It’s been a busy few days, now that I’ve finished a sculpture commission for Our Big Picture in Grimsby, leaving me finally able to work pretty much full time on my Arts Council Project Grant. It’s been years since I’ve just had time to create my own self-directed artwork (i.e. outside the constraints of a commission or exhibition brief) and it’s been an amazing experience so far.
For me the most rewarding part about it is the opportunity to experiment with new materials and processes – something you rarely have the chance to do as part of a typical commission. I’ve been working with packaging materials such as corrugated cardboard for several years now, alongside a few commissions involving Dibond and stainless steel…but what I’ve been wanting to explore for some time is fabric. I’m particularly drawn to the architectures of handbags, running shoes, and other ‘sculptural’ cloth forms typically made from stiffer fabrics. So that’s the core of what I’m going to be experimenting with over the next three months.
The first major thing I did was take the big step to buy a high-end embroidery machine. It actually wasn’t part of the grant proposal to involve embroidery…but while shopping for a sewing machine (which was part of the budget) I discovered that they weren’t quite as expensive as I’d thought…and could open up tons of possibilities for me. After all, my work typically involves ornate surface designs – so the capacity to translate my iconography into embroidery will hopefully really open up some exciting new creative possibilities.
Here’s a couple images of my first test design; I used a program called SewArt to translate my logo into an embroidery file, then sent it to my Janome 500e for stitching:
Here’s a shot of the result:
After this initial try I realised a few issues that need to be addressed, such as the alignment of colours and the incorrect stitch type used on the outer border (it should have been something called a ‘satin stitch’). But for a first try I was happy, and glad that I’ve got a whole new range of possibilities to explore over the upcoming months…
