A group of internet artists from all over the place who have decided to give each other a challenge every few weeks, on a theme chosen by each in turn. We have different ideas and styles, but share a love of textiles, and want to have some fun.


Thursday 19 July 2012

Landmarks - Burren Roads

Late again, so here it is Burren Roads:



First I made a silkscreen of a large map of the Burren which I printed onto dyed cotton.



I took some of the lovely images from headstone and old ruins around the Burren area and quilted them and attached them by hand using really large stitches.



Added some more heads and then quilted the map and background.



Here;s the other head.


This was from an archway decorated with numerous heads, wonderful piece of carving.






Monday 16 July 2012

Kviste

Hi, here is another new member of the group. My name is Susanne  and i'm pleased to join you. I live in germany  and my blog is  "flicKwerk" .
The theme "landmarks"brought lots of ideas, but after looking up for a definition at wikipedia, i decided to interpret it in this meaning: Originally, a landmark meant a geographic feature used by explorers and others to find
their way back or through an area.
Every other year or so i'm in Norway for cross-country skitours, and when you are there out in the white nowhere, you're happy that some people did their job and marked the track with "kviste". This are big branches or very small trees, stuck into the ground to guide you to the next cabin. Man-made landmarks, and for me "kviste" is also a synonym for wonderful days in the norwegian mountains.

I never made such a pictorial quilt before, and i had some ideas to make it more abstract, but first it wanted to be made this way. Maybe there's another version following...
On the left is a piece i found in my stash, a leftover from another project, representing the tracks in the snow, on the right the snow-covered landscape, with the tracks along the waymarked route. Between both parts is a buttonholes placket of a old bedsheet, this stands for the cozy cabin and the good sleep that waits for you at the end of a long and cold day.




America Now - Written On The Body

Hi all, new member here (in case you didn't see on the FB page). I'm Kit Lang, I blog at Kit Lang Fiber Art and I'm glad to be here!

When I read "land/marks" what immediately popped into my head was "I claim this land in the name of..." 



As I tried to suss out that meaning over the next couple of weeks, concurrently, I thought about how men are dictating women's rights in the United States - how they've claimed women's bodies and legislated them, and how women's rights are being eroded as a result. 

I thought about all the ways that popular culture and media stereotypes enforce and contribute to the apparent apathy regarding that erosion. (We Canadians are similarly apathetic unfortunately.)





And I thought about how the words used to describe us, the institutionalized enforcement of gender stereotypes, the laws, and societal "rules" that are impressed upon us like markings, like tattoos - like they're written on these bodies that are claimed by men and legislated against by men. 

I thought of these nameless legislators standing on a pile of naked bodies of women with their flag, claiming them as their property to do with what they will  - and that is how this 'land/marks" piece came about.



This piece is part of my Whitewashed series, and so the background is constructed of pieced bricks in "girly" fabrics, quilted and then whitewashed with acrylic paint.  

The cross is made of needle felted roving on a poly cotton background...



which I then stitched to death with several different coloured threads

and the woman - an iconic "woman" with large breasts and exaggerated curves, was made from painted lutradur with stitched tattoos on her body - the names we are called, that turn us into objects, or animalize or otherwise reduce us - 



...along with the names of women who have most recently been egregiously, publicly reduced in the defence of our bodies, as well as some of the items that are on those bills in various states




America Now - Written On The Body, is 55 x 31" (140 cm x 79 cm). 

Thanks, Felicity for an inspiring theme! And thanks for having me in your group. 

Kit

Landmarks Challenge - Burren Walls

My landmarks challenge is based on the stone walls in the Burren.

I've recently finished making a quilt which is part of a group entry for this year's Festival of Quilts. After cutting my FoQ quilt to size I had a good few pieces of quilted fabric left-over, so I decided to incorporate them into my landmarks challenge (waste not, want not!)

The left-over strips were satin-stitched together and I added a very thin binding to finish off the quilt.



6th Challenge - Memory

It falls to me to set the sixth challenge and as I will not have computer access for a while I thought I should post it now so everyone has time to think about it and get started.

I was looking through a workbook this morning and found a photograph of a painting I did about a happy time in my childhood and the word 'Memory' came to mind so that is the theme for the next challenge. (I should say that my childhood was generally happy).

As we have not yet all revealed for 'Landmarks' can I suggest a reveal date for 'Memory' of 1st October?   


Landmarks

Or in my case, land marks.  I have to admit for this challenge that, while I have had various ideas buzzing about in my brain, time has obliged me to combine my Festival of Quilts piece with this challenge. 

I so enjoyed making the piece for the Archi-texture challenge that I felt I wanted to continue to work with some of the techniques I had used there for my Festival quilt and thus for this challenge.

I called the quilt 'Change' and it is about the changes wrought by the elements and the environment and looks at the marks and textures of stone walls and their attendant growths of lichen and moss.


The colours are actually nearer to a warm ochre than the white-ish colour showing in the image.

 
The quilt was made by gessoing the surface and adding newspaper cuttings, lace, scrim and other fabrics and the surface was then soaked and sprayed with silk and fabric paints.  Some of the crocheted lace was a bit too heavy and I was pleased to find that when I peeled it off it left a good ghost image that I could develop with stitch.  I used free machining and hand stitching to describe the stone and lichen.  Some printing was also done with found objects, notably a piece of polystyrene that seagulls had pecked into a lovely texture and which made some wonderful marks.

As usual with these challenges I have a whole raft of ideas that could be developed along the theme of Landmarks.  I just need the time to use them all!  
 


land(marks) earth pleiades

this is my piece for the latest International Art Quilt Challenge:  it was my turn to choose the theme - land(marks).


this reflects two recurring themes in my work:  the landscape of Central Australia with it's red dirt and dry riverbeds and the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters constellation. 
i needlefelted alpaca fleece from local breeders, Melrose Alpacas (thanks Fiona!) onto silk chiffon and then machine stitched with silk thread. It was eucalypt dyed and handstitched onto the black linen background with silk, perle 8 and stranded cotton.

it's 41x33cm