Rust Retreat

With a month since my last post you won't be surprised to learn that we have been away.  The leisure part of being away featured our annual pilgrimage to St Ives, more of which in a later post.   The less leisurely but equally enjoyable part was a weekend working retreat with Alice Fox organised by the Contemporary Quilt Group of the Quilters Guild.  Winter School, as it was called, was based at Alston Hall in a beautiful part of Lancashire.  

The venue was ideal, comfortable, bright rooms and excellent food.  I think we all came away a few pounds heavier.

There were two workshops going on, Philippa Naylor with machine quilting and Alice Fox exploring rusting on fabric and paper.  In addition a group of ladies came to concentrate on their own work as a retreat.  

Alice Fox was my chosen tutor and she proved to be a supportive and inspiring tutor.  We started by exploring rusting with various agents but most particularly tea of various types and red wine.  

Very quickly we accumulated a growing collection of fabrics wrapped around rusty objects of all shapes and sizes.  Papers were also treated and in some cases used as drip sheets for the damp parcels.

You can probably imagine the sense of impatience we all felt waiting for the packages to dry and the rust reaction to happen.  In some cases wet parcels were brought home and several days allowed to elapse before they were unwrapped.

Where the fabrics had dried we unwrapped with bated breath.

 Above, prints on cartridge paper.

This piece above had been previously dyed with seaweed and was wrapped around an old ratchet.  The biggest effect is the sculptural creasing that has happened.  
 

 I am delighted with this lovely vintage hanky which was folded around washers.  There are some beautiful marks from the washers and some delicate flow marks from the liquid.

 I think the piece above was hacksaw blades.

 Silk noil wrapped round a chain-linked necklace.

 These strong marks have been formed where a strip of fabric was wrapped round a strip of metal and clamped with mini bulldog clips.

This piece is very delicately marked after red wine was dribbled over old cotton wrapped round an exhaust pipe.  

After dyeing various fabrics we looked at applying stitch both before and after dyeing.

 This piece above is all paper and still requires more stitch.

 This piece above frayings of thread couched down and then the piece rust dyed.

Finally we explored concertina book making incorporating the dyed papers and scraps of fabric and stitch.

I really like this little book, which needs further work but has lots of potential.  The patterning on the paper came from fine wire wool arranged on the paper.  

I have previously worked with rust and always got the strong orangey marks from it but rust promoted by tea gives softer marks and a range of colours is achievable.  It is also likely to be less toxic than the orangey kind.  Alice's workshop gave the illusion of running at a very sedate pace but we achieved a lot and had time to think where this technique might lead.  I've alreadybeen shopping for some wired wool and rustable hardware. I've got a good collection of rusty bits found in the street, on the beach and in gardens but I am always on the lookout for more.  It will be very pleasant too, to sit and stitch into some of the pieces made at the weekend.  Thank you, Alice and all my classmates for a great working weekend.

Arts and Crafts 2

The second Arts and Crafts property we visited recently was Blackwell Hall in Lancashire.

Blackwell Hall was built as a holiday home for the Manchester brewery magnate Sir Edward Holt by the architect Baillie Scott.  The house is very elegant and gracious and is run on very welcoming lines with the visitor allowed to wander freely from room to room and to spend time sitting in the window seats enjoying the beautiful views of Lake Windermere which it overlooks.  If you hover over the headings on the web page for Blackwell  you can read the present and past history of the house.

You are aware of the beauty of this house before you even go through the door.

I don't think I've ever seen chimneys like these before.

As an added bonus to our visit there was a sculpture installation in the grounds by Laura Ellen Bacon.

If you click on the last photo you should be able to read more about Laura's inspiration.  I don't know whether she intended the two willow sculptures to be viewed incontinuation as if the inside of the house is morphing with the outside but I'm sure she would have been aware of this view.

As with Wightwick Manor photographs are not allowed due to copyright attached to some of the objects on loan to the house but I did snaffle a couple of pics (naughty!).

Just one of the many window seats where you can while away pleasant hours enjoying the view.

I really liked this beautiful stained glass window. 

If you have a look around the Blackwell website you will be able to find further photographs of the interior.  The house is beautiful inside and out and has an unusual Great Parlour which is effectively split into different areas by the arrangement of furnishings, shortened walls, seating areas and carpeting.  You can see an image of part of the room on the Events page of the Blackwell site.

We spent a very relaxing time in Blackwell Hall and rounded it off with naughty but scrummy cream scones in the comfortable cafe.  As we left I was looking up at the building again trying to soak up every last view and my eyes spotted these residences waiting for their occupants to return,

I would think by now they are refurbished and busy with new life.

Our holiday featured quite a lot of wildlife

This duck obviously has an identity problem and thinks it's a dog lol

These ducks wouldn't believe me when I said I didn't have any bread and continued to give me a good peck!

Aaaaaah!  These sweet ducklings were on the site we were staying on.  I think she had 14 altogether.  So sweet!

PS In addition to the sculpture installation outside there was also an exhibition on the second floor titled "Woven From Nature: Four Contemporary makers".  The artists involved are basket-weaver Mary Butcher and tapestry weaver Jilly Edwards,and Jo Mcdonald and Maggie Smith.  The exhibition was varied while having the connecting thread of weaving and Jo McDonald's work with paper was both impressive and emotive.  If you follow the link to her site you will see many of the pieces on display at Blackwell.

Shelley Rhodes

I think I may have mentioned our trip to Lancashire and the fact that it was prompted by the lure of a workshop with Shelley Rhodes.  I had seen Shelley's work at the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace last year and hoped that her workshop would challenge me and lead me on in my quest for better self expression in my textile work.

Shelley has a spacious and welcoming studio in the beautiful countryside near Carnforth Lancashire.

The studio is the main building with roof fanlights and is a lovely stone building with exposed wood rafters. I think there were 8 of us for the workshop but the day was so busy that there was barely time to say hi.

The workshop was titled 'Fabulous Fragments' and before we went Shelley asked us to collect items from which to work in a small box and to photograph them in various groupings and print off A4 images.  It didn't take much thought for me to decide to take a selection of beach finds.

We went through a series of hectic exercises to enable us to study a selected item and consider the marks it revealed and also to produce papers from which to work later and to distress some of the printed images.

We had a brainstorming session so that we could introduce ourselves and say what had interested us by our chosen 'fragments'.  I settled on working with the greeny shell in the box and I also used the encrusted piece of plastic I found on the beach in Cornwall some time ago.

From the shell I made marks on a piece of paper I had constructed but  I didn't think to photograph it in its entirety before I cut into it later. The following photographs pretty much show the whole piece but in sections.

Some of the marks above were already on the papers I used.  The dark ink marks and various pastel marks were part of the process.  We also started to join pieces of prepared papers and fabrics together to work towards either a finished piece or a series of small pieces,

These holes were meant to echo the holes in the plastic and would reveal the underlying layers when used in a piece of work.

The final piece is made up of linen, a piece of my printed paper, hand made paper and tracing paper  and was worked into with stitch.  Clearly it needs a lot more work and will probably remain as a sample.  Shelley suggested that I grow it vertically and I may do that when I have the time to work with it further. 

At Shelley's suggestion I used 'L-shapes' to isolate areas of the larger piece of constructed paper and came up with some interesting sections which were attached to a backing with tiny gold pins, a tiny piece of the encrusted plastic being added as a unifying link.

I think the top photo is upside down but it sort of works either way.  I think these warrant further work and may even develop into larger textile pieces.  I'm not sure how big the last image will enlarge to but I was fascinated to see the detail in the plastic after I took the photo.  The shapes there are reminiscent of stitch and take me back to micro to macro of Jo Budd's workshop last year at Summer School.  

We also made time for a little monoprinting on lens tissue and other surfaces exploring our marks further

No time to include these in any work on the day but potential nonetheless. 

I am still digesting everything we did on the day but I have lots of ideas to take forward.  The workshop was full on and two days would have been wonderful but I was glad I made the journey.  Shelley is a calm yet stimulating teacher and it would be great to work with her again to develop some of these ideas. 

More from Lancashire and two beautiful Arts and Crafts houses soon.