Sunday 23 March 2008

Metal Edges

Happy and peaceful Easter greetings to everyone. Just off to take eggs and other offerings to the gcs. Fiona is kindly hosting this year's egg hunt. I suspect it will be indoors.

I answered some of the comments in comment form so I hope you have found the right clay now. I'll blog some more on the clay but will talk very briefly about metal edges. The pieces are applied to blockboard which has been covered with handmade paper and painted. I sometimes work on heavy Vilene with gesso worked into it. Here is an earlier example from my Buddha series, with some cast water soluble paper forming a border. It is in a half painted state here.




Then I stitched a strip of fine metal shim around the edge. The shim was drawn into to make the embossed surface. The entire background was then glued to the board and the metal was wrapped around the edge and held with copper tacks.



I cut into it to make the scalloped edge.





Hope this helps. As you know, I don't like my work behind glass as textiles are so tactile.

So good to have West Country Mother back with us (aka Wittering Rainbow or Annabelle). I felt quite bereft when I got back from Jersey to find you had disappeared. Sorry about the problems with 'lady'. Elli Woodsford had similar troubles when her email was 'painted lady'! I have to say that West Country Mother sounds a bit worthy and not at all how I see you. Brings to mind rosy cheeked ladies at Farmers Markets but perhaps that's better than the Painted Ladies.


Well Hung has not caused me problems Aussie Jo, except that I think people think it is the name of the exhibition. I shall be in a lot of trouble with Highcliffe Castle as it is actually called Fusion.


5 comments:

artisbliss said...

Ooh, all this mixed media makes me want to get my hands dirty, when what I must do is primarily fibers for various events and shows coming up. I'll get there, though! Gorgeous stuff, Maggie.

West Country Buddha said...

Thank you for that Maggie!! I'm so glad you took the trouble to find me again. I must admit, I don't quite feel like a West Country Mother, but it's what my DD2 has always called me sort of a family joke. She loves to think of me as a source of pies and good things to eat, and the fount of knowledge for all things West Country and appley. In fact, she gave me the Apple Source Book for Mothers' Day this year! Bless. If anyone ever needs to know anything about apples, just ask away.

Margaret S said...

Hi Maggie, I have just been nominated for an award by Barbara of Embroidery Overlaps as a blog that’ brings her inspiration and makes her appreciate the blogosphere’, and of course I have to do the same to 10 blogs that do it for me! You therefore meet the criteria that I would expect of such a blog. So consider yourself well and truly nominated!!!!!!!!! And only if you have the time please do the same for 10 other such inspiring sites. Although time consuming it has made me look critically at my ‘favourites’ with a different eye. XXX MargaretS

Aussie Jo said...

I have just re-read "Paper, Metal, Stitch" after our textile group workshop. We played with xpandaprint motifs today and decided to do cast paper next month. Might have to move on to metals after that, very inspiring stuff Maggie.

Becky Mairi Farrell said...

You're a woman after my own heart with not liking things to be behind glass. Even worse when they construct those little barriers round pieces in galleries. There is so much more to explore in a piece if the glass is taken away - or never there in the first place!