As we go into the New Year, 2021, I have been making decisions repeatedly about how I should proceed with the tapestry currently on my loom. The design development is based on a painting by Gordon Perfect’s painting “Electric Brae”, held in the Scottish Art Collection at Gracefield Arts Centre in Dumfires and Galloway.
My tapestry will be part of an exhibition there by the Solway branch of the British Tapestry Group later in 2021. They invited me to take part as I come from that neck of the woods. The criteria for the work was to respond to a selected work in the art collection but not to make a copy of it.
I selected this painting because not only do I like its colours and the textures created by Perfect’s handling of the brush, but also because I have a strong memory of experiencing the illusion of the phenomenon known as the Electric Brae near Ayr on Scotland’s west coast. The challenge for me was to find a way of representing the original work as a tapestry whilst also referencing my own experience of the subject – hence the in depth decision making.
I am not showing my design at this stage (other than the detail above) but can say that the tapestry will have an interactive audio element to it and one of the materials I am using is conductive thread. I am being helped with this aspect of the work by the funding I received as an Artists Bursary from a-n the Artists Information Company. The rest of my time spent on the work is also funded by a Stabilisation Fund grant from the Arts Council of Wales National Lottery Good Causes.
The technology aspect of this tapestry will most likely use the conductive thread linked to a Raspberry Pi and PiCap from Bare Conductive. However, as each interactive tapestry I make is a unique design I find that there are always new decisions to be made and new things to learn with regard to the coding and use of this hardware in order to meet my needs.
And so the a-n Artists Bursary and ACW funding acknowledged below have been, and continue to be, invaluable to me.
Supported by an Artists Bursary from a-n The Artists Information Company and a Stabilisation Fund grant from the Arts Council of Wales National Lottery Good Causes.
