Textle festival.

I am so lucky to live in a very beautiful part of the country with lovely hills and scenery, and on top of that we have a textile festival every year.It is now in its fourth year and thanks to Lizzi Walton it just gets better and better,we have workshops gallery displays and talks from Hilary Bower,Michael Brennand-Wood,Matthew Harris, Mary Butcher to name a few.You can visit all the gallery displays for free and one by Studio Seven is an on going exhibition as the public are invited to contribute , it is called Cut 2 on the fold, last year it was make do and mend. they are a very inventive group and the display this year was fascinating exploring the journey from flat pattern to calico toile to finished garment, I added a piece to the collar of Anne Rogers`nuno felted jacket it was very fine and gave me the urge to rush home and start felting. The costumes/finished pieces will be used with some large dolls in a contemporary dance piece to be held at The old Rectory Quennington. The necklace below was made by Yoko Izawa she wraps acrylic shapes in tubular elastic knitting,in real life it was surprisingly stunning. The piece below is by Matthew Harris whose pieces were inspired by a visit to Japan where he saw large lanterns hanging over wet pavements.He states that he is not interested in perfect textiles.what excites him is the interruption of the perfect surface by tears and darns.He works on basic cotton twill which has the dye dribbled across and is then folded pleated and cut.He has been commissioned to make apiece for the new Colston Hall in Bristol, as has Michael Brennand -Wood.

Matthew`s pieces I found intriguing the colours were beautiful and I thought they were the best in the entire textile festival.He apparently lives locally.

This piece is by Jacy Wall. mainly know for her woven tapestry work this piece depicting mending and darning.

Hilary Bower, well Angie Hughes raves about her I know she is regarded as a great mentor, but I am not familiar with her work she has 2 pieces in the festival,one made of brushes that looks like a boot scrapper and the one below which is made of metal and wood and fabric,it reminded me of vacuum cleaner bags, I am going to her talk on her gathering of information for her solo exhibition at Halifax, so maybe this will help me see clearer.

Two pictures by a local artist Louise Cannon.

These textile pieces are by Tanya Stanyer and they have a lovely quirkiness to them

Detail of 1943.

1943

Picnic

Cupcakes. Priced at only £60 which I thought was very reasonable considering the work in it.

These pieces by Michael Brennand - Wood were on show, I have never lusted after one of his pieces but having heard his lecture I can now appreciate the thought processes behind them, my favourite piece is the small black and white one below which is entitled Babel,which in is talk he said was also his favourite,great minds think alike! I should be so lucky!

He talked about his life he studied Fine art and then embroidery at Manchester he said that patterning was a form of language and that ideas and design come when working on a piece which I completely agree with.He mentioned Carl Andre as an inspiration he of the Turner bricks fame,and Rachenburg.His flower pieces started with photos of flowers which he then stitched on an industrial machine,but they incorporate some macabre additions some are sewn over hundreds of plastic soldiers. he said that at one time he bought bags & bags of them,from John Lewis, the checkout lady said to him " someones going to have a nice time " he replied " I am an artist" she tapping him on the shoulder said" that's all right then". He came across as a very interesting ,unpretentious amusing person and his work to me is so more enjoyable because I now know what it is about. One of his quotes was " relationship with a piece of work is like a love affair" I thought how true this is .