White Withies at Nature in Art from Susi Bancroft on Vimeo.
Try to catch a glimpse of the little white butterfly! https://vimeo.com/137697426
Woad prayer flags at Nature in Art from Susi Bancroft on Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/137697742
The woad is fading as it drifts into the atmosphere in the sun, rain and wind…
Inside Out – the Brunel Broderers Exhibition for 2015 at Nature in Art
My Outside work…
In the garden the white withies stand tall as natural guardians – a thread wrapped around the slender top of each…
The turmeric and tea prayer flags … sending out messages of peace and hope..
The woad fading to palest blue in the rain and wind …
Some little film clips to follow soon… and a post about the inside work too!
The film is made and it is time to share it and talk a little about my approach to my film making..
I want to capture and share what I call ‘ephemeral fragments’ – seeing a flowering bluebell wood is, for me, a truly magical breath-taking experience which is all the more precious because it lasts for so little time. I wanted the prayer flags to become, for a few moments, an integral part of such beauty and to send out their messages of peace drifting through that atmosphere.
My film-making processes are simple. I strongly remember a special family gathering in Canada with my grandparents and all the family when I was 4 (the week of my 5th birthday) and the home-made cine films we watched together – the laughter, the comments, the stories – and the projector, the screen, the spools of film (at one point spilling onto the floor) …
I like the raw presence when I work of evidence of me behind the camera – the slightly shaky quality that I as an amateur bring – it is reminiscent of those cine films.
So – here it is. It will be part of the Brunel Broderers Exhibition Inside Out at Nature in Art from 11 – 31 August (though not available to view from Thursday 20th and starting again on Tuesday 25th)
Prayer Flags in a Bluebell Wood
PS – Click on HD for best quality!
A working studio week again – which I love – so relaxed and creative
My first experience of woad dye – breathtaking as the cloth emerged into the air and transformed into this ethereal blue (from The Woad Centre)
Drying gently in the sunshine
This cloth was dyed for my prayer flags work – of which more to come!
The 9th and last prayer flag for my inside piece for the Brunel Broderers Exhibition ‘Inside Out’ at Nature in Art
So now an experiment – I am going to try to caste a beeswax backing piece on which to pin the 9 flags in a 9 patch. Have decided to use scrim as a base to strengthen it and see how it goes. The work uses embroidery stitches as a language for peace (all the prayer flag posts on here talk more about this – will go through the posts and add a tag!)
Why wax? Bees have been a constant source of natural world inspiration threading through the timeline of the work, and my attention has been drawn back time and again to thinking of how to protect them. I am currently enjoying having a go at the Friends of the Earth Bee Count
Meanwhile, for outside, I am working at 200 flags for the grounds…. more of this to come in various posts – about what stitch I settled on and why, what natural dyes I have tried, meditative stitch, and another ‘inside’ piece – the filming of them in a bluebell wood – all will come together for the show and appear as glimpses on here over the coming weeks
I took a deep breath – sometimes you just have to give something a try… and I am stunned and so unbelievably excited to say that I have work in the current juried Exhibition Drawn at the Royal West of England Academy
The RWA text states: Drawn, continuing to raise the profile of drawing as both an autonomous discipline and an interdisciplinary tool. As a means of communication and navigation, drawing has taken on a universality and accessibility unlike any other medium. It is a building block of creativity, key to the visualisation and translation of ideas and practices, fundamental in making, doing, testing, designing, thinking, playing and living.
The pieces are a triptych of work – combining free machine drawing, pen and hand stitch and are about hand washing in hospital – Mending My Ways
The Exhibition is on till June 7th and accompanies a truly inspiring collection to view – Drawing On
I blogged about it here too on the Brunel Broderers site!
Small stitches holding together and forming a new cloth – thin fine soft layers and scraps become one..
..watching the ripples forming as the patterns of stitch grow…
‘love is in the air’ – french knots lightly giving enough to read the text at a second look
So busy absorbed in making these that I forgot to take pictures! The sun shone so warm and brightly on the rich pinks and reds that interestingly the rippling patterns are clearer than the stitches and threads!
A glimpse of kantha stitched pieces in progress for an Exhibition starting at Heart Space Studios today!
Thinking about my range of chosen stitches and their part in my stitching language – the meanings each have for me.
These will form part of an Exhibition at Nature in Art with the Brunel Broderers in August this year.
boostitch 