Module 1: Chapter 13, Study of Contemporary Textile Artists

I've chosen three textile artists who work with landscapes featuring trees. 

I have to admit that the techniques used are not innovative.  When I did my Embroidery 'A' level back in the early '70s, we used the same techniques.  There was no free-motion foot for the machines, just the exposed needle, which on one occasion did go through the fleshy part of my index finger!   There were no air-erasable pens, so to transfer the design onto the fabric, we stitched through tracing paper.  Removing those little pieces of paper from under the stitches was the most time-consuming part of the entire work!  I don't think I ever successfully removed them all. 

Although not innovative, I think these three artists all have an eye for design, and work skilfully with the materials.  Some contemporary artists working in other mediums produce textile works which don't exhibit this skill.  For many people this is unimportant as long as the finished work speaks to them.  Personally, I do look for and admire an element of skill, so I'm indulging myself with this first selection of contemporary textile artists.

1.   Dottie Moore

A link to my work on Dottie stored in DropBox was sent previously by email.

 

 

 

 

 

2.  Alison Holt

 

 

Alison produces beautiful, realistic landscapes and seascapes using free motion machine embroidery.  Her work is done on silk fabric, which is painted, then embroidered using just straight and zigzag stitches.

 

The following photos show an area of 'Lake District' before and after stitching.  It illustrates perfectly the texture, depth and richness of colour that the stitching brings to the piece.

 

Not all of the fabric is covered with stitching, so the quality of the silk painting has to be extremely good, both to act as a guide to thread colour and direction of stitches, and to stand alone as an unembellished picture.

Alison has published 5 books and an instructional DVD.  She teaches in the UK and Australia and exhibits in England and abroad.  There are exhibitions of her work during July 2016 in Oswestry and Wrexham and she will be at the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace in October 2016.  My ticket is already booked.

 

 

This technique of painting on fabric and embellishing with machine stitching is the same as Dottie Moore's, although their styles are very different.  It's obviously a technique that I find appealing.

 

The third artist I've chosen is

Martha Fieber

 

Martha is another American fibre artist - I seem to be drawn to American artists more than British I'm afraid.  I will ensure that future choices are all British!

 

Martha's works are similar to Dottie and Alison's but hand embroidery is used.  The four stitches she uses are straight stitch, French knots, couching and chain stitch applied to a hand painted linen ground.  Using a variety of threads she achieves a delicate and realistic effect.

 

I don't think Martha has an international reputation or is as influential as the other artists, but I've included her here because her work fits with the other 2 artists I've chosen and I like it.  I prefer hand sewing to using a machine, so Martha's work is particularly appealing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have just discovered the work of Carol Shinn which looks wonderful.  I'm afraid she's another American artist, and I'm unable to see the detail in her works.