Better late than Never

I'm only about six months late!

Sorry everyone

So here it is my

Through the Window piece

" Window to my heart"

This piece was inspired by pictures I took in the Burren in Co. Clare with Claire as our tour guide as  research for a larger group piece.
For the last couple of years I've been working on an Elemental theme incorporating the seasons as related to life cycles. It's me working out who and where I am
 ( end of summer, moving into autumn!)
I feel a strong bond to ancient rural sites and the power they hold.
As a child I grew up about half an hours drive from Newgrange, one of the most well known ancient sites and had two ruins of castles to play in, just several fields from home.
Here I've tried to blend me into the ancient stone looking through one window into the past.

 I love to play with all types of photo transfer and have used several of them here. I've used bits of images transferred using transfer paper, image maker and bubble jet set. They all react differently with the fabric and create interesting effects when layered.

Detail showing effect achieved by use of walnut ink wash

This image was taken from an ancient grave stone

and this is the back of the piece which I quiet like.

I burnt the edges so that I wouldn't feel obliged to bind them!

I wanted to keep a raw feeling to the piece.



THE STATE WE'RE IN

Better late than never with the added problem that the piece, like topsy, grew and grew.
The idea came from various sources as outlined in a previous post as well as being a continuation of a current theme.
My overall idea, was, and still is, the view through a wealthy person's window as exemplified by the lively coloured blocks whose random nature refers to the way bankers have gambled with our future. The view through has a background which is a laminated composite of part of a gravestone and poppies together with a poppy petal. I did this because Armistice Day this year was a once in a century 11,11,11,11 and I wanted to reference this with drawn crosses. The figures were used for further works and I liked them so they were put in here too. They represent my feelings about this summer's riots in our cities and this pervades the whole work. It is cheating a bit because it is really outside/outside but there is artistic licence. Anyway, a wealthy individual mght well have these 'wallpaper' blocks on his/her wall.
It is a long time since I used bought fabrics in a work to any degree but time constraints and a previous competition requirement brought me back to them. I thoroughly enjoyed choosing the myriad of colours and tones required for the random blocks but, as usual, struggled to find enough even from my enormous collection. I got addicted to the process of making these.
The colouring of the figures was experimental as I wanted to try out various watersoluble media on fabric which I worked on at our local art club practical evening. The group are nearly all conventional painters and were both bewildered and intrigued by what I was doing.
All in all, I am pleased with this although I did have my doubts at times. It still needs embellishing, quilting and finishing but I need to think about this.
May I suggest that members state the size of their work as this is quite important to our appreciation and visualising of it? Otherwise, we have no reference point. This piece is about 40in. wide by 20in. high. I did say it grew and grew. A full view and a close-up are shown below.

Done!

Having already done a Through the Window piece for the last challenge, I felt I needed to do something deifferent for this one - and what a journey it has been.  I started from a book I'd been reading, Ruth First's 117 Days, in which she describes her period of solitary confinement (without trial) under the 90-day rule during the apartheid era in South Africa.  It's a powerful description and the mark one piece was almost a sort of illustration of the desciption of her cell in the book.  As I made the piece. I began to reflect on all the other ways in which people may be solitary and confined - for example through ill health, depression, domestic abuse, political oppression, bullying or simply being housebound..  By yesterday night I had not resolved the two ideas and I was dissatisfied with what the quilt had become, but I went to bed thinking I would at least get it finished and off my conscience.

At 4 a.m. I woke with the idea of this piece fully formed, jotted down a few notes and luckily got back to sleep.  Today has been a rush to get it finished - but at least that has made me keep it simple.  All that remains from the orifinal piece is the barred cell window, and I apologise for the fact that the view is not through the window  but this side of the barred window.  Though it's a bit wobbly and rough round the edges I don't find that a problem on this occasion, as it seems to suit the subject-matter.

It is open to a number of interpretations - feel free to ask your own questions and provide your own answers...

Next time I'll start earlier!

Through the Window - Shinkansen

 Ever since  my first digital camera , I've been taking photos from trains at speed - I love the blurring. I've made a few journal quilts and one experimental piece  but have always wanted to scale up - this challenge gave me an opportunity to start  down that road (or should that be rail?!!!!)

 In 2006 I travelled with Susan Briscoe to Yuza-machi  in Japan   and took lots of photos from the Shinkansen train from Tokyo to Yamagata. The  green of rice paddies, the purplish grey roofs , the mountains and the coast were so different from the train photos I'd taken in the UK

 Techniques and materials used? Photos  were printed on colour catchers treated with 'Ink Aid' . I used Photoshop to increase saturation slightly but that's all -the blurring is as captured by camera. These were applied to a section of lightweight fabric from a secondhand kimono bought for Pojagi in Tokyo.

A silk organza scarf with woven lines was laid over the top and attached with twin needle stitching. Interesting difference  between the raised ridges produced  when stitched through 1 layer of kimono and the flatter ones where stitching through both kimono and colour catcher. I really should have stabilised the kimono fabric first but I actually like the effect!
I'd like to produce an even bigger piece next perhaps  inspired by the paintings of Atsuhide Ito although quite how I'd photograph it and display it....

Can't wait to see other peoples interpretation.

Through The Window

As happened last time I am not going to be near a computer for the reveal so I am scheduling this for publication and hope it works.  I am really sorry not to be here for today but I am hoping to get hold of a computer over the next day or so to see what everyone has done.

As I said in my earlier post I was becoming fascinated with the quality of light that comes through a stained glass window and I particularly became fascinated with the cut through process that I had been playing with.  After I had made a pice 10" square for my Journal Quilt I have gone on to make an A3 sized piece for this challenge.  It is not the only piece I have made, more of that in a minute.

As you can see I didn't actually take this particular technique any further, mostly because I didn't have the time but I may well play with it some more when time allows.

I said in my previous post that I wanted to experiment with sheers and I have had a great time doing just that.  I took a selection of neutral organzas, silks and nylon sheers and used fabric paints tostamp and make monoprints on their surfaces.  I kept the monoprints neutral in tones of grey and was a bit worried at first that they might be too light to show up.  Sadly I was so busy working I didn't take any photos of the process.

The next step was to use silk paints to add colour to the pieces of fabric.  I decided on silk paint as I didn't have a lot of time, again.  Once the fabrics were all prepared I started to cut and piece them using a pojagi style of seam.  This is the result:

The photograph above was taken indoors with the piece laying on the top of my sewing table.  It is very slightly smaller than A3 size.  I then took further photographs outside.

After photographing the piece hanging from our driftwood I couldn't resist hanging the 'window' in the lilac tree where the sun was shining through this morning.

I have made a lot of mistakes with the stitching in this technique and a certain amount of drifting has occurred but I am so delighted with the way this has turned out.  The surface marks are really exciting me and I am really happy with my interpretation of 'Through The Window'.  I am quite tempted though to leave it out in the garden to let the sun shine through and see how it ages.  You may also have noticed that this isn't really a quilt as it is only one layer.  Tant pis! (As the French would say).  Actually a couple of the pieces do consist of two layers as I felt the sheer was too fine.

I shall look forward to seeing everyone else's interpretations and to the next challenge!

Now What?

Well I've treated my colour catchers with Ink aid , printed them with images taken at speed from Japanese train, attached  a 4 x 3 grid of them to some vintage kimono fabric and placed a layer of silk organza scarf over the top (love those lines!). I've stitched the lot together with twin needle which as I haven't used a backing fabric (whoops) has caused raised 'tramlines'.
However you could say I've become de-railed as I don't know how to finish of the edges. should have thought that through to start with of course.....

Through The Window

 I thought as I hadn't had a lot to say here I would copy most of the post I put on my blog this week describing my thought processes so far for this challenge. 

Similar to the last challenge, as soon as you start thinking about windows you see them everywhere (well, they are aren't they?) and you start thinking about every interpretation of 'through' and 'window'. A window to the past, a window through time, windows of the soul, window of opportunity, looking in through the window, looking out through the window. Window - an opening allowing a connection between one space and another, light pours in through the window, a surface that reflects light and its surroundings. A window can be many shapes; it can be clear, frosted, reinforced, mottled, distorted, etched, of many colours.

An abstract painting that I made on the subject of looking back through time which was made with a window cut from a photograph incorporated into layers of torn watercolour paper with crayon marks added and manipulated in Photoshop.

Inevitably, and to cut a long story short for the moment, my thoughts turned to stained glass windows, which I love for the light that they allow to pass into the room. The window above is part of the stained glass in Chester Cathedral and I have used part of it previously in a watercolour sketch (still need to find that).

In our local parish church we have a beautiful stained glass window by John Hayward entitles Christ Walks on the Water. With the Quilt Artist's eye that I now have I can see several ways of interpreting this window.

Over the years, and particularly in the past these stained glass windows were a way through which people who could not read learned the Bible stories. Over the years stained glass windows have become more abstract and convey their meaning in other ways.

As a way of finding my way into this challenge I thought I would play about with cut through fabrics, especially after reading an item by Naomi Renouf in the June 2010 issue of Workshop on the Web that I found on my computer.

I've started by layering scraps of fabrics onto a background and securing them under a layer of organza with stitching running at right angles to the run of the fabrics. Subsequently I cut through the channels deciding as I went along how far down to cut.

The next step is to machine at right angles to the first lines of stitch opening up and catching down each cut layer to reveal what lies beneath. (detail above)

I am quite pleased with the result so far. I feel it has some of the movement in the window in St Wulfram's church and I am excited to work it on a larger scale.

I have been trying to decide whether this would work with a more transparent feel to it so that light can actually shine through and I've made a further piece but have not achieved that transparnecy yet. Once you start thinking and looking there are a lot of ways of interpreting (light) through the window and I'm glad I've got a few more weeks to work on this project.

I have been trying to track down a link to a programme that brought home to me the power of stained glass some time ago and I can't find it. I think it was a clip of (?Rolf Harris/Michael Palin?) in a chapel with stained glass windows designed I think by Chagall or maybe Matisse. My overriding memory is of the presenter standing in the chapel with light from the window pouring over his fingers like water. For some reason the image took my breath away and brought a lump to my throat. Such is the power of light through a window. (I've just discovered it is the chapel at Vence in France and the artist was Matisse.)

I'm still experimenting wildly with the cut through/chenille and I've also got some mosaic-style ideas to play with too.  This is fun!

Through some stained glass windows

I live in a Victorian house and we have stained glass windows in the porch. Last year I had a go at taking photos through them, and thought that I might use one of them as a starting point for the next theme.

Here are just a few of them.

I could go for something representational or something more abstract like this one:

Through the train window

Ever since I bought my first digital camera I've been taking photos out of train windows. I love the blurred landscapes often with distorted reflections superimposed .

I used some of the photos in journal quilts in 2004 and 2005, including one about my experience on 7/7/2005 when I was on the last train from Kings Cross seconds before the bombs went off. I was at a meeting in Peterborough and thought I would be stranded there with no information about what had happened to friends and family. In the end I got home very late thanks to someone giving me a lift well out of his way and coming into Ealing from Reading on the train.

Several times I've thought of returning to this idea of a sequence of blurred photos taken out of a train, inspired by the 'Separate Landscape' series of Atsuhide Ito   - a serialization of Utagawa Hiroshige's The 53 Stations of the Tokaido from 1833.

The question is which series of photos to use?? The ones  I took  in Japan are probably the most interesting partially due to the speed of the Shinkansen. I loved the familiarity of the images ( tracks, pylons , stations, etc) but also the differences: the scale of landscape, the colours (bright green rice fields) and shapes of buildings.