It’s been just over a year since our Textile Echoes art residency in Iceland and due to what has happened in the world I have finally had the time to make more response work. The residency was such a wonderful and inspiring experience and started me on a different path for a new body of work which I have been longing to develop for some time. Textile Echoes had hoped to exhibit later in the year with a collection of work inspired by our time but are now planning for next year when things maybe a little better in the world.
I just received my copy of the new Icelandic Textile Center Art Residency catalogue which we have all been featured in along with other artists from all over the world that spent time there: https://issuu.com/textilsetur/docs/catalog2019_online/1?ff
Looking at some of the other artists work filled me with enthusiasm and also the longing to go back.
So I went back to my sketch book that I had started on the residency and got out all the wool I purchased while we were there. The colours took me right back to that stunning landscape and I started to draw, developing the ideas I had previously had. My inspiration came from the continuously changing and spacious landscape, like no other landscape I had experienced before. I wanted to continue with this theme and designed an embroidery using wrapped lengths and stitching. I have several more layers of embroidery to add so it will change a bit but here it is so far. Once finished I will dip it into water and the backing fabric will dissolve leaving threads and spaces between the stitches.
I will continue developing these landscape artworks with wrapping, stitching and felting and as soon as I can get to my knitting machine, I might experiment with some knitted pieces too.
As soon as this piece is complete I will post an update here and show whatever I am making next. You can also see more images of my process on my Instagram:
