memories of Newark Park

Taking down the work at Newark Park it was a sad day to be leaving the wonderful National Trust property. Many thanks to all the wonderful people who work and volunteer there. It was such an inspiring place and I was fascinated to see how my work changed and now I am back home with my work I'm re-evaluating the pieces I've made to look at developing them more. The wear of daily life is still central to the work and I'm wondering if I should place them outside again now I know what the weather does to the fibers. The second idea is to re-structure them to make objects. Or possibly both...

the traces we leave behind

Textiles seldom survive over long periods of time and working with such a historical building as Newark Park the evidence of humans is in the bricks and mortar more than the fabrics. My work progresses on the gallery piece for Newark Park exhibition, pulling together ideas on the traces we leave. I’ve gathered lengths, some that were left in the garden for two to three months, these have been stained and partially destroyed but still link to the pieces in the garden and the kitchen. I wanted also to bring into the piece some of the ideas that sprang from the workshop that Carla held in October, where I worked with found objects from the garden at Newark Park and to use some blind stitching techniques I had played with where I found myself stitching around my thumb print.A strong connection to the ephemeral.

outside

Easter has been very productive with the completion of the 48 lengths for the outside piece for Newark Park

wrapped up in a bag it all looks so contained for 32 meters of seams, 13.3 meters of crotchet and 32,496 rows of machine knitting. Now I just have 22,192 rows of knitting for the kitchen piece.

And on a recent visit to Newark Park I took some of the lengths to trial them in situ, here's a short film of them.

outside

 

Placing my work outside is a new venture and I've been trialing my lengths, hanging them against a dark wall, the movement of the silk as it floats in the breeze moves alot more than I expected. This congers an extravagant dance of flight in the dark space near the Tudor kitchens. I now want to hang a length in place at Newark Park to see how much the wind blows through the steps and how the ecru and blue work with the stonework. Stephanie

Bird on a jug.

This bird is for the cover of my concertina book.

ideas coming together

ideas for the upcoming exhibition at newark park, knitted and dyes lengths ontop of silk, for the outside piece I'm aiming to make 16, all roughly 2 meters long, Stephanie

Lateral thinking

From an exercise in the use of primary colours, a quilt at Newark Park and orange and yellow flowers came the idea for an outdoor piece for the exhibition. It will take the form of another screen, this time dyed, painted and stitched organdie over three five foot bamboo hoops joined together.

Eco dyed pieces

My first pieces for our exhibition are the results of a walk through the gardens and estate of Newark Park collecting leaves. I used the leaves to ecodye silk noil and raw silk fabrics, then pieced them into long thin hangings, representing my walk. My first attempts at Eco dyeing with the leaves were disappointing, but the addition of iron water has helped revealed leaf forms that were not visible, creating beautiful layers of leaves; reminding me of the leaves lying on the paths as I walked.

I'm now starting to develop a larger piece using more of these fabrics. The leaves of autumn conjure up images of a comforting blanket for me, helping protect the earth from the harshness of winter, so a comforting quilt form, which brings warm comfort when we're cold, seems to be the best way to illustrate this thought. 

Newark Park

Here's the results of our day spent at Newark Park, exploring the garden and estate. Carla sent us out into the gardens to collect 6 objects, on our return we spent time looking at our collections, before selecting  3 with which to make a 2 or 3D object. Then we threw a dice to select the next process. 

Leaves stitched and wrapped, mounted on a stone, moss attached to a twig.......

A beautiful sculptural piece of fungus, stuffed with feathers & leaves, before wrapping with thread.

A bottle found in the undergrowth stuffed with leaves etc, with a woven fence of wire and thread. 

A wonderful creative day spent in the Clutterbrook room of the house, immersing ourselves in the history and nature on Newark Park. 

All of us left with our heads full of ideas to develop further for our exhibition next June.

Selected at Newark Park

Kay & I spent a wonderful day this week, exploring Selected at Newark Park, near Wootton under Edge. The exhibition is part of Stroud International Textiles Select and features 30 artists such as Caroline Bartlett, Caren Garfen, Susan Early, Matthew Harris, Jo Lovelock, Jennifer Collier to name just a few.

The pieces are beautifully placed around the house & gardens, some so well sited that on the first walk around can be missed, as look like part of the House's collection. 

We spent most of the day there, enjoying the surroundings, the exhibits, the history of the house, even getting a tour of the basement rooms, and the stunning views from the house of the surrounding landscape. It's well worth a visit!!

Here's a few images of some of my favourite pieces, apologies for the image quality as the light levels were abit low in some areas.

Caroline Bartlett

 

Zoe Hillyard's Ceramic Patchwork

Jennifer Collier Paper Sculpture 

Jennifer Collier

Jo Lovelock