.jpg)
So excited to take part in the Threads one-day Micro Residency at the Ideas Test in Sittingboune. I have been keen to include natural materials and more sculptural techniques in my textile work for sometime, but felt my recent explorations had become formulaic and followed the style of previous work. Inspired by the Kent countryside, and the residency seemed a good opportunity, to work with the pure material (plaster, pigments, plant and animal hair), and see what happened!
Recently, I have begun looking at Pre-Christian feminine forms. I am particularly inspired by Kit’s Coty (a Neolithic tomb) and other barrow tombs, which have a slit-like entrance and large chamber which could act as a metaphor for the womb. Very often the summer or winter equinox was designed to alight against the tomb entrance, perhaps acting as a metaphor for rebirth.
During the residency I coated several obsolete knitted and textile sculpture in plaster, embedded paper string and twine in plaster, poured plaster over fabric, and made a selection of donut casts – a modern metaphor for the female form.
I feel the next stage is to develop the forms and narrative of the work (philosophy, history, story), combine sculptural materials (stone, slate, etc), and use a range of media to explore the theme (video, photography, time-based, land art and ephemeral).
It was so lovely meeting all the other inspirational artists on the residency. A big thank you to Threads Kent for organising the day, Ideas Test for being so helpful, and to everyone who came to the Open Crit!
