Exhibition Report: Medway Open Studios

Recently I attended a Fabric Manipulation workshop at INTRA in Rochester. Through this 6 week workshop I developed some interesting techniques, the build up to which I will share with you in another post. But this weekend the artists of Medway opened their doors to the public in the Medway Open Studios & Arts Festival. My Fabric Manipulation piece was on display so I went to see it, the finished pieces of the rest of the class and some great local artists.

A particular favourite I discovered today was Heather Haythornthwaite who creates beautiful prints. Her three prints of historically notorious Medway prostitutes took my breath away. She combines interesting elements to create her images inclusing text, old maps and images imposed with regular printed shapes. She is a part of the Ridley Road group and can be seen at stop number 6 on the Medway Open Studios Map.

Stopping in at INTRA I saw my oen piece beautifully displayed along with work by Faye Lamb, Bernice Friend and Rebecca Davison.

My piece is in the top right of this photo.

 

Finally I saw some lovely textile work in Sun Pier House, a large work in process wall hanging by Jenni Burrows really caught my eye.

 

If you are in the area you should check out all of these artists and art venues.

Find out more about Medway Open Studios here

The Medway Open Studios map can be found here

Look at workshops on offer at INTRA and Unravel & Unwind here (highly recommended!)

Find Jenni Burrows here

Find Heather Haythornthwaite here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Valentines....

There seems to be a lot of talk about Valentine's Day around me at the moment and it made me realise something.... some of my prints would make great Valentine's cards or anti-Valentine's day cards!

Check out my print account here to see these embroideries as greetings cards - go on, you know you want to!!

Book Review: Fabric Art Workshop

I was browsing through the craft book section of my local Borders the other day, actually looking for stuff on natural dyes. I found some good books on that subject, but another book about fibre arts jumped out at me and said ‘buy me!!’ Of course when a book says that to you, just have to buy it don’t you?!

The book is called Fabric Art Workshop by Susan Stein. I was very interested to see that it contained instructions on using Angelina fibre. I have some of this at home and have been shown at a craft fair how to use it. Of course, then I went away on a ship and forgot it all! This will come in handy when I get back on land and can have a go with this great looking sparkly stuff.

There is also a lot about printmaking in this book. I LOVE printmaking. When I was back in art college printing was my favourite thing to do but I have gotten out of the habit because it can be very messy and take up a lot of space. The techniques in the book use whatever you can find lying around and bring great results! I did a few of them and they have come out better than I thought. I find that this book encourages you to go further as well and try out whatever comes to hand.

I urge anyone who wants to create their own unique fabrics or play with fibres to get this book. It have very clear instructions with photos and advice. I found that I wanted to do all of the techniques right now! I found to be very inspiring as well and can’t wait until I get home to really try out all of these techniques!