My background as a drawer, photograper and embrioderer has all been rolled into one to direct the artistic and textile journey I've been on this year. For me this has been a year of threads and light.
With a strong costume making background I started this year seeing all of my folio possibilities as garments - theatrical, highly enriched and colourful. All of this changed when I saw a lace exhibition, with both modern and traditional forms of lace. I was ensnared. I shouldn't have been surprised though because the best of my work last year was lacy.
I'ts amazing how many lacy images there are around - blossoms in a tangle of twigs, shadow tracery on a wall or as a line drawing- they're everywhere. So I've had an inspiring and challenging time interpreting these images as drawings; drawing on the sewing machine.
My mother is a lace maker and she became the subject for my first piece in our "Beyond the Selvedge" exhibition. She works mostly in silk so this interpretation is also in silk, fine enough to go through the sewing machine. There is a big challenge in interpreting face and hands in machine lace and this is a feature of my second piece.
So this year has been letting my imagination run wild and interpreting life around me. I have been indulging my love of drawing using the sewing machine as the pen.
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