Wednesday 26 February 2014

Back Where I Belong (Tangled Up In Blue)





What a lovely two days! Greeted by the car park robin as I arrived yesterday, weaving visual research samples to experiment with textures and mixes, dyeing yarns......
Tomorrow two more 'Postcards' workshops, and a split day on Friday- Studio in the morning and 'Postcards' in the afternoon. I plan a Tate-a-thon on Saturday (Richard Deacon at Tate Britain, Tate Boat and then a revisit of Paul Klee at Tate Modern). Complete collapse-in-a-heap will probably ensue on Sunday.
I am back where I belong, at a loom (or in a dye room) and happy as a clam - hence the photo.


Monday 24 February 2014

The Latest from LouLouLand*

*home of the portfolio life.

GCSE Textiles Day? - Check
First of four 'Postcards Home' schools' workshops? - Check
Commission for local primary school in planning stages? - Check
New job in professional tapestry studio? - CHECK!!

The 'Postcards' workshops are designed as an exploration of historical (WWI) postcards, imagery from the memorial chapels in the Cathedral and thinking about the messages pupils would choose to send home.  Pilot sessions this week with various schools, ready to be rolled out in the autumn - led in future by the education volunteers trained during this week.

The school will have a series of six outdoor tapestry panels based on their school 'footsteps' and incorporating figures drawn by the children.  We begin weaving later in March; I shall be on site one day a week for six weeks and groups will continue to work in-between.  It's a lovely friendly school and should be a very enjoyable project.

The big (and long-awaited) news is that I am going to be working in the West Dean Tapestry Studio for  a while on a commissioned large tapestry as part of a team of weavers.  It is a brilliant chance to experience being a studio weaver - with all the differences from designing my own work entailed in that.  I do not know yet whether I will be allowed to blog details of the project (sometimes work from the studio has to be confidential until exhibited), but I can certainly share my experiences / lessons learned etc.  I start tomorrow, just two days this week because of 'Postcards', but thereafter will be four days a week on the weaving bench.  VERY excited by this new phase!
 
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