Three designer/makers. I will create separate pages for each of the designers that I am using for this chapter.
I chose for my first designer maker, Val Campbell-Harding.
Val was born in Canada in 1932 and died in Southampton in 2006 aged 72. She trained at Goldsmith's Art College and was the author of 24 inspirational books based on embroidery and design. Val was at the cutting edge of the development of free machine and computerised machine embroidery. She collaborated closely with other makers and taught and exhibited widely across the UK and the wider world.
Val broke boundaries in stitch and design throughout her long career. She is spoken of with high regard by those who learned from her and worked with her. I regret not having known her.
Five images of Val's work
Ref: Stitch Dissolve Distort ISBN 978-0-7134-8996-5 p37
Val Campbell-Harding and Maggie Grey - Batsford
The first sample of Val's work that I have used as an example of her work is a piece which was pushing the boundaries of the materials chosen in combination to make the piece. This is a panel made to show distortion by using dragged stitching in fine black thread on calico, builders' scrim, silk carrier rods, silk paper and woven strips of paper.
The colours are muted apart from the black background element and the vertical threads. It is made as a hanging. The message is unknown but in it I see downward movement of water or stone, but there seems to be a fluidity to it. The stitched silk carrier rods in the centre of the piece make me think of a barrier - a fence or dam in the flow downwards.
Ref: Flowers and Plants in Embroidery ISBN0-7134-1313-1 p39
Valerie Campbell-Harding - Batsford
Such a shame that this piece is in black and white but the image is representational and clearly a cabbage. Val describes this as a cabbage, printed onto fabric by painting the cut side (of the cabbage) with fabric paint and then pressing it onto a piece of silk. The fabric was then ironed to fix the paint. The embroidery was then worked in gold threads, couched flat, small areas of padded kid and string wrapped with fine gold thread couched over the top.
I would have loved to have seen this in colour but the stitching seems to speak for itself, showing texture, depth and height. The stitched line directions show the pattern of the cabbage well. I have seen people use vegetables for printing, a technique that I will try myself in time.
Ref: Faces and Figures in Embroidery ISBN 0-8231-4257-4 p105
Valerie Harding - Branford
Here Val has used a drawing of a Mexican carving and made different sized images of the same drawing incorporating the smaller into the larger images and stitching them differently to develop an interesting design. She has quilted the larger face and stitched the smaller using high relief couching with gold threads. The edge of the piece is developed with patchwork.
What is interesting about this piece is the use of several techniques to create a image that denotes power, perhaps wealth because to the use of gold. It is a strong figurative piece.
Ref: Layers of Stitch - contemporary machine embroidery ISBN 0-7134-8653-8 p103
Val Campbell-Harding and Maggie Grey
I chose to use this piece as a sample because of the strong Celtic design and the use of metal, leather and 'conventional' fabrics. Here the vessel (laid flat for photography) is made from transparent fabrics, sandwiched between Wireform and stitched with automatic patterns, then cut and edged with leather thongs and interwoven.
I am drawn to the use of metals and enjoy using metallic threads as well as metal gauze fabrics to produce flexibility, movement and snap into a piece. This piece is symbolic, complex but appears simple and clean and the lack of complication in the look of the work could enable it to be considered meditative like a mandala or similarly repetitive image.
Ref Machine Embroidery Stitch Techniques ISBN 0-7134-5797 X p36
Valerie Campbell-Harding and Pamela Watts - Batsford
Val's sample is made to show that the change of direction and pattern in metallic threads can give an exiting edge to solid machining such as with a basket stitched design. Whilst Val suggests that colours don't need to be changed to create a change in tone, I made a little bag using a range of colours to see what happens with each.
The use of colour, direction and line creates the tonal change within this 'practical' piece - free embroidery has been used and it is the simplicity of stitch combined with the richness of the metal threads that changes what could be quite dull using normal threads to a bag that sings. Automatic patterns could also create interesting shapes done in small squares. Another one to try later!
To the right the page in the book, I have placed the small sample bag that I made using this technique in a simpler form.
My sample using Val Campbell-Harding's design as a source image.
I used black felt as a base and used first gold, then silver, then variegated silver, then variegated gold and back through to the last set of three rows being gold again. I used some of the stitch ideas that Val had suggested. The felt was then trimmed and folded right sides together and a seam made. The bag was turned and the top edge folded in and edged with an automatic stitch.
Strips of black felt left from the bag leftovers were stitched in zigzag three times in gold thread, knotted and attached to the bag. A slightly wider strip of black felt was stitched again with gold in an automatic stitch through it's length and then each side was edged as for the top of the bag. This was then attached to the sides of the bag to create a handle. My phone and lipstick will fit. It is 5" deep and 4.5" wide.
No comments:
Post a Comment