Paint and embroidery

A good tip from What's She Like?  - Michael Raedecker exhibition at Hauser and Wirth on Piccadilly features huge canvases sewn together and thick white paint...

"Best known for his subtle and unsettling, enigmatic works combining muted tones of paint and embroidery, Raedecker’s paintings explore and push the boundaries of his medium. He goes beyond conventional methods of representing formal elements such as texture and perspective. Through his layering of thread, paint and small, yet aggressive punctures to his canvas, Raedecker imparts an unexpected physicality to his two-dimensional works." Hauser and Wirth press release

Hauser and Wirth is such a strange place  (once a bank - in the basement you can still see the safe) and has interesting exhibitions. And the last one I saw, too, in the summer had a fabric theme. It backs on to Jermyn Street with its many gentlemen's outfitters and tailors....

I like white paintings. Something about photos of the Raedecker work reminds me of Cy Twombley (above - though of course no embroidery involved there..).  But need to go and see them to be sure. Open until 5 April 2012.

So many tiny stitches

Somehow they have a resonance with the tiny leaves and fronds of the ferns.....

Maidenhair fern

And on the windowsills

Sunday lunch

Roast pork at my parents. On the way upstairs notice some framed embroidery - finished by my mum last year.

Clinging on

Ivy keeping a pretty tight grip on this thorn tree.

A sad day for my sewing machine

The man doesn't think it's worth servicing....I only ever asked it to sew straight lines but after 23 years even this is getting a bit too much for it.

Moving forward

Just - thanks to the heroic James Jensen, boyfriend of the genius behind One Off Style and a man with a VERY sharp mind -  I have got the Bridging Arts accounts off in the nick of time.
So it's a moment to reflect on where next? All the work with embroidery, fabric, colour - and related issues of pattern and place - has been so important. Where does it lead?
In the Annual Report and Accounts we identify three areas of future activity. The first is 'the new pastoral' i.e. the reality of life in rural England. (After a visit to Redruth this morning, I can report that away from Cornwall's coastal crust - where tourism is drifting upmarket - things are tough. )
The other two, though, stick with the theme of pattern:       

-         embroidery for the isolated specifically people with Alzheimer’s, disabled people, people in care homes and people in prisons

-         the relationship between pattern, place and self image. In particular we will look at the ways in which identity is defined by clothes, fabric and fashion.

 Our original funding streams, of course, have long come to an end. So it's a question of deciding whether to apply piecemeal for the odd course of workshops here and there. Or to develop something - the next step - rather bigger. A thought for the weekend. 

Reeds

Gorse

More lichen on granite

Some of these colours are so like those I saw on printed scarves at Fenwick at the weekend. But this is a Long Way from Bond S treet....

Lichen on granite

Grass

Moss and lichen

Lichen and stagnant pool

More summer colours

Such a grey week. This cake in a cafe window on Shepherds Bush Green cheered me up. Kiwis and pears on a fake cream gateau....

More photo scarves

Photo prints

Photos of blossom, buds and leaves printed on silk scarves. My photos don't do them justice.

Jaffa orange

Really summery....spring far more pastel.

Mediterranean tutti frutti

Or the fantastically rich colours of these beads... Almost as if summer is lived more richly and intensely than winter (not actually the case)

Colours of summer

It seems to have been such a grey winter. Have seen the odd daffodils in window boxes. But nothing like this blast of summer yellow on the jewellery counter at Fenwick.

Stitch and Craft Show

It has taken a meeting with Katrina Williams - who's helped so much with our embroidery and needlework projects - to prompt a first post in 2012. How did January slip by so quickly?!
Katrina has picked up a flyer for the Stitch and Craft Show - 15-18 March 2012 at Olympia.
This is run by Twisted Thread - the same organisation that runs the Knitting and Stitching Show every year at Alexandra Palace.