Guest artist .

Sue's son Tim regularly runs along the beach at Portishead .He collects driftwood and takes it home .

Once it is dry enough he will look at it and allow it 'to speak to him'. He embraces imperfections, holes s

and cracks.It is then worked on the lathe to create beautiful pieces.

All that is left is to wax to bring out the beauty of the wood.

He exhibited with us at NSAW and drew much admiration from our visitors.

 

Books, cards and origami.

Fumi had carried on working on her 100 day book adding in stitch and embellishing the fabric offcuts.It is such a joy to see the colours and meticulous stitching.

She had been printing with her Gelli plate using plants then adding organza and stitch .

Plants also came into use for these cards

and finally some exquisitely done origami ,displayed in a see through frame so no hiding !

 

Inspiration .

Sue remembers doing an enamelling course at UWE with Guy Begby .She had got out her samples ,which we have to say who wouldn't .She was thinking they might prove inspiration for new work .We agreed ,some ideas might include wrapping using the top samples for colour ways,

The scrafitto ones might lead to some pattern making and the ones below some embroidered panels involving mythic beasts ,or Sue's embellisher might be employed.

Whatever Sue decides they are lovely just to look at and handle.

Jenn had unearthed her Lorna Crane work based on nature.She had made another pot from the fabrics ,making a coiled base utilising fabrics which were not very inspirational.

Sally brought her Somerset Levels piece worked on paintable canvas .A very evocative scene with its pollarded trees seemingly paddling in water.

 

Limpets, rust and natural colour.

Liz brought her smock ,made especially for her in Gambia ,but made in Strip cloth rather than usual indigo strips .She had trussed it up with saw blades found in skips and dunked it into the sea at St.Ives .She had begun to embellish it with limpet rings found on her many beach combing trips.

Her other pieces were created from work done on a FATT online course with Claire Benn .Using oxides collected from Porthmeor beach, and bought pigments mixed with soy milk she had painted linen.

The process is much more involved than described here but the results are intriguing.Liz may add some stitch or not, they stand alone as pieces.

 

100 day bird book .

Carol had been creating welcome cards for her daughter's friends who had new babies.They are delightful and such a personal gift, especially from such a talented stitcher. An original to be treasured.

She had also been adding to her 100 day stitch book ,creating a page for each of the birds that visit her garden.

We thought they would make lovely individual framed pictures. We suggested that she might have them printed by Prinfab as Debby had done and create a book from them.

Either way they are a personal record of her garden.