work for 44AD

       
                        and Linda has been seeing stars!
                      
                      while Liz is thinking about traces of making and changing
.

The bee

The bee now has wings made of stainless steel!

The bees

It has taken me five hours to do one bee and it still hasn't any wings, ha!

meeting

               Good meeting yesterday. Steph showed us some of her hand knitted samples

 

and some of the knitted and wrapped pieces she will show at the exhibition in Bath

The bees by Carla Mines

The South London Entomological and Natural History Society 1915-16 reported a deeply rooted superstition that if a death occurred in the family, the bees had to be told or they would all die during the coming year. I found a poem by Rudyard Kipling called, 'The Bee-Boy Song' which carried on this superstition.

 I have been looking at bees making nests in the wild, some on the ground, others in the trees. With the country leaving the EU the laws surrounding  the use of horrid pesticides on agricultural land are in jeopardy. We need to protect the bees.

  I decided that I would like to make a piece of work called, 'Tell the Bees'. This pictures shows the beginnings of the piece. I have made labels showing bees . In the poem, Rudyard  quotes, 'Marriage, birth or  buryin, news across the seas, all your sad and merry in, you must tell the bees.' So on the reverse of the labels I have put my news. 

Then I gave labels to my friends and colleagues and asked if they would like to add some news and these are some of them.

If you would like to contribute, make or reuse an old label  8 x4 cmx. decorated as you like and send them to Stephanie Wooster, University of the West of  England, Clanage Road, Bower Ashton, Bristol BS3  8 JJ. You can also contribute within our exhibition, 'Underpinning' @ 44AD, 4 Abbey Street, Bath BA1 1NN, From 5th 10th September. 11am -5pm. It will be lovely to meet you.

weekend workshop

We've just had a lovely weekend workshop run by Steph in Liz's studio overlooking a colourful garden. It was quite challenging as on the Saturday morning we had to collaborate in pairs, without speaking at all, and create a piece relating to the head and movement, that both people could wear! There were some very funny moments! I started by thinking about the moving parts on a head and looked at ways to create opening paper eyes, a wrinkling nose and an opening mouth out of one of the papers Steph had brought.

On the Sunday Linda was ill so we couldn't work in pairs any more. Instead individually we responded to what had been made by others on the previous day. The different sorts of hats appealed to me so I made some samples using fabrics that Carolyn had brought - a pleated silk ruffle to trim a hat, an overlaying of dyed scrim on another fabric to reference straw hats and plaited cotton that was wound & stitched round and round as some straw hats are. Ideas being taken from an NT book on hats & bonnets from the Snowshill collection.

Corinne

more images of the workshop from Linda

what's in the box

An excitement this morning with the delivery of the new fliers for our exhibition at 44AD in September

Chained and Unchained

Continuing my exploration of hand stitch which began with small experiments with chain stitch, this piece mounted also acknowledges the drawing of  Cy Twombley and the painting of Howard Hodgkin.

Experimenting with chain stitch led on to a freer approach which I termed "unchained". The death of Hodgkin earlier this year suggested this piece using the frame that the whole group decided to use.

"Boom" uses this free approach to stitch and its reverse makes a nod to the freedom found in quilts from the Gees Bend area of America

     

Still working and experimenting, watch this space!

                           

mixing materials

With the degree shows in full swing my work has been moving slowly but I have enjoyed the chance to contemplate movements.
Working with the sandblasted ceramics, adding threads and crochet I have been struck by the textures and varying natures of the materials, truly letting the materials speak to me. The next step I'd like to take is to translate this into knitting.

bloom book

I spent time with Sarah Morpeth, papercutter, and have made a 'bloom'book.

Altered postcards

Another batch of postcards that have been altered ready to pass on to the others to re-alter. Using our own themes of work. I use this exercise ,the dark art of procrastination, as a warm up to the real work for the gallery in 44AD Bath, haha!

a visit to Bath

Five of our group having a cuppa before visiting 44AD. It was great to see the space as a group to start considering what work might go where.