Tuesday 7 August 2012

Collections

This year the annual exhibition of the TX Creative Textiles group is centred around the theme of 'Collections'.  For my part I have been collecting leaves and rusty things and kitchen scraps and using them to colour cloth. I started my experimenting back in October and every month or so I have tried something else.  Due to the pressure of other work I've not been so good at documenting my progress here, but I have been documenting it all in a journal which forms part of my exhibit.


Not everything has been successful of course, not every piece of cloth has made it into the exhibition, but I have been really pleased with most of my results.  Left to right, these hanging cloths have been coloured using
  1. Various fallen autumn leaves on cotton
  2. Fallen autumn leaves, mostly copper beech, on silk
  3. Ivy leaves (aka weeding!) on silk
  4. A variety of seaweed on cotton
  5. A variety of seaweed on silk
  6. A variety of seaweed on silk
  7. Rust, with tea, on cotton
  8. Rust, with green tea, on cotton
  9. Rust, with green tea, on silk
  10. Onion skins on silk
  11. Onion skins on cotton
I will try to tell you about some of them in a bit more detail over the next few days, now that I have time to step back from them a little.

But back to the exhibition, it runs from 8th August to 16th September at Castle Park Arts Centre in Frodsham, full details on my Events page.  There is a really wide variety of lovely work this year, more pictures to come.  It's definitely our best yet.  But then, we say that every year! 

And on Friday 10th August we have a 'Meet the Artists' evening from 7pm to 9pm, everyone is welcome.

3 comments:

  1. that is so neat seeing all those different strips next to each other, shows what you can do with different materials

    ReplyDelete
  2. How wonderful! Congratulations on the exhibit. What a simple, yet fantastic way to display the work. The contrast of those rust and tea dyed beside those dyed with plants makes for great interest. Draws me in and makes me yearn for a closer look.

    What was it about this past fall that had us dyeing fabrics? My own rusting frenzy began in November.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you!

      The dyeing is something I'd been wanting to try for a while, ever since I was making vegetable paper a couple of years ago and noticing the stains on the pressing cloths. And now, the more I look, the more I see many people experimenting with it. Perhaps it is one of those things whose time has come?

      Delete

Helen Smith, artist and maker in glass, print and stitch.

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails