High Summer

We have a lavender hedge now...it's been a hive of activity (excuse the pun)

Well it has been too long since I last wrote - still unpacking boxes and making my Studio a working space.  It will be fine but just so many things to find a home for.
We are still discovering wonderful places to visit in Somerset...  Porlock Weir, Dunster, and discovering new roads and footpaths in Exmoor.  I especially liked the isolation of Porlock Weir, the huge stretch of pebble beach....great textures and subtle colour (and a good pub).

 I really could show so many photos from the National Trust gardens we have been exploring in the last few months as well....  Barrington Court, Tintunhull, Montacute House to name a few.  But I won't. We all love to take pictures and I have just spent the last 2 days trying to sort the hundreds..or should I say thousands I have.  It is compulsive to just keep taking pictures.... I love it.!!!

Festival of Quilts was wonderful last week and I was pleased to be part of
Annabel Rainbow and Laura Kemshall's exhibition 'Through our Hands' with a great group of textile artists. The piece on the left is called 'Pathways' and it first was exhibited with Quilt Art a few years ago, but not seen much in the UK.  Still one of my favourite images of endangered forests.

I was also pleased to be selected for the Fine Art Quilt Masters at Festival.

The 'Last Silence' (above) is a very small piece of work which is a starting point for larger work in the future.  It is always a shame that the artist statement is not available (except if you have the program in your hand).  This piece was inspired by sound... or the lack of sound when I walked onto the frozen Baker Lake in Arctic Canada many years ago.  At the time I heard 'nothing' - no birds,planes overhead, ...nothing except for the occasional sound of cracking ice.  I was able to find the ice-crack sound waves and replicate them as a dimensional textile piece.  The other marks represent the tinitus that I hear now .... no complete silence for me ever again.  More work on this theme is being planned for the Studio 21 exhibition in October at South Hill Park, Bracknell.  I will be adding it to my latest news soon.

On the left is another new stitched textile inspired by winter flood images and marks from last winter on the levels in Somerset.
Coming to live in a different part of the country did inspire a lot of new photographs this winter and I loved the subtle colours of the trees.  It is called "LevelSlice' (far left with detail)  Marks on paper were made and combined with black and white images, then heat transferred onto cloth (it is 30cm x 1.2M) with the colour added with machine threads.

Well that's what has been keeping me busy lately.  I must try and post more frequently....
Off to the Yorkshire Dales soon..... more photos no doubt... and some sketching too.

Thanks for reading... until next time...