Siân Martin

Siân Martin noticeboard

Distant Stitch

Siân Martin started DISTANT STITCH in 1991. Distant Stitch offers online tutoring where you can learn how to achieve skills in design and embroidery. Siân has devised two courses – an Embroidery Certificate and a follow-on Embroidery Diploma. Each Course is written by the tutor in a series of six clear and well-illustrated Modular stages to enable you to enjoy your adventure of discovery and achievement. You will given individual and regular feedback in a friendly, supportive and professional manner.

Students study their Courses entirely online by downloading their Modules from the website and showing their work via a personal ‘blog’. So, wherever you live, you can become a student and discover the details of these Courses. For details of these Courses www.distantstitch.co.uk.

A free Embroidery ‘Taster’ is offered to discover the joys of learning in your own home, to your own timetable.

3 June 2011 ::: posted by Sian Martin in courses

workshops

TURNING TO THE BOTTLE

This is a fun workshop which will focus on the use of wire and stitch.

The design source will be bottles because they form such great shapes that can easily be formed in wire. We will add character by wrapping, dipping, stitching and painting. The aim will be a free-standing textile still life!’

REMOVE AND REPLACE

A fresh look at Drawn Thread Work

Vessel in coloured linen scrim with stitch

Add colour!

Pull threads to rearrange the colour pattern to make interesting colour mixtures and a loopy surface.

Draw out threads from the weave and replace them back into the fabric in different patterns.

Withdraw threads and replace with interesting yarns, ribbons

Make 2D and 3D shapes.

BY ACCIDENT OR DESIGN?

This workshop will encourage you to be surprised and to take risks by responding to fresh ideas. You can relax and allow yourself to follow your intuition and focus on the materials in your hands, rather than on a prescribed theme or a visual starting point.

You will explore different ways of being creative to refresh your ways of working. This may involve trying new methods such as working backwards and up-side-down. You will be able to develop your curiosity and sense of fun in exercises with papers, fabrics and stitch by starting from a different view point.

ASSEMBLAGE

Create a flowing textile from your stack of old greetings cards, photos and postcards or tiny fragments of abandoned stitched samples and discarded fabrics and even drawings and papers.

Your sewing machine will link these into a mosaic curtain to celebrate the contents of the fragments perhaps.

::: posted by Sian Martin in courses

articles and reviews

articles

Read about Siân Martin in an interview on this link – http://www.textileartist.org/sian-martin-interview-the-love-of-stitch/

Celebrity Artist Interview Workshop on the Web June 2006 www.workshopontheweb.com

book inclusions

‘DIS/rupt’ by the Textile Study Group ISBN 978-0-9927051-3-8

‘Textile Landscape’ (Batsford) by Cas Holmes’3D Mixed Media Textile Art’

An on-line book that features a section on Siân Martin using this link http://www.textileartist.org/3d?ap_id=smartin

‘Approaches to Stitch’ 2013 ed Maggie Grey ISBN 978-0-9574413-1-6

‘Radical Thread’ 1962-2012 The 62 Group Celebrates. ISBN 978-0-9571242-0-2

‘Textile Aspects’ by the 62 Group

‘Creating Sketchbooks for Embroiderers and Textile Artists’ by Kay Greenlees

‘From Image to Stitch’ by Maggie Grey ‘

Inspiration to Stitch’ by Bailey Curtis 2003

‘Fibre Visions’ by Fibre.Art.Wales. 2002

‘African Inspirations in Embroidery’ by Mary Sleigh 2004

Constance Howard’s ‘20th century Embroidery in GB from 1978’

‘Starting to Stitch’ (Batsford) edited by Val Campbell-Harding

‘Contemporary British Textile Art by the 62 Group’

2 June 2011 ::: posted by Sian Martin in articles and reviews

recent exhibitions

“CONVERSATIONS” 62 Group of Textile Artists St Barbes Museum and Gallery, Lymington, Hants 2022

“SOMERSET REACQUAINTED” Somerset Art Works touring Rural Life Muesum, Glastonbury, ACEgallery Somerton, Brewhouse Taunton 2020/21

“CHANGE MATTERS” ‘Artwork Together’ – Pauline Lerry and Lesley Roberts, Town Mill Gallery, Lyme Regis, Dorset 2019 & Bridgwater Arts Centre 2021

“CTRL/SHIFT” 62 Group of Textile Artists, Midlands Arts Centre ‘MAC’, Birmingham – 2018 touring to NCCD Sleaford & 2021 Visual Arts Centre Scunthorpe

“DIS/rupt” Textile Study Group, Stroud, Oldham, Llanidloes, Peebles, tour 2017/2020

“CHANGE” ‘Artwork Together’ – Pauline Lerry and Lesley Roberts, CICCIC gallery, Taunton, Somerset 2017

“MAKING SPACE” ’62 Group of Textile Artists’ Macclesfield Silk Museum

“ON THE EDGE” with Stitch Textile Artists, Ilminster Arts Centre, Somerset 2015 and at ‘Nature in Art’, Gloucestershire April 2016

“TRACES OF LIFE” – Textile Study Group, Dalarnas Museum and Art Gallery, Sweden, June – Sept 2015

“EBB & FLOW” – 62 Group of Textile Artists Grimsby Minster, & Fishing Heritage Centre, Grimsby, UK till 1st Nov 2014

Group exhibition at Beetroot Tree Gallery, Derbyshire – Textile Study Group, April/May 2014

“BRITISH TEXTILE ART 62@50”- 62 Group of Textile Artists Koyo Gallery, Tokyo Dec13/Jan14

“IN THE PINK” – 62 Group of Textile Artists – Pink Wood, Bruton as part of Somerset Art Work event (SAW) 2013

“PACKAGE TOUR”- 62 Group of Textile Artists – Knitting and Stitching Shows, London, Dublin + Harrogate 2012

“62@50” – 62 Group of Textile Artists – Holden gallery, Manchester 16 July – 17 August 2012

“INTERVENTIONS” – 62 Group of Textile Artists – Platt Hall, Manchester 17th January – 19th May 2012

“SURFACE TENSION” – Textile Study Group – Knitting and Stitching Shows Autumn 2011

9e TRIENNALE INTERNATIONALE DES MINI-TEXTILES, Angers, France, touring to Quebec and San Cugat, Spain. ‘Secheresse’ bought by Musée d’Angers for permanent collection.

Finalist in the International PFAFF ART EMBROIDERY CHALLENGE 2009 – starting at the UK Knitting and Stitching Show 2009 and then touring to Paris and then around Europe until 2011.

::: posted by Sian Martin in exhibitions

lectures

Siân is an inspiring speaker, whether at small Branch meetings, at regional, national or international events. Siân can supply her own laptop and data projector. Each lasts between 1 and 1 ½ hours or as requested. Please select from these topics.

Stitching in the Air

EmptyNest4 My definition of stitch is a broad one that encompasses wrapping, threading, binding and looping as well as conventional stitch. I enjoy using thread (and anything else that could be a thread) as a three-dimensional journey, rather than as something that only appears on a surface.

I love the idea of thinking of the whole route taken by a stitch as it winds its way in and out of a surface, worming its way in a three-dimensional dance. So this might explain why I like to work ‘in the air’, as it were, suspending my stitch by using threads such as wires, canes, willow and machine stitching in voids.

Stitch Connections

woman working

What made you start to stitch? What continues to inspire and inform you? An embroiderer’s connection with her past, her future and the contemporary world.

::: posted by Sian Martin in lectures