Bank Street Arts Residency

It’s the final push for my crowd funding appeal, as it ends tomorrow. I’ve been working hard every day since 20th October promoting the project, and I’m now tired and burnt out. There is still a fair bit of money to raise, so please help if you can, and hopefully all the hard work won’t have been in vain. Crowd funding alone is a gruelling task, and not something I’d like to do again any time soon. I’ve constantly had a bottomless list of places and people to contact, and in the end I’ve just had to prioritise because there just isn’t enough time to do everything.
I really am blown away at the support the project has gathered. So many people are helping to promote it, as well as donating money, and it’s great to feel that I’ve started something big. It really seems to have captured people’s imaginations and I’m looking forward to getting the project underway properly.

I sent the first lot of patterns out today to my Thread of Life mailing list today, and it seems to be getting a good response, so that’s great. I’ll be releasing it more widely in the coming weeks. We also have a date for the exhibition now: It will be at Bank Street Arts for the whole of November 2015. As yet I have no idea how much work will be in the exhibition, but with the interest gathered I’m potentially expecting hundreds.
I’ve also been working on my large scale pattern, which will be just over a square meter in size. Here’s a look at how it was looking when I last left the studio.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-thread-of-life-project-exhibition/x/8915627

Interest in my Thread of Life project is certainly gathering pace, although I still have a long way to go with my crowd funding campaign.

This week I’ve been invited to BBC Radio Sheffield to talk about the project, and hopefully that will lead to more donations and more participants.

To help along the way, I’ve added new “perks”, including a hand drawn, signed and framed version of the DNA pattern, and a chance to meet me at my city centre studio in Sheffield. Please take a look at the campaign to find out more, and I would be extremely grateful if you could share the link with others who may be interested.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-thread-of-life-project-exhibition/contributions/new?perk_amt=100&perk_id=2410344
I’ve also started work on my own, large scale cross-stitch piece, which will be just over a meter squared. The size is dictated by the cross-stitch fabric available to buy, and this is the biggest I can find. However, because I only have roughly a year to make it, this may yet prove to be too big! I’ve always felt that this might be a race to be finished in time, which makes the project so exciting and ambitious.

Here’s a look at the perk in return for a £100 donation, it’s a framed original piece of cross-stitch work.

I’m about 3 weeks in to my crowd funding campaign for my residency project, and I haven’t stopped working since it began! Every day means sending emails, tweets, messages, press releases etc. I’ve contacted everyone I can think of, but I always think of more.
I’ve had a great response from the people I’ve contacted so far, with lots of people wanting to get involved with the project. The hardest part is getting word out there beyond just my immediate contacts, but at last it seems to be paying off. I’ve started to be contacted by people who have had a message or an email passed on to them, and that’s great news. I’ve also got a few magazines, both local magazines and cross-stitch magazines, which are writing an article or interviewing me about the project.

One of the things I’m hoping to do is to get around the country and give workshops, or meet with sewing groups to work on the project. I’ve been contacting galleries and museums to try to find venues, as well as contacting sewing group directly. How much I can do depends on how much money I can raise, but I’m happy to say that I’m receiving some interest for potential venues. Hopefully then I can provide workshops and materials for free, and get more people involved.

The pattern that I want people to stitch themselves is almost ready to be released, and every piece that someone stitches and sends in will go into an exhibition at Bank Street Arts late next year.

For my own part of the project, I’m going to be working on a large scale cross-stitch, which will hang from the ceiling at the exhibition next year. I’ve been working on design ideas, and I’ve decided to base my plans on a Byzantine dome, but with images relating to the Three Fates of Greek Myth.

You can help me out massively by sharing the link to my crowd funding appeal, even if you feel unable to contribute yourself.  Also, if you would like to write about my project, or be added to my mailing list, please contact me at [email protected]

Thank you for your support.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-thread-of-life-project-exhibition/x/8915627