks closely. In the past details of rock textures, crevices and cracks in rock and earth surfaces have been of great interest. More recently I have been paying attention to elements such as thorns and overlaying, dense, often dried plant forms, which seem to me to signify both protection and obstruction and can, sometimes, be quite menacing. Forms such as these, much simplified in my work, have become a metaphor for other issues of social justice that have concerned me for a long time and continue to prey on my mind. Many peoples’ lives are deeply affected by barriers and restrictions of many kinds which prevent them progressing, attaining and living a decent lifestyle. I had already begun to experiment with work made from layers of hand-stitched meshes, and now continue to develop these ideas, trying further to express my thoughts about barriers to progress and the restraints that many people experience in life.

What is your favourite part of the creative process?
I do not have a favourite part of the process of making. The whole creative process is important to me and occupies both my thoughts and activities each day. My research consists of reading, listening, making notes and drawing. My sketchbooks, a very important part of my work process, are a mix of drawing (both sustained and quick sketches) notes, and lists of ideas. I find it essential to have notes and drawings together to enable me to remember a moment, or to look back and regather momentum with particular ideas. Sampling different methods and with various materials in order to express my ideas, is another vital part of the process before I finally begin to make a finished piece.

I try to keep ‘finished’ work as flexible as possible for as long as I can, cutting, subtracting, adding, evaluating until I am reasonably satisfied. But I am never totally pleased with the results of what may be many hours of work, and see each piece as part of my development, a stepping stone to the next one.   

Over the last two months we have posted seven artists interviews, how times have changed since our first one in February . Today we are in conversation with Rose Campbell.

Rose Campbell

I am really looking forward to the exhibition at the Festival of Quilts where our Insight project will be on show.  It has proved to be very different project to anything I have done previously.

I’m used to writing to support narrative within my textile pieces.  I’ve had work publicised and written personal statements but this project was in a different league. My kind of writing is more to do with calligraphy although I am no expert, I’m rather fond of incorporating text within my work.

I’ve been asked  before on more than one occasion by students ‘Why don’t you write a book?’ and the answer has always been ‘No, not my scene’ but here I am, having written ‘a chapter,’ thanks to the major challenge set by the TSG .  It took me quite sometime to get my head around it. I won’t say more…it’s in the book! In the end I think I got there but I feel much more comfortable articulating visually rather than literally.

One of my latest pieces is inspired by the naturalist John Muir and his quote ‘Into the Forest I go to lose my mind and find my soul. It’s reflective piece, making use of mirrors to create shadow and mystery and is a follow on from my work connected to Glentress Forest. The initial work was inspired by the activities related to the forest and will be on show when we launch our book in Birmingham. The follow up smaller pieces use print incorporating branches from the forest itself. I flatten them by soaking them in the bath, dry them, paint them and wrap them. I personally love walking in a forest but it is easy to loose my sense of direction and so can have a darker side to it as well.

The Textile Study Group is a fantastic group to be a member of, lots of challenges, encouragement and friendship aplenty.

Isolation is the experience of being separated from others, either physically or emotionally.  Through our posts, we hope our small contribution of sharing our working practice allows us to  strengthen the sense of community. Hopefully the insights of our artists, will inspire you to continue creating or even maybe even start. This week we  bring you another revealing interview from member Sheila Mortlake.

Sheila Mortlock 

Are the ideas/themes for this project ongoing or are they new ?
During the beautiful summer of 2018 whenever I was out in the local countryside I spent time as I walked observing those areas at the edges of fields that mark the boundary between the cultivated and uncultivated, edge lands. However, it was a holiday that year to a much loved and area of enormous personal significance in the North West Highlands of Scotland that the idea for my project crystallised when I became aware of the boundary markers that set out the divisions between individual crofts. First visited as a child many years ago, the area at the time of our earliest holidays was predominantly Gaelic speaking; a community of crofts, small arable holdings that relied on sheep and fishing. The historical element of this project was important from the start as I investigated the issues surrounding the Crofting Acts of 1886 and 1919 when many of these boundaries were created. This body of work was inspired by the place, imbued with many happy memories of long ago and hopefully reflects something of the culture and heritage of a remote part of Scotland.

What is your favourite part of the creative process?
Had I not gone to art college I would have studied history. It is an interest that finds its way into all my work and so the early stages of any new project are always filled with days of investigation and reading, visiting and observing, an immersive process that will inform the textile work that evolves. I feel that a depth of knowledge of the subject is a critical part of my work’s development. For this project, after our 2018 holiday I visited the Highland Archive Centre in Inverness and had access to documents relating to the specific area around the time of the 1886 Crofting Act which for the first time gave security of tenure to the tenants. However, I also looked back at old photographs taken by my father in the 60s and 70s to back up my sketchbook work and the photographs I had taken to develop ideas. However the landscape in all its colours and textures were also important inspirations including the range of seaweed colours, grasses, rusty corrugated iron sheds and the rocks, the fabric of the landscape.  As I have worked into the textiles for this body of work I have drawn on techniques and design developments that explore the mark making possibilities in the subject and it has been important to retain the freedom of the marks achieved on paper, interpreting them on fabric and in stitch while exploring the fragility of fabric as a metaphor for the fragility of that way of life, the heritage of the crofts.

During this time of self-isolation and social distancing, the desire to  share and connect through our creativity is arguably more important than before. It may help to maintain a calmer state of being amidst the ongoing uncertainty. Please enjoy our  conversation with Bobby Britnell  and stay safe.

Bobby Britnell

Are the ideas or themes for this project on going or are they new?
My ideas and themes for this new project for the Textile Study Group have been on-going and reflect my interest and desire to learn more about bark cloth from Southern Uganda. This fascination has been with me since first travelling to Uganda in 2011. After a couple of trips over there my husband and I, with the support of our two sons and a group of 5 trustees set up a charity to support a community towards a more sustainable future. As well as working intensely with the community of Kisaabwa, our visits over to Uganda had me looking at their crafts, and the process of making bark cloth, really capture my imagination in a big way. We used to go there twice a year and after each trip I would bring back bags full of bark cloth, either to sell or for my own work. Sadly we no longer go and my supply is diminishing!!!

The possibilities with the bark cloth are endless and as well as treating it like most other fabrics, with dyeing, printing and surface embellishment, it can also serve as a canvas for applying paint allowing the natural colour of the cloth to show through. I am exploring some of these ideas along with both hand and machine stitch, although compared to more conventional materials it requires a different approach to stitch and using raffia as traditionally used in Uganda is one such approach. I am always exploring new ways of working with the bark cloth and it certainly presents some new and exciting challenges, but for me the emphasis is always on drawing and design and how this can be incorporated onto or into the cloth.

There will be an article in ‘Embroidery’ magazine, coming out in March 2020, for anyone interested in learning more about this unusual material.