We all do
it, we make up stories, we imagine things, we construct a narrative around an
object or a moment. This may be a true story or it may be completely imaginary.
This fascination with the difference between imagined realities and real realties
and how we portray ourselves and our place in the world lay behind my exhibition
proposal for 'Fabricated Narratives'.
The artists participating in this exhibition have been
selected for their previous connection to this theme in their chosen media.
Their challenge is to create works which examine their own ‘fabricated
narratives’ or simply fabricate stories for the objects and stains of objects. Whether
historically accurate or playfully inventive, each work in the exhibition is
part of a fabricated story. There is much new science which helps us to
understand both the psychology and the philosophy of how and why we construct
narratives to help us through life which the artists will be asked to
investigate as a part of this exhibition.
The artists (Helene
Carpenter, Di Halstead, Marianda Twydell and myself) have varied
backgrounds – textiles, paint, design, photography, sculpture and book art
amongst others and these skills will be not only used to create the artists
individual ‘fabricated narratives’ but to collaborate with the artists using
other media to create ‘fabricated narratives’ in shared ways.
As a textile artist think I will be approaching this through
the long standing traditions of reusing and repurposing materials through
darning, slips, boro, kantha, pojaki and other patchwork and stitch techniques
used all over the world to conserve precious materials and to repurpose them. However,
there is a long way between concept and outcome and I always keep my endpoint fluid
at these early stages, so we shall see!
As a part
of the progress towards ‘Fabricated Narratives’ (which will initially be
exhibited at the Knitting and Stitching Shows in London, Dublin and Harrogate
2018), we have to each share a smidgeon of our skills and interests. Not so
much in the expectation that we will use these in our projects, but to help us
to understand each other’s work in a more visceral way than simply talking
about what we do. We hope that these sharings and the time discussing work and
approaches will create an ongoing connection between us.
Marianda
wanted us to delve into one of her passions which is indigo dyeing. Indigo
dyeing is both ancient and fascinating. If you have ever a had a session with
an indigo vat, you will know exactly what I mean. It is the magic of the dye.
To watch the colour change from a beautiful green (which I would love to be
able to make stay as it is such a wonderful emerald which tones perfectly with
the dark blues of the indigo), oxidising through to the classic indigo.
On a previous
indigo dyeing session most of us there ended up getting (partly) undressed and
dyeing as many of the clothes we were wearing as we could! Imagine a group of
us emerging from a village hall dressed in coats with little left on underneath
and bags full of wet blue fabric – memorable!
With
Marianda we were more restrained with our clothing, but more experimental in
the variety of materials. We dipped various fabrics, fibres, papers, threads,
bones, shells and almost anything else we could into the vats. Some were
shibori folded or stitched in advance, others plunged into the vats as they
were. Helene, being a painter used the dye as paint and with some beautiful brushes
and some masterly brush techniques began to explore using indigo directly onto stretched
fabric.
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| Helene's marbles all tied up |
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| Fabric folded and clipped |
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| Unfolding silk from around a pipe. |
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| Hanging out to dry |
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| The fabulous green showing when the fabric is first lifted from the vat |
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| Then everything turns blue! |
If you want to keep up to date with Fabricated Narratives, the easiest way is @fabricatednarratives on fb. See you there, or at the exhibition.
Cheers.
