Being But Men

The poem “Being but Men” by Dylan Thomas is a real favourite of mine. It describes the magic of childhood and how we lose a lot of that growing up.

This piece is a personal visual interpretation of that poem using textiles, which took me a considerable time to complete. I used a lot of stitches, beads, small pieces of fabric, all kinds of odds and ends. Some of those have real meaning, like a button of an old family sofa, for instance, or the clapper of a small ceramic bell that broke.

For now, this is my favourite piece. I loved every hour I worked on it, creating a world of abstract but tangible magic. Making something like this is like meditation more than anything.

Some details :

Mountains in my sketchbooks

We spent some time in the Austrian Alps this summer. I became a bit obsessed with the view seen through the window of our holiday home, kept drawing these mountains over and over.

Right now I'm thinking about ways to transfer these sketches to textile work.

Firewood Cap

I might have mentioned this before now and then 😅, but I love knitting small projects, like this hat. 

It’s the Firewood Cap, a design by Lindsey Fowler, and features in her fantastically beautiful book “Salt & Timber, knits from the Northern Coast”.

I used Soft Donegal, from the Irish company Donegal yarns.

Love the design, love the wool, love my new hat!

Passchendaele - The Old lie

I made some monoprints with paint and ink for a workshop led by Sue Hotchkis, which were the inspiration for this collaged piece about the First World War in Flanders. 

When visiting the World War I sites around Ieper and Passendale, I'm still shocked every time by the scale of the horrors memorialised there. The personal stories of fear and suffering are so deeply moving. ‘The war to end all wars’, as we know, sadly didn't turn out to be that, which is exactly what makes it still very relevant. 

Some details : 

Contemporary whitework embroidery

These are samplers of variations on drawn thread work and pulled work, a contemporary version of traditional embroidery techniques. They are part an ongoing project and were first made for a workshop by Tracy A Franklin (another textileartist.org workshop).

I love the result here, it all looks so lovely, though the work of making itself does rather strain your eyes! 

Here I used monks cloth, which makes the work a bit easier:

Filling up my sketchbooks

Creativity gives us a mental boost. But sometimes I just don’t have the ideas, the confidence or even the energy. In those cases, I've found that just filling up my sketchbooks, just starting with some colour and a (small) blank page before me, without expectations, is so soothing and calming and re-energising. Besides, the practice, even if it doesn’t result in a nice sketch but rather an ugly experiment, is what stretches the creative muscles.

I also find that working with another medium, with a sketchbook and some colour, influences and inspires my textile work.

That’s why I’ll be sharing some of my sketches now and then with you, hope you don’t mind!

Scrap sculptures

These bowls and sculptures are made from scrap thread and tiny fabric snippets, all waste material from previous projects. It's a technique I learned from a workshop led by Meredith Woolnough, which basically comes down to using water-soluble fabric and a lot of machine and/or hand stitching.

I love this way of using every last scrap of material as in the Japanese concept of mottainai : a caring culture in which you try to use something for its entire effective life.

The Secret Garden

This collage got made while I was reading “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett, what a wonderful book! I tried to capture the enchanting story, the magic of nature and of place, using fabric, paint, paper, transferred images and stitching. The atmosphere is calm due to the muted colours, but at the same time it’s buzzing with life, adventure, and possibilities. 

The piece grew organically during the reading process, which I love. I think I will try this with other favourite books; it’s an intriguing way to make!

Some details : 

Workshop Week 2023

After Sketchbook Revival 2023, I stumbled upon a new challenge : Workshopweek 2023, another bundle of online lessons with an emphasis on drawing. I enjoyed this immensely again : the diversity of the lessons, the enthusiasm of the teachers and of course just doing the practice. So another huge thank you to the to the generous organisers and teachers!

Here are some of the sketches I made:

Microscopic sea life

I had a lot of fun with this piece I made for a workshop by Mirjam Gielen. Blanket stitch is used to create organic structures. By manipulating the stitches and carefully choosing the colours, it can almost feel like these creatures are as natural as actual microscopic sea life. I added some beads and a piece of sea glass and used satin stitch and stem stitch to complete the piece. 

Choosing the colour palette: