I have completed the August Challenge, which was from the famous Simon and Garfunkel song Scarborough Fair; to sow a cambric shirt with out seams on needlework. Despite taking me the best part of five months to realise I have thoroughly enjoyed it. The research process took me on an exciting journey to Elizabethan France at the time cambric was inaugurated, through to the then present French monarchy and Elizabethan fashion. The end result is a shirt for King Henry the III of France and Poland, who was chosen due to his turbulent relationship to the Poles who believed him to be vain. The shirt is in a traditional Elizabethan style and uses ribbon as the bind between fabric sections instead of sowing. More information on this can be found on my site www.ameliabeavisharrison.com
The research process is something I plan to take further into my current practice, and has also fed into how I began to research the September challenge, of celebrating one of the early female aviators. The next mountain to climb is completing this work. After getting over the initial feather fiasco (dying feathers and them crystallising, they are to be attached to a kite) I ordered 100 more, which were actually red. The only down side is they are about 10 cm tall and will probably only cover the tips of the kite. This is becoming quite a drawn out process with the feathers, which is surprisingly costing a lot. I have a deadline for the challenge now, as the challenger has suggested it could be a part of a digital festival he is involved with in March. The time frame should be fine, but as I have learnt from this whole process it is quite hard to make 12 art works in a year, at least it is for me anyway.
Only four more challenges to complete, and a venue to find to take the show, and some funding to find to make a publication…
