Louise Nason Artist in residence.
My new warp is threaded on the loom and I have started weaving. This warp is looking at more technical weaving structures. I am weaving a double cloth. This gives me the ability to weave a tube. Once woven you essentially end up with a tube with no seams. It is one continuous thread woven back and forth on top and underneath round and round.
I was inspired to weave this by some of the church architecture the big tie beams in particular.
Just wanted to give a web address which really intrigued me.
prada–transformer.com
www.wallpaper.com/fashion/prada–transformer–seoul/3284
It is prada’s new project with architect Rem Koolhaas. The structures and the way he has thought about the display of the costumes are rather amazing and inspiring take a look.
Louise Nason Artist in residence.
Saturday 27th June.
I visited the Chersey Museum. The museum has a wonderful collection of historic fashion dating from the 16th Century. www.chertseymuseum.org.uk
I went to see a demonstration being giving by Bridget Strowbridge on corset’s.
She has a wealth of knowledge of historical corsetry. Having worked for the English national opera as a costume designer. She also taught for many years at the London College of Fashion.
The demonstration, looked at a original corset from 1890. Bridget showed us how it would have been constructed. by showing a replica block pattern she had made. She then made an exact copy of the original to work out the construction. Interestingly the seams ran diagonally to the boning of the corset.
Biddy was very interesting and I learnt a lot about historical costume construction.
At the end of the demonstration I was lucky enought to try the corset on. It looked beautiful and held me up very straight but you could feel your bones being squeezed in and it was easy to realise why so many lady’s fainted!
I would encourage you all to visit the chersey Museum as it has a wonderful collection and you can get to see things from the archive easily.
Louise Nason Artist in Residence.
Here are a few images from my adult weaving workshop.
The workshop had a great response and some lovely outcomes.
Everyone one started off by looking at St George’s Church and I begun with some drawing. The group used their images to inspire their weaving. Everyone took a turn at weaving on the table loom and they also completed some lovely individual card weaving.
The day was very popular and I have had many request for a second adult workshop in the autumn.
Jane Ponsford visual arts organiser St George’s Arts
As this blog didn’t start at the very beginning of Louise’s residency, I want to post up some images from the first few weeks of her time with us. The project began with a launch exhibition where we were introduced to some of Louise’s previous work much of which is extremely delicate and where she described in more detail her intentions for the present project.
Louise Nason Artist in residence.
The residency began at the end of April. Two months later and the time has seemed to fly-by.
It all began with the building of the loom. A construction which took a day and 3 people to build partly because of the weight but also the size. The loom is a solid wood maxwell countermarch floor loom. It seems very much at home in the space at st George’s as do I, now I have had the time to settle in.
The residency began with a launch exhibition which had a lot of visitors and set me off to a good start.
After several days of threading the warp, I began weaving a set of linen samples.
Weaving can be a slow process where a lot of time is spent preparing the loom and threading the warp before weaving can begin.
Last week two successful workshops took place. One a very short introduction to spinning with a small group of children from my old primary school. it was good to make a connection with a school which sparked my enthusiasm for art.
The second was a adult weaving workshop where the group took it in turns to weave on a table loom drawing on influences of the church. They also completed individual card weaving with a variety of conclusions some using found yarns which had a personal meaning to them.
I look forward to teaching other groups however daunting it may seem now!
