Journal Quilts and More Ferns

The first of my journal quilts this year is inspired by memories of a very difficult period of my life: my husband died eleven years ago and during the first two years after his death I experienced financial hardship, problems with the house which needed repairs I couldn't afford and depression.  I also neglected friendships and became rather hermit-like.  If the piece above, which I have called Dark, looks grim, it is because it is meant to.  I've also deliberately used coarse fabrics - various scrims, including jute scrim, raw edges and silk carrier rods - the black-dyed rods it occurs to me are like huge blocks of something barricading me in from the outside world, which is exactly what happened...

The second phase is where I was beginning to cope - living very abstemiously, paying off debts, decluttering the house and applying for a renovation grant.  However, another setback occurred when I wa diagnosed with endometrial cancer.  This left me feeling raw and vulnerable, hence the title of the second piece, called Raw:

The third piece is after I had been operated on and had undergone radiotherapy and the work on the house had begun.  I was also financially more stable by this time and the title, Mending, describes the time when I was beginning to find things enjoyable again, and becoming less isolated, repairing old friendships and developing new ones.  Hence the brighter colours.  I've also used materials and techniques which suggest healing - the dyed mesh is fabric used for wound dressings; I've used darning and knots.

The fourth journal quilt is called Light, and describes more or less where I am now, having shed some of the previous burdens: treatment for cancer was successful.  The house is still a work in progress, but only in terms of bits needing redecorating - all the serious stuff has been done.  And although I apparently earn well below the national average I can live comfortably within my income.  I am enjoying life and feel comfortable in my own skin for the first time in a long while.

The final project for this month has been a small quilt I made for a display at the Quilt Museum in York of work from our region of the Quilters Guild.  The challenge was to make a long narrow quilt in tints and shades of one colour only.  And somehow I found myself visualising ferns:  here's the quilt - it will be on display in the Aldwark Gallery for the months of July and August:

Finally - Journal Quilts October-December

The final Contemporary Quilt Journal Quilts for 2010 use fabrics I created in Rayna Gillman's amazing masterclass at Festival of Quilts in August.  .  The printed fabrics are combined with hand-dyed poplins, mainly an extraordinarily vivid red I dyed some time ago.  For me red symbolises life and energy and I have tried to use this symbolism in different ways in each one.  Technically, I have also tried two things.  The first is to focus on the use of contrast in composition; the second is to use a more minimalist way of free-machine quilting instead of the all over complex patterning I have done in the past. 

The September one contains a fern in a layered screenprint containing various elements.  I wanted to get the efffect of light through trees and shrubs; those of you who read this blog know that for me ferns are a potent symbol of life and continuity.  I've added two hand-dyed fabrics here, using fused applique, and the whole is lesss simplified than the later ones.

The October JQ uses a ready-made thermofax screen over hand-dyed fabric screened in a low-contrast colour in two directions over corrugated cardboard to make a grid.  I printed several layers of the pattern to create something a little more complex. I also wanted to get the sense of looking through something to see the seedheads (another image of continuity and new life, now I think of it).

The November JQ uses  multiple printings with another ready-made thermofax screen using squares of different sizes over a "failed" screenprinted piece.  This seemed to be like a city to me, with the line where the fabric had folded and not been printed suggesting a river.  Rivers were once the life-blood of many cities, including Leeds, where I live, bringing in goods and raw materials and taking out manufactured items for trade.  Leeds also has many underground streams (one runs down the middle of our back alley and has been known to reappear in exceptionally heavy rain) and the unprinted 'river' under the superimposed thermofax has become one of these, the main river is in the red fabric, and the only quilting other than the rivers is a branching river that has become a plant.  This is the least quilting I have ever done on a piece this size, and the jury is still out on whether it needs more.

The December JQ uses fabric which was not my favourite at the time but which has become the one I like best.  It is a ghost print, i.e. a second one made without reinking, just using the ink left on the screen after the previous print, which had been made using pieces of sequin waste some of which had been removed before the second printing.  The image it made suggested dust, smoke and urban decay and I wanted to contrast this with curves in the red applique; the quilting adds the suggestion of more curves.

I must admit to being fairly pleased with these pieces.  My favourite is the last one; my sister-in-law's is the first.  I'd love to know which you like best.

And - oh yes - these were the first photographs taken on my new Lumix G10 camera which the cats (in a fit of reckless extravagance) gave me for Christmas, so they should enlarge well!  (Though having checked that I've discovered there is such a thing as too clear - apologies for the cat-hairs!)

Breakthrough exhibition: Spring Ferns

Quiltfest - http://www.quiltfest.org.uk/ - is taking place on Llangollen during the month of February.  There are three major exhibitions - Effie Galletly  with a new exhibition A Sense of Place, works by Liesbeth Williams, and selected quilts by members of the Contemporary Quilt Group (a specialist sub-group of The Quilters Guild of the British Isles) in an exhibition called Breakthrough.  Quiltfest is an annual event and is known for the quality of its exhibitions and this year is no exception - so if you can get to Llangollen this month you'll be in for a treat.

One of the quilts selected is by me!  Yes!  Really!  I have seen photographs of the exhibition and there are really amazing quilts in it, many by well-known quilters: I am proud (and excited) to be in such august company.

My quilt is one of my fern pieces.  It's based on the ferns that have grown in my garden for the last century, but every year seems like new when they start to grow - and for me they are potent symbols of growth and survival.  In terms of my development as an artist they also represent a personal breakthrough in that the ferns are all portraits developed from drawings (apart that is from the screenprinted ferns which remind me of the ghosts of the previous year's ferns that hang around till spring):

The fabric for the quilt is hand-dyed (the background had to be overdyed to get the depth of colour I wanted).  The "ghost-ferns" were screenprinted with thickened dye, using a real fern as a mask.  I've been experimenting with ways of attaching applique by machine: in this case I used a tiny zigzag with a line of straight-stitch either side (if I'm going to use something that will show I prefer to make a feature of it).  I've couched hand-dyed thread (six strands of stranded embroidery cotton) round the screen-printed panels.  The same thread is also used to outline the other fernlets (the ones that haven't yet grown).  The whole wuilt is free-machine quilted (I have been practising this and while I'm not yet perfect I have come on!) with Oliver Twists hand-dyed threads.

Ferns

My interest in nature's patterns and observation of the ferns in my garden have led to a deep fascination with these amazing plants.  My ferns, like many others in the neighbourhood, have probably been growing there since soon after the houses were built at the beginning of the twentieth century, but they are mere youngsters compared with the history of ferns in gerneral, which have been around since the Jurassic period.  Good job I like them, as they are not only great survivors but are almost impossible to get rid of.

It started with observational drawings I did last spring, including these two:

For me drawing is not only an intriguing activity which lights up the artist in me but is also a process of observation and discovery sparking questions and a need to know who what and why (I've always felt art and science were closely interlinked and not the separate disciplines many people seem to assume).  One of the first things I observed was how irregular ferns are: a surprise because, like many others who had been fascinated by fractals some years ago, I had thought that ferns were among the most regularly-patterned of plants.  Looking more closely at the growth-patterns of the Male Ferns (the species name) in the following months I discovered a huge degree of variation from the "blueprint" pattern: individual leaves or groups of leaves missing or stubby, for example, especially where they grow near a solid object like a wall or are crowded together (maybe because there's no point in expending energy in growing leaves that have no chance of prospering? I haven't yet found an answer to that question but I'm still looking).

The next drawings took me from naturalistic to stylised:

(apologies for the roughness of these sketches but they are rough notes rather than finished drawings)

I also produced a series of screenrpinted fabric pieces using ferns, hand-dyed fabrics and thickened dyes - here are two examples:

I used these in two quilts: the first is called Nature's Blueprints - and Improvisations.  The ferns here are based on actual ferns in my garden.  It uses the printed panels, my hand-dyed fabrics and machine applique and quilting.  I have not shown it here as I may want to enter it for a show.  There is also a slightly smaller quilt in this series, which I will not show here as it has been selected for the Contemporary Quilt Breakthrough exhibition at Quiltfest in Llangollen next month, so I will not be showing it on my blog until after that exhibition opens.

Then followed some linocuts I did for my printmaking class at Leeds Art college - these are the first two in the series.  The first was intended to be the closest to naturalistic, though it has a strong degree of stylisation.  The print is hand-coloured using watercolour pencils.  The second is strongly influenced by Peter Randall-Page's linocuts (see previous posting)

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During this time I was also producing a series of Journal Quilts for the Contemporary Quilt Group's challenge: the idea was to begin naturalistically and become increasingly abstract.  The first, the September JQ, used a print made by pressing one of the ferns used for screen-prints onto fabric, then free-machine quilting the image produced.  The October journal quilt uses the stylisation and techniques used in the larger quilts.

November's JQ, Fuzzy Fern, uses lines rather than shapes and is made by cutting back layers of scrim:

Whilst the last one December's JQ, which I have called Electric Fern because it reminded me of a neon sign, simply focusses on the basic ferny line, to me essence of fern:

I had intended to give ferns a rest after this, but then I went for a walk in Wytham Woods and saw this clump of ferns growing on a tree:

which set me off thinking again...