2011 January | Janet Edmonds

Mulberry silk thread named after me

Janet Edmonds , “the most expensive yarn of our collection, a fine mulberry silk”, was named after me, by a German student of mine.

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Georges House Gallery

A textile exhibition is showing at the Georges House Gallery, Folkestone, from 14th – 26th October 2011. ’1:4 4:1 collaborative art exchanges’ shows the work of Janet Edmonds, Gwen Hedley, Nicholette Goff, Cheryl Papasian and Barbara Reast. These images show the work that I will be exhibiting

Collaboration 1

340 x 260mm/410 x 300mm mounted

This was the first collaboration in this series. Working completely flat is something of a novelty for me as I usually have a dimensional aspect to the work I do., so it was a challenge to keep within the brief.

I worked with Gwen Hedley on this piece. I chose three main fabrics to re-cycle, a blue and white very finely striped shirting, and some soft denim together with some small pieces of floral printed fabric. We shared the fabrics so that we both had the same to work with. Piece by small piece we added and stitched in turn until we felt that it was finished. Threads were kept to a narrow selection too.

collaboration 1 detail 1 Collaboration 1 detail 2

Journey

100mm x 1.500mm

I so enjoyed making the two collaborative pieces that I decided to make another piece myself and chose to repeat the dimensions of the long thin piece.

I selected a few fabrics that I had coloured and printed and included a bit of commercially printed fabric too. The threads were kept to a narrow selection of colours – reds and blue/greys. I wanted the piece to fade away in tone , from dark strong blues and reds becoming lighter as the piece grew longer. I included small circles that often appear in 2D work. these were sometimes printed, and sometimes cut from fabric or stitched. I have been very much inspired by the work of Dorothy Caldwell whom I had the good fortune to meet whilst I was in America teaching. She exhibited her work at the Quilt show at the NEC, Birmingham in2009.
Journey
Journey Journey detail

Journey detail

Collaboration 2

100 x 1.500mm

This is the second collaboration in this series. In each case, we both worked on similar pieces concurrently. Once again, we each chose two fabrics to re-cycle one had to be striped as we were going to work with strips of fabric to make a long piece. I chose some pillow ticking and a very finely striped red cotton fabric. these were added to a calico backing to give some support whilst stitching. Thread colour was limited to red, white and blue. The work was sent backwards and forwards between us and very soon grew to the required length.

Collaboration 2 detail

Journey detail

For more information about this gallery go to www.strangecargo.org.uk

Contemporary Stitch Workshop

The CSW was set up in response to a demand for the opportunity for textile artists to develop personal practice after emerging from a qualification course. This is often a daunting time when working alone without the formality of a course, structure is difficult.

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Taking Textiles Further

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Pentagon Box

Inspired by the elaborately decorated boxes of centuries gone by, Janet Edmonds’ richly stitched box is embellished with a mixture of hand and machine embroidery.

photos
by Ian Cole

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