Quinary

Working together

Moving away from our collaboration in the last two posts which reminded me there is something very comforting about working together as a group. Of course …. we knew this already, when like minded people come together a wonderful time is had by all. This is not always easy though.

Within Quinary it is not very often we are able to meet in person as we are widely spread. Prior to Covid we used to meet in London once a month, not very easy for our lovely members who live in Germany, Moni and Monika. The rest of us live in the UK; Jean in Bedfordshire, Marilyn in Warwickshire, Marian in Cambridgeshire and me, Caroline in West Sussex. We do however meet each month online, we can see each other and look at each others work or new ideas we are working on. Its a good time to talk about any problems we may have with our work …. someone will always come up with an answer!! We do have working together days …. over two or three days online. We speak in the morning then spend the day working on whatever is current at the time, new ideas or working towards an exhibition for example. Then, in the afternoon we speak again online for a show and tell session! It works well. The most important thing to us is that we support each other even if we are miles apart. Although we work alone we really enjoy each other company when we meet and come away from having had a happy and rewarding time.

Here in Worthing, where I live, we have two embroidery/textile groups that were once Embroiderers Guild branches, one on Saturday and one on Tuesday. As you may know the Embroiderers Guild no longer have local branches. The two groups like lots of others throughout the country wanted to remain together and became an independent group. Both our local groups stayed together and are thriving, the Saturday group to which I belong was reborn as ‘Coastal Threads’ and its a strong, happy group who meet monthly, just like Quinary, but face to face! Yesterday’s meeting was a stitching afternoon, working together on whatever we have on the go or taking on the challenge of working with a single stitch and see where it takes you ….mine was fly stitch. Everyone (well nearly everyone) took on one of three different stitches and it created a lot of chat, thought and unpicking (the person opposite me said she unpicked her Cretan stitch four times!!). There was lots of laughing too.

Just like the Quinary meetings I came away inspired and happy, Who would of thought I would get excited over Fly Stitch!!!

Dont dump it…

…just wait!

Following on from the Collaboration, using random words as explained in the last blog, the idea gave the feeling of freedom to breakout of one’s comfort zone, we all have one. However the first piece of work wasn’t very good. We all have failures or are they opportunities? Now there is a question!

The first list of words arrived in the inbox and this piece was made in a rush and it shows! However don’t be tempted to dump it, just put it aside and wait.

The next set of words arrived and inspired wrapping something, anything! These looked a bit drab not quite what they was expected look like. No don’t dump this either just wait some more.

The next list arrived and with the addition of coloured threads and cutting the first piece into small pieces to use in a different way, the whole look of the work changed. Hanging them in the sunshine made it better still when beautiful shadows appeared.

The moral of the story is don’t throw anything away too soon! It may be just what you need.

Collaborations

Over the summer during a lull in our work for exhibition some of our group thought it would be good to work on some mini collaboration exercises. One member would come up with a selection of words and the task was to select from these and work with them.

Sitting in the studio gazing out of the window thinking ‘how do I begin?’ I was watching the grey clouds scudding across the sky with great speed, obscuring the blue of the sky.

Looking down at the list of words, the first word to jump out at me was ‘movement’. The movement of the clouds.

The colour palette I would use would be the grey of the clouds and the blue of the sky.

I chose to use paper as my medium.

The other words I selected from the list were – words and paint.

I found a set of small concertina folded pieces of watercolour paper that had been previously prepared and never used, these would provide the paper I needed.

I began by writing the words that came into my head – clouds blown on the wind – repeatedly around and across the paper, covering the entire surface with a jumble of words that became quite difficult to read.

Watercolour dropped onto one end of the written piece, held up and allowed to run a trail down the length of the paper.

I then worked two more pieces of paper.

Wetted, blue paint applied and allowed to move as it wanted. Clouds in a sky.

Graphite stick, water and blue paint. A brooding sky.

The three panels were photographed hanging and standing.

I had spent a couple of very enjoyable hours playing with the chosen words.

The following day I returned to the studio and decided to take this mini task a step further. Each strip was cut along the fold lines, shuffled together and randomly laid out in 3 rows. These were strung together and hung on the wall.

Conclusion

Get in the studio and do whatever comes into your head. A mini exercise gets you working again, keeps the creativity ticking over and can produce some surprising results.

Some thoughts on display

For an upcoming exhibition I went through the artwork I wanted to exhibit. And I had to make some decisions whether to frame some of the work or not.

Up to now I never was a fan of framing textile work, I do not know why. Maybe because of the tactility of textiles…

But now things changed and I tried different solutions. Maybe the reason was that I need to display a whole series of work, and a similar display does group the work as one. Here some examples of my thinking:

This work was mounted on paper (left). I put it in a photo mount and a narrow metal frame. The textile piece is fixed only at the top. I think the framing adds importance and value to the work and the black mount emphasizes the colours.

In this example the work had irregular edges and the straight edge on the right did not match to the frayed edge of top and bottom. The black mount with the narrow white edge matches well with the work. The dark mount and frame emphasize the flower motive.

Nevertheless for display I will always remove the glass of the frame. It enables loose threads or even layers to flow freely from the work across mount and frame. It would be pressed flat under glass and would not have the same effect.

And then I tried some stretchers (wooden frame with canvas) which are normally used for paintings. It worked well for some of my openwork fragments and takes the work slightly off the wall:

I used this method for another piece. The surface can be painted in any colour beforehand.

Left: mounted on white paper. Right: mounted on black painted stretcher.

It was good to think about display and framing and try some options which I ruled out before. This opens up a range of new display possibilities.

Thank You

Thank you to all those of you who came along to see us at the Lansdown Gallery in Stroud in May. We welcomed visitors of all ages, some who has come specially and some who dropped in whilst passing.

We had some very positive responses and much lively discussion about the themes and ideas behind the work with some interesting thoughts from the children who came along.

One young lad of around 9 or 10 yrs to his friend:-

What do you think this is meant to be? I don’t know, it could be a skeleton of a backbone. No, I think it is a footpath.

If I had a ball I could play basket ball with those hoops on the wall

Thank you for all of your comments in our visitor book. It is great to be able to look back through these and consider what has been said. Here are a few that stood out as I went through:-

‘Unusual and interesting’

‘I love the space around each piece of work…..Each one so unique and intriguing’

‘Work to make us feel well again…’

‘I like it’ by a very young Rowan

‘A lovely artistic stop on my busy journey through Stroud’

‘…very grateful to see anything that shifts my seeing and thinking…’

Our conversations with you in the gallery and your thoughtful comments help to inform our future thinking and work.

Monika Haeussler-Goeschl:
Ups and downs of everyday life

Rhythm of Time – Stroud Lansdown Gallery

Our exhibition is installed and we would be lucky to see you there!

Our two new members Monika Haeussler- Goeschel and Marian Murphy present their work and we are happy to have them in the group!

The gallery is open till 15. May – each day from 11.00 to 16.00

Opening today! Rhythm of Time

Our exhibition of new work opens today at Lansdown Gallery, Stroud. Please pop along and see us.

A busy day yesterday, setting up with our willing helpers, Vince and David. Thank you.

Time – Live – Objects

Monika Brueckner

To come back into creative work, I started an online course with Katie Sollohub: “Memory of the self “. By working through the different tasks, I came over with blind drawing. In mind we should go through our house and draw things, places, or objects we remember. The outcome was fascinating. I always stopped and draw objects which relate to personal important persons or events. And the drawings showed my inner picture – my emotions, visible more for myself. A special bowl – a present of my most loved cousin, the secretary of my grandmother, where the key had to be torn to open the shelf and the play with the Steiff animals could start, an English ceramic vase bought in Chichester during my first workshop with Julia Caprara etc.

The visit of the exhibition at ZKM Karlsruhe: “Critical Zones” brought up again my interest of Sarah Sze´s work. “Flash Point” filled up a huge space and the visitor could become part of the installation itself. So I did a bit of research and came over to the TED talk of Sarah Sze https://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_sze_how_we_experience_time_and_memory_through_art .She talks about the development of her work and how she tries to present her inner picture. This was the binding point to my memory blind drawings.

You can´t take a photo of your inner picture, you must find a way to present it. My inner wish was to translate the drawings into 3D which brought up the material wire. After several experiments the best one is aluminium wire, which you can easily bend.

The cold haptic of the wire doesn´t relate to the inner memories stored in the wire drawn objects. So, I decided to wrap them with different kind of warm wool.

I tried three different outcomes. Each one relates to diverse emotional situations which have an impact to the stored memories of the object.

As we all know the memories change over time and so the different versions talk about this aspect.

As well there is a transformation from cold to warm, sometimes diffuse emotional situations to positive warm ones.

By an unexpected gifted book about the artist Bettina Lüdicke https://bettinaluedicke.de I will rethink my position. Exiting what this inspiration will bring up.