Contemporary Textile Art from the Sea

Not really understanding why, nor needing to I suppose, I feel very drawn to lobster pots and if I'm ever lucky enough to be near any I feel compelled to photograph them. Perhaps its the 'controlled chaos' theme again which I've come to realise is a reoccurring presence in my work. I find the intricate structure of the pot is made much more exciting once other loose elements such as fibres are tangled within it.

Wanting to explore this attraction, and working from photos I'd taken during a visit to Whitby in Yorkshire, I snipped a few twigs from my Silver Birch Tree, (sorry tree) and then  experimented with threads and wire until I came up with my own, inland version of one. This measures about 24cm x 12.5cm and consists of crocheted white coated wire, waxed cotton orange thread within a frame of silver birch twigs.

 

 I photographed these lobster pots whilst visiting Yorkshire's Whitby Harbour.

I had to remember that they weren't mine, fighting the urge to search amongst them for any unwanted, accidental treasure from the sea.

Tiny pieces of the colour orange caught my eye.

To me, the rust and barnacles on the iron weight were the sea's own beautiful artwork.

I took this photo of some more modern pots whilst at Barmouth in Wales, somehow although the gridwork had a slightly hypnotic effect on me (or maybe it was the lunchtime cider), I just don't have the same excitment as when I find a stack of the old style pots.

something else about Tea....

Yep, its Tea again, here is some surface pattern I derived from cups, teabags and strung teabags, the pattern being suitable for fabric, i.e. kitchen blinds, wrapping paper, place mats and ceramics as per the teapot below. These were originally worked onto A1 paper. I wanted something a bit more geometric for a change.

I cut a few stencils based on china cups from my own collection, also a couple of different sized square stencils,using a roller with emulsion, acrylic with a white gel pen

same process different stencils for the strung teabags....

this time just the square stencils

I thought I would quite like a teapot with the square pattern.....

more from the Fish Board sketchbook

The outcome of this fun, mixed media project was to produce a wall mounted board with protrusions. I chose the sea for my inspiration, representing it by a 'close up snapshot' of a fish swimming through weeds with other sea creatures 'floating' amidst the weed. Here is the outcome and just a few of the samples and explorations from my Fish Board Sketchbook.

This is the finished piece, I think my photography/lighting could do with more improvement to do it justice. This was a piece of MDF with the shape cut out with a jigsaw, then sanded to create a slightly raised texture.

I always like to make a small model of what I'm thinking about doing, often in miniature because of the everpresent storage problem! Here it is with pins on cardboard showing possible positions for the other floating creatures, with crocheted wire representing the seaweed.

The inspiration for the base boards finish came from this photo (bottom right corner) of this amzing chocolate coloured fish. I just loved the wonderful colours of chocolate and turquoise and reproduced it with pastels on paper, then acrylic on leather, choosing to replicate this sample out of several for my board.

As usual with most subjects in my sketchbooks I further explored with other media, in this case; gouache on paper.

I painted the board with acrylic, using bubble wrap as a stamp for the bubbles.

With much of my work being very free and often having the 'handmade' aspect exaggerated, I like to include a slightly more traditional drawn piece in all of my sketchbooks, usually at the outset. I made a trip to the Sealife Centre in Blackpool and was able to take quite a few photos for source but the fish photos shown on this blog, for this project, all came from the Aquarium magazine.

 

I was drawn to the ridges in this tail and made a couple of fabric samples as in the 2 following pics;

Pinching the fabric and machine stitching.

As often happens with much sampling I chose not to use this in my final piece.

Other pictures of coral had me thinking about the tendrils leading from the arms.....

My version of the coral's tendrils are on the the tall 'post' in the middle.

This little red fella was another version of a sea anemone, made from angora wool.

More 'coral', from wire mesh and horsehair.

'Coral' created from heat gunned kunin felt and wire.

This was my favourite creature feature, a small segment of 'starfish'-embroidered felt.

A vintage crocheted covered button which I further embroidered produced this piece of 'coral'.

I've always been fascinated by kelp and for my board, shrunk it down by heatgunning a small piece of red acrylic painted foam to create the rubbery effect.

Can you see the crab? another acrylic painted piece of kunin felt which has be heatgunned.

the side of Mr Crabbie.

The seaweed was made from chicken wire, with heatgunned, spray painted, packaging polystyrene fabric