Rose Wood

Image courtesy of Rose Wood

In conjunction with Oriel Myrddin Gallery's exhibition Lab Craft: Digital Adventures in Contemporary Craft, currently touring from The Craft Council, west Wales based accessories designer, Rose Wood will be showing a range of her laser cut leather jewellery in the gallery shop.

Rose works with laser cut components, slicing and slotting flat shapes to build into sculptural jewellery. Working predominantly in leather and textiles she enjoys the tactility of the making process. 

The jewellery pieces are made from soft leather and have a gestural, performative element to their design, they are sensuous in their physicality and designed to be enjoyed and experienced as tactile objects. 

Rose has also designed intriguing folded textiles that act as sculptural garments and performance pieces.

Untitled from rose wood on Vimeo.

Lost in Lace

Lost in Lace at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery

I managed to get to see Lost in Lace at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery before if closed at the weekend. This major show was curated by Lesley Miller, one of the speakers at Oriel Myrddin Gallery's warp+weft Symposium in 2010.

The exhibition brought together 20 international artists and makers to think about the qualities and properties of lace and to play with these contexts in relation to the architectural space of the gallery.

Chiharu Shiota - After the Dream 201

The show included an installation by Berlin based artist Chiharu Shiota using her distinctive black-string installation technique which en-traps objects in its web of lines and space, in this case long, white dresses which seem to hover, ghost-like above the ground.

There is a dedicated website for the show which has information about the ideas behind the show and the artists involved.

Ruthin Craft Centre

Nora Fok  - seen here

There's an interesting clutch of shows coming up at Ruthin Craft Centre in North Wales. Gallery 1 is showing Cloud Nylon: The Jewellery of Nora Fok - the first ever solo exhibition for the jeweller, textile artist and 3d designer. She meticulously creates wearable pieces from nylon monofilament.

Norman Makinson - Festival of Britain commemorative mug - seen here

Gallery 2 is showing a retrospective of the ceramic work of the late Norman Makinson who died last year at the age of 88. He was best known for his Wedgewood Queen's ware design for the Festival of Britain commemorative mug in 1951.

Stephen Farnan - Bowl (The Last Day) - seen here

Gallery 3 takes an overview of potters currently working in the ancient technique of slipware. The technique dates back to 17th Century, and has a strong history of use in Wales. Slip... celebrates the work of a number of contemporary makers including Stephen Farnan.

Nicole Dextras

Nicole Dextras - Green Shirt - seen here

Thank you to a polar bear's tale for introducing me to the work of Nicole Dextras, I like these textile pieces suspended in ice which seem very pertinent in the middle of the big freeze we are experiencing in the UK this year. Here are some more images.

Louise Bourgeois: The Fabric Works

Louise Bourgeios -  Untitled 2005 - seen here

Hauser & Wirth have opened a new gallery in Saville Row, London. I went along to visit the current show before it ends on 18 December.

Louise Bourgeois: The Fabric Works is a beautiful show, spread over the two spaces which make up the gallery footprint. Framed fabric 'sketches' use the textiles Bourgeois collected throughout her life, sewn, woven and patchwork-ed into abstract designs. Many of the works reference her abiding interest with the spider; web-like, geometric patchworks. There is also one of her metal spider sculptures in the gallery; I'm a little ambivalent about these pieces - the first time I saw one in the flesh in the Serpentine Gallery, it was spectacular. It crouched, perfectly scaled and claustrophobic in the space, but the pieces I've seen since have often seemed out of sorts with their surroundings. I was more excited to see two of her room enclosures. 

Louise Bourgeois - Bullet Hole 1992 - seen here

There's a fantastic catalogue that accompanies the show; all I can do is covet it for now at £65 - one for the Christmas list...

Threads of Feeling - The Foundling Museum

Textile token of foundling 12058 - seen here

I finally got to see Threads of Feeling at The Foundling Museum in London today, an exhibition of textile tokens left with the babies given up for adoption to The Foundling Hospital in the mid-eighteenth century. Little snippets of ribbon, fabric, garments, embroidery, cockades and top knots which were kept with the details of the child's admission as a means of identification should the mother find herself able to reclaim her child at a future time.

I found it an emotional experience. It is hard to imagine another gesture that so clearly evokes the power invested in an object as the giving over of these harrowingly inadequate scraps. Each entry is recorded meticulously and anonymously, although sometimes the scrap is accompanied by a letter or is marked or sewn with a name and other personal details. The fabrics look as fresh and vivid as the day they were pinned to the billet in many instances which brings one up short. Not fragile, dusty relics of history, reassuringly distant and time-worn but bright, tangible reminders of the real people and the real stories that they embody.

Absent But Not Forgotten: 2

The second in my ongoing art project with Jacob Whittaker is happening tonight in Carmarthenshire. Following our show at The Last Gallery earlier in the year, we are having a one-night-only Hallowe'en event this evening, Absent But Not Forgotten: 2:

An installation combining projection and sound with textiles and furniture @7pm. Later...Sound performance from Jacob Whittaker with Halloween classics.  PLUS: We want you for our spectral collection – come and be photographed (under a sheet) for our Polaroid ghost gallery...

We'll be showing a new piece of work which is based on the 50 word ghost stories that were contributed through the website as part of the project. It's going to be spooky! www.absent-but-not-forgotten.co.uk 

If you are in the area - you are welcome to join us from 7pm...

Absent but not forgotten 2: Trailer from jacob whittaker on Vimeo.

LUX at Oriel Myrddin Gallery

Donya Coward - Textile Taxidermy (Greyhound) - seen here

I'm very excited that the work for our winter show, LUX at Oriel Myrddin Gallery is starting to arrive! I have been the curator for this show, so it's wonderful to begin seeing the works in the flesh. A box arrived this morning from Donya Coward, her Textile Taxidermy dogs heads are beautiful, humorous  and exquisitely crafted. Sculpted in the style of hunting trophies, they are made with crochet and knitting along with antique and reclaimed fabrics, beads, buttons and oddments. There is a Scottie Dog, a Greyhound, a French Bull Terrier, a British Bulldog and a Pug. We have a few dog lovers amongst the gallery staff (including me!) so they are proving very popular.

We will hang the show next week ready for the opening on Saturday 6 November at 6pm. We also have a one-night-only evening of artists' films, Light Loop showing for the evening; films are from Gareth H Davies, Emma Pearce, Julie Ann Sheridan, Simon Whitehead and Jacob Whittaker.

Louise Bourgeois - The Fabric Works

Louise Bourgeois - Untitled 2007 - seen here

I can feel a trip to London coming on...I don't want to miss the inaugural exhibition at the new Hauser & Wirth gallery in Saville Row which is open from 15 October. The show, Louise Bourgeois - The Fabric Works, comprises of 70 pieces made between 2002 and 2008 along with four large scale sculptures. The drawings are made from the domestic textiles collected and hoarded by Bourgeois over her long life, and make reference to the family business in which her mother was an expert weaver and seamstress. I like this quote from the artist: ‘I always had the fear of being separated and abandoned. The sewing is my attempt to keep things together and make things whole’.

The show continues until 18 December.

Threads of Feeling - The Foundling Museum

Worckt with flowers - Linen or cotton embroidered with flowers© Coram - seen here

An exhibition at The Foundling Museum in London's Bloomsbury called Threads of Feeling opens on 14 October. The Foundling Museum tells the story of the Foundling Hospital which was established adjacent to the current museum and demolished in 1928. The hospital came into being as London's first home for abandoned children, a place where unmarried mothers could leave their babies if they were unable to take care of them. 

Between 1741 and 1759 the children admitted to the hospital were left with a token, often a small scrap of fabric which identified them with the mother. Perhaps taken from the mother's clothing - a pocket or a cuff - it served to identify the baby but also the mother should she be able at some future time to come back for her child; but sadly this was apparently a relatively rare occurrence. The little swatches were pinned into a billet book along with a written record of the fabric and possessions of the child.

Threads of Feeling is an exhibition of these little scraps which are usually held in London Metropolitan Archive being too fragile for permanent display. This archive actually constitutes one of the country's most comprehensive collection of 18th Century textiles and gives a particular insight into the fabrics worn by everyday women of the period.

The incredible poignancy of these little tokens, the emotions that must have been invested at that moment of farewell; in that decision to give a child into another's care, are hard to look to. I am sure that the exhibition will be an emotional experience. The show continues until March 2011. 

Flowered all over with cards - Cotton or linen   

printed with a playing card pattern © Coram - seen here

Marius Grainger - Soft

Marius Granger - Gwymon/Seaweed

Marius Grainger is a recent graduate of Brighton University, currently living in Cardiff. His solo show Soft opened tonight in the gallery at West Wales School of the Arts in Carmarthen. I first met Marius when I showed work in Milkwood Gallery in Cardiff and he had just completed a residency, Not Drowning, But Waving in the basement space. The work he showed on that occasion was very interesting - slightly unresolved, but imbued with potential.

This selection of work has consolidated that potential into a strong and cohesive show. I particularly liked a series of small, black felt sculptures called Gwymon (Welsh for seaweed). This selection of tiny domestic objects, (chair, book case, bannister rails, globe...) pinned on the wall, are made awkward through the medium of their making. Shown in a continuous line and placed just far enough apart to convey a sense of dislocation and isolation from each other, they are remarkably tender and poignant. Matt black and dense, they absorb light, concentrating overwhelming ideas and emotions about loss and grief into the little, inadequate memories left in the possessions of loved ones. The stuff of life, the objects we choose and gather - left behind us at our death for others to deal with. 

The show is divided into distinct halves, the other work shown here is larger scale sculpture. These floor standing pieces humorously reflect upon masculine identity and sexuality, and the art historical traditions and symbolism inherent in the sculptural form. Hard, phallic structures are draped or sewn into soft, floppy fabrics - mostly velvets. The works are sometimes appended to soft furniture - a sofa cushion or an upholstered stool. Grainger says of the work "The phallic sculptures are about illegitimacy, a failure to live up to a particular masculine ideal, or sculptural ideal."

Marius Grainger - Tent

The exhibition title, Soft is beautifully appropriate. Grainger's work talks about inadequacy, the agonising inadequacy we feel in the face of death and sex, the failure and impotence of our power and our ego in front of our passions, our expectations and ultimately our death. It also celebrates the tenderness and gentleness of which we are capable.

Marius Grainger at the gallery
West Wales School of the Arts

Origin - The London Craft Fair

Day two at Origin, and a closer look at the show, here's more images of makers whose work I enjoyed...

Nuntaka Nopkhun - seen here

SaPetra - seen here

Ainsley Hillard - Folds

Ainsley Hillard - Folds

I went to Newton House in Dinefwr Park, Llandeilo to see Ainsley Hillard's current show, Folds this afternoon. It is a site specific installation which is located in the Old Laundry of Newton House. The work is housed in the 'dry laundry' room, where the women ironed and folded the dry washing. Ainsley has researched into the history of the building and the people who would have worked there through the house archives. Having listened to an interview with the head laundry maid, Florie Keziah Hannell (1888-1985), Ainsley has made works that reflect her memories of the linens, damasks and dressing table linens that passed through her hands.

These fabrics and the repetitive processes involved in their care are explored in the exhibition. A series of doilies and fancy linens have been dipped in porcelain and fired - the firing process has burned off the material leaving a delicate porcelain ghost of their form. These are hung at table height from the original drying rack. A series of woven Jacquard panels are shown against the rough whitewashed walls, in which ghostly hands endlessly fold. A series of delicate prints - one-off pieces in which ghostly traces of handkerchiefs and embroidered cloth are printed and embossed into the paper are also shown.

It is a very evocative experience, the work inhabits the room naturally and respectfully - the intervention is considered and sensitive. The effect is ethereal and ghostly - it calls to life the actions of the many hands that worked in that space and their intimate relationship with the textiles they must have come to know so intimately.

The show runs until 19 September and is open Mon - Sun 11 - 5.

Ainsley Hillard - Folds

warp+weft: from handloom to production

Dashing Tweeds

The show we have currently at Oriel Myrddin Gallery celebrates the fine art aspect of contemporary weaving. In The National Wool Museum in Drefach Felindre, Carmarthenshire a sister show - warp+weft: from handloom to production, looks at those weavers who have expanded to take their work into production. No more needs saying - just feast your eyes!

Eleanor Pritchard

Tim Parry Williams

Wallace & Sewell

Margo Selby

The Ghosts of the Weed Garden

Kathryn Campbell Dodd - The Ghosts of the Weed Garden - photo: Kirsten Hinks

Yesterday, I installed a new piece of work in the National Botanic Garden of Wales in Carmarthenshire. It is part of an exhibition called Exposed - textiles in the open by Fibre Art Wales members. I have a space inside the Great Glasshouse.

I'm really pleased with the work in situ. The title of the work comes from the book The Divided Self by R.D.Laing, it is a line from a poem written by one Dr Laing's Schizophrenic patients. In the strange atmosphere of the glasshouse, slightly unreal and artificial, the work takes on other dimensions for me. I have used the old garden tools of my Grandfather along with a wheel barrow and wellington boots of my own that have gone beyond repair. I think it is fascinating that the simple act of covering something with white fabric signifies the idea of a ghost - it suggests that the object (or person) is either permanently or temporarily out of use; it becomes 'other'.

The exhibition opens on Friday 10 September at 2pm and continues until November 2010.

Winter House - Ty Gaeaf at Melin Medi

Photo: Kirsten Hinks

On Sunday, I installed a piece of work at New Mill, Drefelin, Carmarthenshire SA44 5BX as part of Melin Medi, a show of textile works placed in the landscape curated by Bethan Ash.

My installation, Winter House/Ty Gaeaf is the progression of an art project installed at New Mill during May 2010 for the exhibition Rhôd. The hut is constructed from my paintings made between 2000 and 2005 along with oddments from around my home in west Wales. It is a refuge of sorts. I have developed the house to make it suitable for winter residence.

Photo: Kirsten Hinks

The show opens on Saturday 11 September and is open from 10am - 8pm, then 11am to 7pm on Sunday. After this the works will remain installed over the winter months until May 2011, the degradation and changes to the pieces from the weather will be documented for a possible future exhibition. Winter visits are by appointment only.

Inventions of the Mind - review

Kirsty E. Smith - Colin

Here is a link to the full review I have written for Kirsty E. Smith's exhibition Inventions of the Mind at Erasmus Darwin House, Lichfield.

Frillip Moolog

Kirsty E. Smith - Stan

I went to Lichfield last weekend to visit the show Inventions of the Mind at Erasmus Darwin House, and to meet Kirsty E Smith (aka Frillip Moolog). I'm in the middle of writing a review of the show, which I'll post a link to later. If you're in the vicinity do go and enjoy Kirtsy's 'beings' that are placed amongst the exhibits in the house/museum.

Enlightenment thinker, Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles) lived in the house, and as a member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham hosted monthly meetings on the night of the full moon with his fellow 'Lunaticks' including Josiah Wedgewood and James Watt. They discussed their radical thoughts about science, inventions and natural philosophy and shared their ideas about the possibilities of what would become the industrial revolution.

Frillip Moolog is a place; a place to interact with Kirsty E Smith's sculptures (she calls them 'beings'), another place which: "... encapsulates the excitement and curiosity of a child when experiencing and interacting with objects for the first time. Her intention is to create work which resonates on a deeply emotive level and which acts as a vehicle to reconnect with a "place" or memory deep in our subconscious"

Kirsty E. Smith - Colin

There are six beings to be discovered at Erasmus Darwin House: Russell, Ziggy, Madeline, Stan, Cyril and Colin (he's a newcomer). Beautifully designed and constructed...invented actually, from industrial machine parts, carefully sourced domestic and industrial fabrics, trimmings and oddments. A resident of Lichfield, the artist has been a visitor to the museum for many years, and this is the culmination of a relationship she has had with the space. The 'beings' are very comfortable here amongst the 18th C decor and the free thinking energy of enlightenment science and invention.

Ainsley Hillard

Ainsley Hillard - Folds - seen here

I'm looking forward to seeing textile artist, Ainsley Hillard's installation, Folds, a site specific installation tracing the social and architectural history of the Old Laundry, Newton House, Dinefwr Park & Castle, Carmarthenshire. I'm not sure what to expect yet, but these images are really enticing. The exhibition opens on 28 August and runs until 19 September.

We will also be showing woven textiles by Ainsley at Oriel Myrddin Gallery as part of warp+weft: contemporary woven textiles, a major exhibition of weaving curated by Laura Thomas - opens on 11 September.

Ainsley Hillard - Folds (bone china ceramic) - seen here

Ainsley Hillard - Folds (embossed print series 2010) - seen here

Button Suit

Ruby Ann Kittner - Button Suit - seen here

Thanks to John Foster on his blog Accidental Mysteries for posting this, it's from the American folk art collection of dealer, Harvey Pranian. It was made circa 1930 -40 by Iowan, Ruby Ann Kittner and is offered for sale along with a photo of the suit being worn by her husband Jake.