I must say first that I had a great lunch with Jane. We went to Walford Mill - our local craft centre and saw the Christmas exhibition. Good stuff. I wanted to buy a bronze hare, he was so lovely and very well priced, but I came home and hinted heavily to Clive instead. The food was excellent and we giggled a lot.
Today's exhibition was in Frome (pronounced Froom) and it celebrated the 300th birthday of the Rook Lane Chapel. This one-time Methodist Chapel has been renovated by a firm of architects, who occupy the upstairs, and the whole of the ground floor is gallery space. Very impressive conversion. This is a view of the chapel, reproduced in earthenware by Steven Jenkins.
I went to review the exhibition for March WoW so I won't say too much about it here, other than the fact that it was a worth while trip. Not so much for the textiles, which were OK but not overwhelming, but for the concept and the glass, ceramics and painting. Because the entire exhibition, put together by glass artist Carolyn Griffiths, was based around the chapel it had a great feeling of integration. Patterns in glass popped up again in screen printed lengths of fabric or a ceramic vessel. Here are some pics. I loved this shoe, also by Steven Jenkins.
This screen printed textile by Claire Comacho uses recycled fabric. With a pattern taken from the chapel, it has a retro feel to it.
This is a detail of a rusty found object with a glass plate made to match it. I'll show the whole piece in the review (our exhibition reviews are not password resticted). By Fabrizia Bazzo, whose work was wonderful.
And some of the lovely glass from Shelley James. We met Shelley and Fabrizia at the gallery. Shelley will have more pieces in the 'proper' review.
These glass bricks had transfers applied so that they nestled inside the glass. Also by Shelley James.
Now to the chat. I bet Matawa caps are hard to paint, Carole. The only thing I can think of is to use Ranger Adirondack sprays. They are more like a dye. On the other hand, the ready dyed ones from Stef Francis, Oliver Twists or Silk Sacks are all ready to use. Gets my vote every time. Glad it turned out OK, though.
The glue stick - was it for a hot melt glue gun? Another trick may be to snip it off in small pieces to help it melt more quickly. Let me know.
Now I must go and write my WoW review before I forget the best bits of the exhibition.
3 comments:
Maggie: Thanks for sharing the beautiful work at the Frome exhibition. I loved the rusty piece by Bazzo-my favourite. It is so nice to see all your photos-they really make me feel that I have had a short visit myself. Very well done.
Well, I had an aha moment when I read your response. Never even thought it was the glue for a glue gun. You will smile when you hear that I cut a piece off a glue stick. Oh well, it was still a success. Last night, I was again marvelling over how beautiful the pieces were with so little effort. Oh, one thing I wondered about was whether the 1/2 inch of glue was the proportion for a whole small jar of UTEE bronze(65 gram size) or not. I peered at your picture in the book for a long time and concluded that it looked like a pretty full melting pot. Do you ever use the flex product or would that counteract the glue's purpose of making it flexible enough to sew?
I was thinking about making a large creation (hoping of course that I could actually remove it in one piece from all the stamps without destroying it.)
I will look for the Adirondack spray for the matawa. I order mine from a great store in BC-Treenway Silks. But, their dyed hankies cannot be ordered by any particular colour, just random ones so I decided to go with the natural state figuring I could customize the colour later. While I was on the phone with them, the woman told me about a site called wormspit (lovely descriptive name!)This fellow orders cocoons from them and makes his own hankies. The site is quite interesting and I almost thought of trying it myself as he provides pretty simple instructions using a crock pot! Thought you and the other readers might be interested in having a look. Always something new to try. Carole
If you mind me asking all these questions, please let me know and I will refrain (Canadian you know! We try to be polite.) Carole
Hi Maggie
What a lovely exhibition, the shoe was gorgeous. Your description was great.
I think I will have to have a look at WOW as I'm beginning to get lost in all the different materials and techniques in your blog, so will have to get better acquainted with some of them LOL
Love the retro screened fabric, what a great pattern. Are there any more photos on the web of the actual cathedral?
I'm off to read the WOW review now!!!
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