I’m delighted to share that ‘Good Grub‘ had been awarded ‘Winner of the Beryl Dean Award for Hand Embroidery’ in the Embroiderers’ Guild 2024 Members’ Challenge ‘Opposites Attract’.
Good Grub, awarded the Beryl Dean Award for Hand Embroidery
An ‘Opposites Attract’ E-Book is available on the Guild website, featuring all the pieces in the challenge. Below are a few extracts from the book.
Embroiderers Guild Book – Opposites Attract Members’ Challenge
Extract from the Embroiderers Guild Book – Opposites Attract Members’ Challenge
Extract from the Embroiderers Guild Book – Opposites Attract Members’ Challenge
Thank you to the Embroiderers’ Guild from producing such a brilliant and inspiring challnge. Congratulations to the all winners and participants.
A new exhibition at the House of Smalls prompted me to create a new piece of work called Millstone Grit for the Dollhouse gallery.
The exhibition takes place at The House of Smalls, Cambrook Court, High Street, Chipping Campden, Glos GL55 6AT from 26th August – 16th September 2023.
With an exhibition titled ‘In Memory Of’ I designed an artwork in memory of my Dad.
Millstone Grit
About ‘Millstone Grit’ :
“Stoic, solid, immovable …. millstone grit is as perfect a symbol for the North of England – the old North – as one can imagine.” Ben Myers.
A hill farmer’s son, father to six kids and a veteran of the Korean War. A quiet man of few words – My Dad.
Size 11.5 x 11.5 cm. Hand embroidered textile art. Vintage Sylko cotton thread, cotton cloth.
Hand embroidered
“A show for artworks made in remembrance of someone lost/left.” House of Smalls.
Artists taking part in the exhibition.
I’m enjoying making small artworks that fit in perfectly with the scale of the Dollhouse exhibition.
Update – Images from the ‘In Memory Of’ dollhouse exhibition
My latest artworks called Reel Stories, started life as a handful of reels that I rediscovered after a day sorting through my collection of vintage cotton reels. The smallest reels are a perfect size for my hand embroidered text.
It’s funny how a relaxed day pottering around can spark an idea.
Reel Stories
The cotton cloth is an old pillowcase that I eco printed with plants from my garden – to date I’ve created three artworks in this series.
The first features an extract from a Lancashire poem ‘Hand Loom v. Power Loom’, author unknown. Unwound the artwork is 2 wide x 2m long.
Come all you cotton weavers, your looms you may pull down. You must get employment in factories, in country or in town. For our cotton masters have a wonderful new scheme: These calico goods now wove by hand, they’re going to weave by steam.
There’s sow-makers and dressers and some are making warps. These poor pincop-spinners they must mind their flats and sharps. For if an end slips under, as sometimes perchance it may, They’ll daub you down in black and white and you’ve a shilling to pay.
The weavers’ turn will next come on, for they must not escape. To enlarge the master’s fortune, they are fined in every shape. For thin places or bad edges, a go or else a float, They’ll daub you down and you must pay three pence or else a groat.
If you go into a loom shop where there’s three or four pairs of looms, They all are standing idle, a-cluttering up the rooms. And if you ask the reason why, t’ould mother will tell you plain: “My daughters have forsaken them and gone to weave by steam.”
So come all you cotton weavers, you must rise up very soon, For you must work in factories from morning until noon. You mustn’t walk in your garden for two or three hours a day, For you must stand at their command and keep your shuttles in play.
‘Hand Loom v. Power Loom’, author unknown.
First in the series of Reel Stories
The second artwork is a list of all the cotton mill workers jobs which includes titles like quilter, beamer and tenter. Unwound the artwork is 2cm wide x. 2.7m long
Second in the series
The third artwork documents the cotton industry mills and works that processed the cotton. Unwound the size is 2cm wide x 70cm long.
I’m pleased to announce that Reel Stories 1 & 3 have been accepted for the 3rd International Micro Textile and FIbre Art Exhibition “Scythia” at 17.00, str. Mariyky Pidhiryanky 23, Ivano-Frankivs’k, Ukraine. 6th – 20th June 2023 (the exhibition catalogue is available to view here – my artwork appears on page 34)
The new edition of the international textile and fibre art exhibitions Mini and Micro Scythia, now in their 11th and 3rd year respectively, will open on 6 June. These two important events, which take place every two years, are part of the larger project that includes the well-known International Biennial of Contemporary Textile and Fibre Art Scythia and the Fibremen exhibition.
In the Mini Textile category, works by 131 artists from 33 countries will be exhibited, while 50 artists will be selected for the Micro Textile and Fibre art exhibition, representing 23 countries.
