I went to my first embroiderer's guild meeting!
I arrived at New Earswick Folk Hall for the meeting to find it is a Quaker Meeting House!
On going in I was greeted by Mary Burton who welcomed me very warmly. She showed me around. The things these ladies organise are great! Theres workshops in a wide range of subjects, There is going to be xmas card making activities for next month, they have a sales table where you can buy threads and needles etc, a table you can give items away on, and they have the most wonderful library which you can borrow books from for 10p each a month! I came home clutching four books I'd borrowed!
I ended up joining both the national guild and the local branch and am now a fully paid up member of the local embroidery guild!
There was a talk by Pauline Burbidge:
She is a textile artist based in Allerton, Scotland who works mainly in the area of what I call 'art' quilts and her work is very interesting! Her work in held in international collections including the International Quilt Research Centre in the USA.
She takes inspiration from landscape and nature and subtly abstracts the image into beautiful designs.
She talked about her entire creative process, from sketchbook to concept to finished piece, and happily showed her sketches, and working processes, including relief painting, that is quilting and then painting the raised parts of the quilt with fabric paint. It was interesting to seeing craft done with the academic art practices behind it, as thats the method of working I've grown with. I actually find incredibly daunting to start working on something without having planned and done at least a basic sketch first!
The thing I noticed, and really loved in the work she bought to show us, was that on the wall hanging she was exhibiting the dividing lines between the panels didn't have straight edges. They were undulating, which actually enhanced the imagery of the quilt which was a series of panels of an image of a reflection in a scottish harbour.
Her wallhanging 'Wind over Water' is just simply stunning!
She uses natural materials such as cotton and silk. One piece she has done captures feathers between layers of incredibly fine silk!
She's inspired me to go back to my own sketchbook based methods of design. Shall talk more about that another time.
She's kindly allowed me to use some of her photos in this post. They are all owned by her and were taken by Keith Tidball.
I got a copy of the talk schedule for the next year and am looking forward to some of the talks coming up; Theres one next april by Kay Greenlees who wrote "Creating Sketchbooks for Embroiderers and Textile Artists: Exploring the Embroiderers' Sketchbook" (which is going on my xmas wish list!) which I am really really looking forward to!
Now, I need to go design and embroider myself a name badge for the next meeting!
*Photos are from Paulines website and are used with permission.
4 comments:
I have also joined the Embroiderers Guild but only the National one. I am going to my local meeting on the 13th where I will join my local guild as well. I hope that my local guild put on what seems to have been a really good event that you went to. It will be interesting in the future to see what is happening with our two local guilds
It was really nice to go and meet some like minded people!
So glad you enjoyed the meeting, I enjoyed you being there. The talk was brillant and as with you has sparked off so many ideas. I will e-mail you soon. Mary x
Hi Jo,
Glad you enjoyed the day on Saturday. We try to mee the needs of our members, especially those who are new. Look forward to meeting you at our next meeting , with name badge!
Judy Murty
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