Rimantas Plunge, a photographic fine artist from Lithuania came to UCS to set up his exhibition in Waterfront. There was an opportunity to attend a seminar where he talked about his work and to have personal tutorials about our work, I was keen to take advantage of both.
During the tutorial, his comments about the face canvas surprised me. He didn’t think that what I considered untidiness in my brush work, detracted from the painting at all and that the fact that I had mixed the background colour myself, meant that there were nuances of light and shade in the paint’s application which made it interesting. To my comment, about being more careful, he said “Don’t be careful be free, express yourself.” and to the suggestion that I might use a smaller canvas on which to paint my original idea, he advised me not to close myself in and to use large canvasses to make a series in which I developed the first painting. An interesting thought!
When I spoke to Rimantas about my intentions for the ‘word canvas’, he asked if I had considered using paint to mask the words, as working with the fabric would take a very long time. He suggested that I might make two smaller versions of the canvas, cover one with fabric and one with paint to see what I thought would work best.
I decided to pin pieces of fabric on to a small area of the canvas and think about using paint instead, as I was working. However, as I worked around the stitched words, I realised that the therapeutic process of making the stitches had been very important to me. Each stitch had been a small act of healing and I chose to continue that process.
Tricia Cottrell: Words: in progress (2015)
Media: Fabric, Fabric Paint, Thread
Dimensions: 199.5cm 258.75cm
Location: Studio
Photograph: Tricia Cottrell (2015)
Close-up Detail
Pinned section
Tricia Cottrell: Words: in progress (2015)
Media: Media: Fabric, Fabric Paint, Thread
Dimensions: 199.5cm 258.75cm
Location: Studio
Photograph: Tricia Cottrell (2015)
Close-up Detail
Stitched section
