A delicate rhythm

Delicate Ryhthm 2 from Susi Bancroft on Vimeo.

Walcot Chapel Working Studio – 15 – 21 July 2013

Building on ‘a delicate rhythm’

Walcot Chapel

A working studio week..

Cool Chapel – beautiful light with sun, shadows and dapples

The quiet of us working – and the regular lying down on yoga mats to rest and reflect

My  ‘delicate rhythm’ work – perfect setting

I have been filming the work – it is a wonderfully liberating and creative experience to respond to a space for a week, to attune to the work within it and have the freedom to develop – all our work is evolving as the days go on

I filmed the pieces outside strung from the portico entrances, moving gently in the breeze..

Will put clip of film up in the next few days…

 

Collaboration

A couple of weeks ago I spent a fascinating day with Brenda Miller and Belinda Downes – do have a look at the links!

Belinda has this wonderful shop in Wotton-under-Edge and is a talented and creative textile artist and book illustrator. Paper and Cotton is a work of art in itself!

Brenda, who works in film, installation, textiles and research, invited us to participate in her latest work – a film conversation about creative processes…

We  stitched and talked….. more later as Brenda develops her work

 

pure silk twist

 

The set up – tricky to capture! The middle image shows the amazing Poorman Project laptop Stevie made especially for the show, from which the images ran on slideshow and the audio played – a little, fragile, organic being – ‘made from bits of nothing’ he says – showing the inner workings like the inner thinking in my mind…

Suited Audios

 

These 2 audio pieces are taken from my Buttonhole Sketchbook and were playing at Suited

They are fragments of my journalling – writing that accompanied the stitch pieces and played alongside a slideshow of images and the display of the sketchbook itself…

Suiting cloth

There are pulls and twists to the mouths

tucks, shadows, ripples…

insignificant? …. potent?

A humble buttonhole – hidden by a bright button or a discreet one

Do we glance at, appreciate or pause to admire a fine hand-made buttonhole and acknowledge the craft and skill in it’s making?

What is our relationship with tailoring? What do we value and cherish in our clothing?

What of mass-produced fashion –  the skilled seamstress, the home-worker, the factory worker? Safe conditions, trade unions, care and compassionate attention?

These buttonholes are randomly stitched, uneven, deliberately stitched with a line across the centre

Closed mouth, closed eyes, stitched shut in vibrant thread

The art of tailoring I learned much about during this work

Exploitation and ‘throw-away’ fashion I thought about constantly – there is work for me to follow through here – a responsibility as an artist to find ways of promoting discussion and awareness.

The tragedy in Dhaka, Bangladesh happened at the end of this body of work and I grieved – I will not forget or lose the opportunity to work more on this….

made by faeries?

The waistcoat for the Mayor – made by faeries? Whose hands worked so hard to make such exquisite beauty?

A skirt of silk dyed with turmeric, seed beads, paper bodice dyed in tea – machine and hand stitch – and winged shoulder details made of garlic bulb leaves….

detail from Suited exhibition sketchbook piece