art work

Using scraps

| Chrisse Seager

I was clearing out some cut offs for a friend who wanted some bright fabric for project she is doing. I found some bright colours with circles on them. She didn’t get these!! They have been made up into a small sample that has potential to be scaled up.

Pieced Circles

As I was only experimenting, the pieces are just ironed onto a iron-on Vilene. Not a technique to be repeated as it was quite difficult to make the pieces meet cleanly. The patches need to be properly pieced for future pieces.

Zoom has become the latest social media tool for everyone worldwide. It is no longer the preserve of business communities. My husband is even using it for his virtual pub evenings. All attendees sit with a drink and nibbles and the conversation isn’t much different (better) to it was in the pub.

Interestingly enough, it has changed the way my quilting group, CQ West, is communicating. We have had to be more disciplined about talking at our meetings. Side chats are impossible – a good thing!! Overtalking each other has been minimised by the Mute button. Will Zoom be one of the tools we use when life normalises? Time will tell.

Hope you are finding time to experiment. Also that you are keeping well and safe

New Work

| Chrisse Seager

Last week’s real work is nearly finished. I have completely quilted it and cut back the reverse applique. I have cut it almost to size. The jury is now out – do I bind it, do I face it or go with my current inclination to heavily stitch the edges and then cut it to the exact size, 70cm wide and 100cm high. Any form of binding or facing will be be a bit lumpy. The photo isn’t great as I used my phone.

Zulu Bracelets
Detail before I cut back the circles.

I hope that you are keeping well and safe where you live.

With best wishes

Two arty days

| Chrisse Seager

My iPad has just trashed my last complicated post!! So I will try again.

Yesterday, we went to Liverpool to see the Jackson Pollock exhibition at Tate Liverpool. It was a long way, but I am really glad I went – some of his we’ll know works that have been made into posters and some black black drawings I wasn’t aware of. At the end of the gallery, my head was buzzing.  Also a good catalogue.

Then, we were automatically taken into another exhibition of Glenn Ligon and artists he admires. I found I did know some of his text works but had never attributed them to him. The other artists’ work included one of Boetti’s world maps and one of his text embroideries, an Andy Warhol and a Chriss Oliffie elephant Dung sketch. It was not a cohesive set of works and had no explanation of the chosen works. It was also not well curated. 

This is the second time, I have been to a main exhibition at the Tate Liverpool and then steered into a lesser exhibition with no way out. They did the same at the end of the Mondrian exhibition. I am sure they have a reason but when your head is full of great ideas and images, it is disappointing not to be able to just finish at that point.

Today, we went to Birmingham and saw another interesting mix, William Morris and Andy Warhol. The reason for the dual show was too aserteric for me but it was a good show. Lots of Andy’s icon works and some very large, very beautiful tapestries made in Morris’ factory. There was also a very long piece of wallpaper which showed the development of the screen print processes – I counted 16 different colours. 

 No photography allowed so no pictures.  FOQ later this weekend lots of networking  – very busy.

Decision Time

| Chrisse Seager

This summer has been proved difficult to focus on my creative work – too much travelling, mostly on the boat and demands made by elderly parents. I have definitely lost direction so last weekend I planned for at least the next six months. I decided my priorities are the exhibitions I am committed to and my sketchbooks. Book making will have to wait until I have more time at home.

I should have put my entry into the Fine Art Quilt Masters 2015 online before now – it did not get accepted but will be going to Munch in the Autumn with zero3, a group that accepted me as a member in March. Here it is – “Private Thoughts”

Private Thoughts - Christine Seager

The parchment scrolls hold my own thoughts on my creative process. Here is a detailed photo of the scrolls.

Private Thoughts _Christine Seager detail

I was sorry not to get selected but I think it is good that this year we will see new makers.

I am halfway through my other quilt for Munich and hopefully you will see it soon. As well as my pretend writing, it has some markings with my Matthew Harris tool.

Hope you are having a good summer.

Matthew Harris workshop

| Chrisse Seager

Recently I went on a workshop run by Matthew Harris at Bobby Britnell’s Moor Hall Farmhouse studio. The studio is in the middle of nowhere – beautiful countryside and lots of sheep, mostly on the road. 

I am a great fan of Matthew’s work and was delighted to get a place on the course. I wasn’t quite prepared for what we did!! We had to take something with us that was no longer in use – suggestions were an old shoe, handbag or anything else that we could take apart. I took the head of a carpet cleaner we threw out some years ago – not sure why the head remained in the garage. So the rules were – we had to take the object apart completely. Then number all the different components. Using dice we had to select 3 bits to make a drawing tool. I ended up with a spring, a bolt and a small rod which I sort of wrapped together. Then we had to use it to draw the original object from memory – of course, I forgot to take a photo of the original!! There were some fabulous drawings from the real artists in the room. Here is mine at the top of the photo below.

  
In discussions with Matthew towards the end of the course, I hit an interesting problem. Matthew wanted to know where I planned to take what I had been doing into my work. He was concerned that I said that it was unlikely to be incorporated in the near future, except in my sketchbooks. I know that when I did a Denise Lach course four years ago, it took a long time for the concepts of her text as texture to be incorporate in any of my work. I need lots of time to mull over and play with it to make it my own. 

So yesterday, I tried to use the same tool to draw on fabric. I wanted to get a similar image discharged on black and miserably failed. The tool doesn’t work well with either formosol or discharge paste. It needed something stiffer and gooey so I switched to textile inks – still difficult but much better. I now have a pile of fabric like the bottom half of the photo above. Next step is to thickener up the formosol paste and see if that will work.

Better get on with it. Hope you are having a creative day.

Monoprinting on tea bag paper

Image | | Chrisse Seager

20130529-154355.jpg

Yes, I have been very neglectful of my blog. I have been on the boat where we have limited Internet access – my excuse.

However, at home for a few days and have just been given a very large bundle of tea bag paper – very fragile by a friend so I had to play for 10 minutes. It took me much longer to clear up the mess. But the results were worth it – what fabulous marks.

Strathmore workshop 1

| Chrisse Seager

I loved doing this.  I had planned to do this on fabric but the spray bottles I had were squirt bottles and made a mess of my first attempt. I ended up tray dyeing the fabric.

So I bought some new spray bottle – travel ones from Boots and started again on paper.  Really pleased with this one and enjoyed doing it – difficult to decide when to stop.

Here is the link if you want to try out the workshops:

http://www.strathmoreartiststudio.com/