Mosaic Monday

Mosaic Monday, originally uploaded by Feltbug.

These are some of my recent favourites that I have selected on flickr. Click on the image above to connect to the links to the artists.

Jessica Pezalla

coral limb, originally uploaded by fake nature.

Jessica Pezalla uses natural forms in her work. She has an exhibition on at Marke Wolfe Contemporary Art in San Francisco until May 23rd. You can see more of her work on her website, Fake Nature or click on the image above to go to her flickr page.

Natural resource

' April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.'

excerpt from The Waste Land by TS Eliot

My Mum brought me lilac from her garden - it smells sensational !

Walking through the local park on Tuesday, I spotted this lovely big branch and could not help but drag it home and up the stairs (getting stuck half-way) - it was twice as long as this and I had to saw the branches off before I could go any further. I do have a tendency to pick stuff up from the street - small twigs and abandoned chairs are some of my regular finds !! When my Mum came over to see me with the lilac she didn't spot the tree in my room straight away but when she did I think it made her jump ! I love trees and stuff made of wood - always have. I am not sure what I am going to use it for yet - I do like to work on a grand scale and may continue my theme of papier-mache and drawing onto it - or maybe make some wire and paper hybrids growing from it ....

El Anatsui

Society Woman’s Cloth 2004, 400 x 500cm, canettes en alluminium, capsules et fil de cuivre. Image and details of the work came from here.

Here is one of El Anatsui's beautiful art works - don't miss his current show in London - it is on until 12 May at the October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1. Founded in 1978, the October Gallery is an art gallery dedicated to the appreciation of art from all cultures around the world. Have a look at their website and past exhibitions - they show some great work.

El Anatsui is also showing work at the Fowler Museum, UCLA, Los Angeles, California until 26 August.

Selvedge

Cover photograph by Fedor Van der Valk

The latest issue of the textile magazine Selvedge is out. There is an article about the history of Dutch wax resist fabrics in this issue. There is also a piece about a remarkable artist called El Anatsui - you will not believe your eyes when you see his work which is made from recycled aluminium bottle tops - he has an exhibition on in London at the October Gallery near Holborn until 12 May.

Yinka Shonibare

Feather Pink 1997 acrylic paint on fabric, 25 12x12 inch panels, 98x98 inches. (c) Yinka Shonibare

Yinka Shonibare uses Dutch wax resist fabric in his work. I particularly like this series of panels incorporating fabrics and painting. I found the link to this piece at The Art Institute of Chicago

Material resource

The quilt is coming together nicely and everything is much brighter today (except the weather !). Thankyou again to everyone who left such lovely comments yesterday - this is the main reason to have a blog - to connect and share with people. We live in such a fragile environment in all senses, ecologically and emotionally and I am a 60s child (old hippy) at heart - love and peace and all that jazz - so I thought I would share one of the best fabric shops I know. I have been visiting Nasseri fabrics for the last 25 years - they started as a stall in Brixton market and then opened a shop round the corner at 38 Atlantic Lane. Most of their materials are Dutch wax resist fabrics produced for the West African market. And not only are they the most gorgeous designs and colours - they are really cheap ! They only sell them in 5 metre batches, starting at around £10 for 5 metres. And the selection is vast ! Most of the fabrics in the quilt I am making came from there.

Comfort blanket

This is my end of year show from last year's BTEC textiles course. The large green fabric collage in the background is a quilt. We had to choose a section from a painting and then design a textile piece. I chose a still-life painting by Max Beckman. I had wanted to hand stitch the whole thing but ran out of time. It has been in a cupboard for a year and yesterday I decided to tackle it.

I have been struggling to make work recently, I have made lots of starts but do not feel very coherent in what I am producing, and the whole situation was made worse by someone (anonymous) leaving a rather nasty comment yesterday on the blog about my inadequate writing skills. First I responded in anger with my own comment, then I deleted the whole post. The thing is it has been bugging me ever since and I cannot stop thinking about it so I thought I would share it with you and hopefully get rid of the demon inside me !! I have started stitching the quilt today and that has made me feel better already. I do find sewing cathartic. It is going to be a long project ...

Monday LOVE

Mosaic Monday, originally uploaded by Feltbug.

Click on the image to go to the flickr page and links to the artists.

Chosil Kil

' Living with Andis' (installation detail)

' Living with Andis' (installation detail)

Chosil Kil, an artist from South Korea is showing work at Riflemaker in London until Monday 23 April. The show consists of three Monuments that Kil has created, as a result of meeting a Latvijan man called Andis, who she went on to live with in Copenhagen. The piece I loved was a pile of drawers (pictured above), each containing letters and photographs about her experience of meeting Andis. The fact that he came from Latvija was key to my personal reaction to this piece because of my Grandmother who was also Latvijan. I also loved Kil's pieces of furniture that she had carved text into, her work features textiles and embroidery too.

Blogs that make you think

Polar by Marci Senders

Marci Senders nominated my blog, for blogs that make you think -thankyou Marci ! I thought I would do the same, these are some of the blogs which really inspire me.

My Art Grows Around Me is all about the work of Marion Michell - I already loved Marion's work so I was very happy when she started blogging about her work - it is such a treat to have an insight into the working process of an artist you really admire.

Gooseflesh is artist Helle Jorgensen's blog. Helle was the person who inspired me to start a blog. It was brilliant to find another artist finding their way both in their art and also in writing a blog about their art.

November Moon is about Cathy Cullis, her art is wonderful and she is a great writer too. Her writing is thought provoking and her art encompasses fine art and craft beautifully.

miss-frugality is Julia Laing, another artist I feel a strong bond with - her work is eclectic and she is travelling a similar path to me, as a painter and then crafter, and now trying to work out where she is creatively but in the end she makes amazing art in different media.

Shula is the author and creator of poppalina - i love reading about her life and her work is inspiring, she has a wonderful daughter, Mym who makes stunning art too. They rock !!

cally creates is by Cally - we have only recently found each other but I am excited about future collaborative possibilities. Her blog is her creative outlet while she renovates her home and she has introduced some amazing art by other artists. We have found a lot of common ground in the work that we like.

I think that this might have to become a monthly feature as there are so many more blogs that I love to look at.

Its all about me !

I got my name in lights with notcelebrity.co.uk

From Hoxton to Ladbroke Grove, via Soho

Riflemaker gallery, 79 Beak Street, London W1

I left Spitalfields and went to see the new show by Jessica Rankin at White Cube in Hoxton, it was an interesting show of embroidered paintings, with text, charts and maps stitched into coloured panels of organdy. It is on until 19 May.

Then I went to Riflemaker to see another show of mixed media work by Chosil Kil. Chosil also uses embroidery in her work. I loved this exhibition a lot ! This show is only on for 2 more days until Monday. This is the first time I had visited this gallery - its in a very beautiful Georgian building reminiscent of the houses in Spitalfields. More in the next post . . . .

Finally I popped into 2 of my favourite galleries, Flow which had a group show of craft with connections in Wales and then to England & Co in Westbourne Grove, which was in the middle of a re-hang so it was a bit chaotic. They do show some very good artists at this gallery.

Spitalfields, London E1

I went to Spitalfields today, an area I used to frequent years ago when I had a studio nearby. I walked through the market and was shocked to find that most of it has been transformed into an upmarket shopping centre and what is left of the original market is a building site with market stall-holders continuing to sell their wares - it was really miserable. So I quickly left that behind and wandered around the streets nearby - where there are some amazing houses. I love these streets - they are so full of history. A former resident of one of the houses was Anna Maria Garthwaite, designer of Spitalfield Silks in the early 1700's.

Helle Jorgensen

Cunjevoi Garden, originally uploaded by gooseflesh.

Crocheted and knitted reused plastic bags. Size variable. Length approx 25cm.

Helle Jorgensen crocheted and knitted this amazing sea creature from recycled plastic bags. Helle's work is like the creatures she creates - unbelievably beautiful and I cannot grasp that plastic can be made to look so organic. You can read more about her work on her blog, Gooseflesh. Helle sent me this beautiful felted bracelet. Here is some more of her stunning crochet jewellery on her flickr site.

Crochet bracelet by Helle Jorgensen.

Plagiarism and the nudibranch

Photograph(c)William Buck of Pacific Pinnacles.

The Spanish Dancer nudibranch (a type of sea slug), introduced to me by Gooseflesh, it reminded her of my shibori felt ! When I was at art college I wanted my art to be unique and not like anyone else's, although I was quite traditional in my approach - drawings and paintings of my favourite objects were my chosen theme. Then one day my tutor said to me that my work was like that of a painter called William Scott. I had never heard of him and went straight to the library to find a book about him - that was it for me - I knew then it was hopeless. Here was everything I wanted to be, already done by someone else ! He became my biggest influence.

Since then I have realised that we cannot exist alone and be autonomous in our art. And the thing that unites our work is to be found most of all in nature. I love to doodle with no forethought and I see elements of my interior self - organ-like forms and cell-like structures. I feel like I am drawing what is inside me - literally !

Since joining flickr and meeting hundreds of new artists worldwide I am amazed at how much variety and uniqueness there is out there. There is a new museum just opened in Germany called The Museum of Plagiarism . I am all for it ! I am going in search of more sea slugs ....

Felt cuff

I re-stuffed the Shibori felt with scraps of felt and tied the balls with wool.

Shibori felt

Yesterday I made some Shibori felt, it uses the same technique as Shibori dyeing. First I made a piece of flat felt, then I used plastic beads and trapped them in the felt with rubber bands.
Next I put the felt in a cloth bag and put it through a 40 degree wash in the washing machine.
This is what the felt looked like when I removed the plastic beads and rubber bands.

Iris Eichenberg

wood, medical plastic, oropax and silver (c) Iris Eichenberg

I am in love with the work of Iris Eichenberg ! She combines all my favourite elements - wood, internal organs, textile, amorphous shapes, precious metals, white, colours of flesh and blood.

Symbiotic associations.

Twig, covered with pages from the yearbook of the US Dept. of Agriculture 1904, glued and drawn on with ink pen.

Lichen on the dead gooseberry bush.

Twig, book pages glue and ink.

Apple tree with lichen.

I have been visiting my sister's allotment this month and it has been a huge source of new ideas, with everything starting to bloom and even the dead wood has life growing still. I have been taking photographs of the amazing forms of the lichen on the branches, it has a symbiotic relationship with the plant that it grows on.

Then this week I started a new project with twigs, papier-mache and drawing combined. I had not seen the relationship with what I had been studying intently on the allotment until I started constructing this post for the blog - then I suddenly saw the symbiotic relationship of this new work with the natural forms I had been taking pictures of. In the last 2 years my work has become more spontaneous, the materials suggest the form and as I construct new work I begin to find associations within it. Making art has become such an integral part of my life that I don't even think about it - the art just evolves. Meanings reveal themselves as part of the process.

Shelly Wyn-De-Bank

Shelly Wyn-De-Bank

Kate Sully

Kate Sully

Julie Roberts

Julie Roberts

Mandy Prowse

Mandy Prowse

Betty Pepper

Betty Pepper

Fiona Meakin

Fiona Meakin

Clare McEwan

Clare McEwan

Susan Kruse

Susan Kruse

Rosie James

Rosie James

Sue Bradshaw

Sue Bradshaw

Georgina Bell

Georgina Bell

Stitch at artworks-mk

This is the exhibition I am taking part in this month at artworks-mk, Parklands, Great Linford, Milton Keynes MK14 5DZ. The other artists are Georgina Bell, Sue Bradshaw, Rosie James, Susan Kruse, Clare McEwan, Fiona Meakin, Betty Pepper, Julie Roberts, Kate Sully and Shelly Wyn-De-Bank. The show is on until 5th May, Monday-Friday 10-4 and Saturday 10-12.

Felt vessels

These vessels are made from a flat piece of felt which has been cut into a circle and then gathered with running stitches. They were a present for my sister, she has used a glass inside to hold the flowers. They were photographed on her balcony. My sister always has lots of flowers inside and outside. This is another Latvijan tradition - to have fresh cut flowers in the home and to always give flowers when you visit friends.

Chickens in the high street.

Happy Easter !

4am

All night works on the railway.