For the past few months I’ve been busy designing & stitching a new artwork named ‘Summer 2022’ .
Last year I was honoured to be invited by artist Harry Meadley to take part in Free-For-All at Touchstones Rochdale from 7-10th September 2022.
I created an event called ‘Stitched Memories’ to collect Rochdale’s memories of the 2022 heatwave for a new artwork – a companion piece to Summer ‘76. The responses were handwritten on postcards and displayed within the gallery.
My original idea was to create a single artwork of around 400 words. In reality, after collating so many wonderful hand written phrases a unique story started to evolve – enough for two artworks.
The artworks cover the period from early summer, through the heatwave and drought and end with the loss of HM Queen Elizabeth II (which occurred during the time I was at Free-For-All).
Each piece is 21 x 21cm, hand embroidered and hand stitched with vintage Sylko thread onto cotton cloth.
This is the first time I’ve created an artwork from a ‘Stitched Memories’ event and would definitely like to host another one in the future.
Thank you the curators at Touchstones, Harry Meadley and all the visitors who contributed to Summer 2022.