MY TEXTILE ART JOURNEY – PART TWO
LIVING IN AN EAST
ANGLIAN VILLAGE – 1986-92
We moved to Walpole in Suffolk from Oxford and lived there in
a cottage for six years. By 1988, I had established sufficient a set of skills
to be taken on as a Patchwork and Quilting tutor by Suffolk Adult Education
services. The quilts I was now making for myself were initially still using
patterned material and traditional designs, as this sampler - created as part
of my teaching - demonstrates.
LIVING IN AN EAST
ANGLIAN BARN IN WANGFORD – 1992-2013 – and then on to ST IVES – and TWO MORE
TRANSFORMING EVENTS
By 1992, I was following an academic path as an Open
University tutor and was also practising as a psychotherapist. In 2002 I made the first of my wedding quilts
- for David and Belinda Siggers - using a traditional Log Cabin design and
plain fabrics inspired by the Amish love of bold colours. David’s mother,
Christine, had sent me from London, in secret and on loan, the tie belt from
Belinda’s wedding dress. That belt had the three main colours of her
traditional Ghanaian garb – bright red, gold, bright blue and bright green.
With the new millennium, I had the confidence to know I was good enough to make
something special for a loved person at a very important moment in their life.
People loved it in its making and Belinda and David love it still. I was
beginning to paint with colours, using fabric, a picture that tells someone’s
story.
In 2005 I made my second wedding quilt and this time for a
god-daughter, Jane, on her marriage to Tom. Still using a traditional Log Cabin
design, this time the dominant colours were blue – Jane’s favourite – and red,
to symbolise the home and hearth at the centre of their future life. Jane was
the eldest of three sisters and as the other two married, I made wedding quilts
for them too. In 2007, Emma married Tim and I used a traditional design called
‘Rail Tracks’ and the colours of pink – Emma’s favourite – and green and brown
to symbolise their dream of rustic bliss. Emma was a geologist working for Rail
Track. In 2015, Tamsyn married Mikal – and a third wedding quilt followed. They
both worked for Transport for London and met when they were assigned to work
for the London Olympics in 2012. So, I
used a bars design which is both traditional and modern with quilting going
down the fabric on blue bars and across on the pink – to symbolise roads and
rail tracks. The edges were quilted with overlapping circles to represent the
Olympic symbol.
In that first decade of the century, I also made a bed quilt
for a friend using Navajo Indian weaving patterns as the inspiration – she had
gifted me a book about them and I was learning the power of their wisdom, not
least their belief that ‘Home is where the Wind knows your Name’.
The next impact on my textiles came after a visit to St Ives
in 2008 as we holidayed in Cornwall. I walked past the School of Painting and
in one of those spontaneous moments that can change a life decided it would be
good to take myself out of my comfort zone. I signed up for one of the Art
courses later that year. Me – the child who couldn’t draw had grown up to enrol
in an art class! And so, I returned to Cornwall and St Ives and had the
privilege of being taught by Roy Ray. I have no memory of what I was doing in
the class on that day but what he said was the second transforming event in my journey.
He looked at my art work and said: ‘You are thinking too much’. I understood
straightaway. He also asked me what I wanted from the course and I told him
about my quilts and how I wanted to move what I did forward. He said he could
see that in what I had been doing in my art - and then all his feedback was
directed towards this end.
After my return to East Anglia, I gave further thought to how
I could act on my need to be freer in my work. One idea came. I would find some
breaking news story with coverage that would last all day and just see what my
response would be. And the day arrived – March 26th, 2011 – the
March for the Alternative in London. I placed a large black plastic bag of
scraps from quilts I had made over many years beside me and sat at the table
with the television in view, tuned to live coverage of the March in London.
Between 10am and 4 pm, I just cut out and sewed together without any plan, just
by instinct for the first time in my life. Roy Ray’s guidance was active. I was
creating my first piece of abstract textile art. This piece means a great deal
to me. It contains so many memories from previous quilts. And many of my
friends who had been on the March have all picked out places where they were
turned back, and then ‘kettled’ - and
where they ended up having a party in Hyde Park.
I exhibited the ‘March for the Alternative’ at the annual
National Quilting Exhibition in the NEC in Birmingham in 2012 – my first entry
there. Two years later – and by now we were living in St Ives - I exhibited
there again. This time it was an abstract piece of textile art called
‘Guantanamo’. It won the Judges’ Choice Award. To my joy, when I returned to
make sure that I had not dreamt the award a steward who I knew worked in a
traditional way was looking at it closely. As she noticed me, she apologised for
blocking my view. I explained it was my quilt. She responded: “How did you
produce this? I can see all those photos of Guantanamo in it.” I was overjoyed
– and even more so when a couple of years later Jo Macintosh found other great
comments online and told me.
