Exhibition

It's a relief to get to the finish of a piece of work and it is at last out of the house and in a gallery where I can no longer feel the need to tinker with it.
 "Blue Guitar" has gone into Bilston Art and Craft Gallery in the exhibition "On Yer Mettle". The hanging was yesterday and it opens on Saturday 26th August.

The theme is based around metal, although the phrase means be "ready to take action". All around this area there are currently exhibitions celebrating the birth of Heavy Metal Music which happened in this area with bands like Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest and Black Sabbath - all Black Country boys, many of whom had worked in metal factories and foundries locally.
Some of the exhibitions celebrate the music, whilst others are about the industry of this area mostly up until the 1980s.

My guitar has some metal in it... you can see the washers and metal fabric above and there are Indian Shisha mirrors for the volume, treble and bass controllers. Mostly it is made from recycled jeans - denim was the prominent fabric of the fashion associated with the music of course.
The quilt upon which it is appliquéd is made from recycled fabrics again - lace, silk and cottons, some of which is dyed with rust.

Oh yes - to get an idea of the size of it here is 9 year old Isabel "playing" it before the appliqué began!

Here she is with her brother, overseen by Granny, at the hanging where they were emulsioning a peg board for an interactive family sewing installation for the gallery!
The exhibition runs 27th August - 24th September 2011 - heres a link
Other news is that Linda and Laura Kemshall's online creative sketchbook course has now opened and I am looking forward to some peace when they go back to school, in between work, to get down to that.
Here are some wonderful seed heads (it's an addiction) from the Love In A Mist flowers I grew in the garden. Love those shapes...ripe for drawing!

Oh yes - ALSO I am pleased that my magic feather has flown across the ocean to Jude Hill to her project. Click this link to see.

"Winter" Exhibition.

Today I have been to the hanging of an exhibition in which I have two pieces of work.
It opens on Saturday 21st November at Bilston Craft Gallery, West Midlands, UK. The name of the exhibition is "Winter" and it is held by members of the gallery's Textile Group which meet monthly to exchange ideas.

On Saturday there will also be a craft fair and mince pies and chocolate logs!!
The piece above is "Winter In North Wales", although some might think it could be any season there as it does catch the rain there rather (to put it politely). It is hand embroidered on embellished wools, yarns and fleece.

The other piece is called "Puddles and Slate" and is again inspired by a trip to Wales and the accompanying weather! (We have to take inspiration from everything, even when we are wet, blue and chilled to the bone!).

It promises to be a great exhibition and there will be gifts to buy too.

For example these bags below are made locally by Yuca Osumi and will be for sale - they are knitted in Arran wool with a variety of stitches and are so full of texture. They are immaculately made and unique I think.

On Monday I took a little Christmas shopping expedition out to Ludlow, Shropshire. I love this busy busy hardware shop. It is so full of cupboards, drawers, wooden boxes it is overwhelming. Each is labelled as to it's contents. You can still buy one nail or a screw here. The proprietor wears a brown overall and has probably done so since 1942. One wooden drawer was labelled "bits". I love that. I have lots of drawers in my house which should all have a label on the outside saying "bits"!

And here is another bit of "busy-ness". This little chap came back from the allotment with me this week on a bumper load of sweetcorn. He was having a fine old explore over all the hillocks.