SIRF Carnival 2017 costume designs

I’ve been busy designing costumes for this years Stockton International Riverside Festival.  This year is particularly special because it will be SIRFs 30th birthday.  The theme for this years carnival is FIZZ BANG POP.  My section within that is also FIZZ BANG POP – so that’s nice and easy!  Here are my illustrations:

My partner, Lucas, also put togather a little musical stop motion of me making one of the illustrations.  You can watch that here

 

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Saltaire Inspired, dogs and a Llama

I’ve done what I usually do and neglected this blog…. so I have a little backlog of posts to write about the different projects I’ve been busy working on.  They’ll appear in no particular order…  Anyway, this weekend Burnett and Catt were working at the Saltaire Inspired Art Trail in the beautiful World Heritage site on the edge of Bradford.  The event is well established now with lots of residents opening their houses as galleries to show visiting artists works, specially commissioned projections onto the houses in the evenings, a large makers fair and lots more to see and do all around the village.  This year the theme was “Inside Out” and we  were commissioned to devise and deliver some family activities outside Victoria Hall.

We came up with the Llama Parlour (a kind of interactive colouring area with David Hockney inspired face in hole portraits and a llama of course), we also made colourful tassled Saltaire lantern danglers based on Titus Salt or the Saltaire Lions and provided a ‘third plinth’ to pose on wearing cardboard beards and hats etc…

 

We invited some special guest artists including Catherine Mercer who made ugly ducklings and swans that were then sent from outside…down a slide …to fly off the end and end up floating serenely on a paddling pool in their very own ‘duck disco tent’ complete with flashing disco duckss and a bubble machine.  Carine Brosse came along on Sunday and made some absolutely brilliant hats of imagination, inviting you to turn the thoughts inside your head into a hat on top of your head.

We had a brilliant time in spite of some very exciting weather.  We had everything thrown at us, including marble sized hailstones, thunder and lightening but it didn’t dampen anyones enthusiasm.

My favourite part of the weekend were the doggie visitors who patiently posed in our doggie Hockney face in hole portrait.  They were just lovely.

Thanks to all our visitors and massive thanks to all the good people of Saltaire who volunteer their houses and their time to make this such a special arts festival.

Touch and Flow workshops: Gawthorpe Textile collection

I’ve just completed a rather lovely project in Burnley called Touch and Flow.  I was asked to facilitate a series of hand stitch workshops with a group of carers and to give them the opportunity to explore the Gawthorpe Hall Textile handling collection.

If you’ve never visited Gawthorpe Hall in Padiham then you must!  They have a beautiful and fascinating collection of textile objects and costumes, collected over the decades by Miss Rachel Kay Shuttleworth.

Portrait of Rachel Beatrice Kay-Shuttleworth

You can find out more about her and Gawthorpe here

The weekly workshops took place at Burnley Mechanics.  I brought along tea china that belonged to my Great Aunt and we spent the sessions slow stitching with a steady supply of tea and biscuits.

 

The sessions were aimed at carers, giving them a chance to get out of the house, chat to other people and do something slow, relaxing and totally unpressured.  Over the weeks we built a core group of lovely people who shared stories, supported each other, made some very beautiful artworks and brought in precious objects from their own histories, including textile objects, photographs and old patterns, somebody even brought in fragments of wallpaper they’d saved from their first home.

I started the group off with  images printed onto calico stretched onto hoops.  I wanted to get away from the pressure of a blank ‘canvas’ and the local landscape photos seemed a good start point for people to explore stitch and find their own style.

Some people stuck with this and produced several beautiful pieces, taking them home to work on in between.  Other people hand stitched A Gawthorpe pin cushion bird, based on a beautiful little yellow bird in the handling collection or made little tea light jars.

International Textile Biennial, Belgium

Its been a pretty hectic couple of weeks with a lot of travelling, in the UK, in Belgium and in Norway.  Some fab workshops with some lovely people (more about that another time) and some really interesting projects and exhibitions happening or in planning.

I was really lucky to be invited to participate in the International Textile Biennial in Haacht, Belgium.  There were 37 artists representing  14 countries and the standard was fantastic as well as being beautifully put together by Maurice and Danielle.

I took along my series of Phrenology Heads.  It’s the first time that all 8 have shown in the same exhibit.  There they are travelling to Belgium from the UK in their ‘special’ bag stitched together from extra large TKMaxx shoppers! (All very glamorous!). The next photo shows two of the heads (Eat the Rich and Little Girls) waiting at the exhibition hall to be set up.

Two of my heads in situ

Hanging in progress

Tina struthers

Den Breugal in Haacht is a brilliant space.  The exhibition is spread across 3 floors.

We stayed at the Chateau de Namur overnight.  It’s a fantastic hotel overlooking the old city of Namur.  It looks quite swanky but it’s actually a training centre for the hospitality industry in Belgium.  I had one of the best vegetarian meals ever!

The Textile Biennial finishes tomorrow (12th March) For anyone in the area it’s open from 10am until 6pm.

Gemeenschapcentrum Den Breugal, Wespelaarsesteenweg 85, 3150 Haacht, Belgium

 

 

 

 

Some Very Peculiar Props to Help Save Our Precious Waterways.

I’ve just delivered an unusual commission for Friends of Bradford Becks (F.O.B.B).  It’s a collapsible ‘soft’ sculpture of a washing machine / house, complete with guttering, pipework and frogs! All the sides zip together, the roof is detachable and the whole thing  folds into an artist portfolio so it can be easily transported.

Miss Connection, a rather glamorous plumber (AKA Irene Lofthouse, Actor), will be visiting local schools and using the sculpture to get across an important environmental message.  Connect Right is an initiative to encourage everybody to plumb in appliances properly so that dirty water doesn’t poison our clean waterways and wild habitats.  I’ve made her a glitzy apron to wear as she hosts an interactive game and hands out stickers.

I’ve included a few images of it in progress and delivered.  Hopefully we’ll get a few images of Miss Connection in action.

Here is a useful ten point plan produced by F.O.B.B to help you sort out what goes where!

 

New Year Hares.

Here’s my first drawing of the New Year. I hope that 2017 will be mellow and kinder than 2016…  sending best wishes to  anyone that follows my ramblings and doodlings x

The Snow Queen

I’ve had a really lovely illustration job over the last couple of weeks. I’ve been putting together a poster + thinking about design for a production of The Snow Queen.  Q20 Theatre will be presenting their interpretation of the Hans Christian Anderson classic at the Bradford Playhouse this Christmas.  I’ve particularly enjoyed envisioning the Snow Queen’s costume…. inspiration came from Leon Bakst’s beautiful costumes for the Russian ballet and from Coppola’s version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, notably the vampiric Lucy!  Here’s the latest version of the poster for the production.

A few prep drawings above.

Snow Queen costume

Threads Exhibition at Salisbury Art Centre + Avebury Stone Circle.

 

 

I took a trip down to Salisbury the other day to deliver my work to Salisbury Art Centre. Their open exhibition this year is a textile based extravaganza and I’m really pleased to have some work selected – “Peril at Sea”  and 3 of my Shaman birds. The exhibition opens on  1st Oct and runs until the 12th Nov 2016.  The gallery is open from Tuesday to Saturday, 10 till 3.

 

Meanwhile, if you’re old enough to remember the creepy 70’s TV programme ‘Children of the Stones and it’s terrifying soundtrack, ‘ then you’ll recognise Avebury’s stone circle.  As I was close by I took the opportunity to visit for the first time in many years! So atmospheric – much more so than Stone Henge. “Happy Day…!”

 

Sweethearts at The Shire Hall Gallery, Stafford

I went down to the Shire Hall Gallery in Stafford a couple of weeks ago to deliver my Sweethearts installation.  The gallery are commemorating the 1914 – 18 war with two exhibitions of work; my “Sweethearts” piece and “Lost Generation” by Andy Farr.  The exhibitions run from the 10th September until the 29th of October.

Sweethearts – Morwenna Catt

Sweethearts is a textile installation of outsized Sweetheart cushions by Morwenna Catt, which mimic the pincushions that were often created by wounded soldiers recovering in hospitals during WWI.

These, much larger, hearts are heavily worked onto vintage woollen uniforms and domestic fabrics, with laboriously embroidered text and printed, stitched images of toy soldiers and trench maps.

In part the installation reflects on the artist’s ancestors experiences of war and has expanded into a more meditative study of how we remember and commemorate war.

One Sweetheart lists the names of every soldier shot at dawn for cowardice, another lists all the wars the UK has participated in during the 100 years since WWI.

Shire Hall Gallery

Lost Generation – Andy Farr

100 years ago the youth of Britain were caught up in the excitement of fighting for the honour and glory of their king and country. If you were a teenager in 1914 a third of your friends would have been dead 4 years later, those who did survive would have been physically injured and mentally scarred.

Lost Generation is an Arts Council funded initiative by Andy Farr to make the WW1 centenary more relevant to today’s young people. The exhibition will be a mix of work by the artist and from his collaboration with students in the Midlands and Yorkshire.

For more information visit www.lostgeneration.info

Shire Hall Gallery
Market Square
Stafford

ST16 2LD

Tel: 01785 278345
Email: shirehallgallery@staffordshire.gov.uk

Opening Hours

Monday: 9.30 am – 5.00 pm
Tuesday: 10.00 am – 5.00 pm
Wednesday – Saturday: 9.30 am – 5.00 pm
Sunday: 1.00 pm – 4.00 pm

Closed: Bank Holidays

 

 

Animal Spirit Masks with Airedale Young Embroiderers Guild

It’s taken me a while to get round to updating my blog so as usual, like buses, all mine will turn up at once!  I was lucky to be invited back for a second year to work with the fantastic young stitchers from the Airdale Embroiderer’s Guild.  Last year we made some pretty fantastic shamanic creatures with more than a touch of voodoo.  This year we made animal spirit masks and the young people did brilliantly.  Here are a few photos of the finished masks.