Showing at Stroud International Textile Festival 09

Detail of 'Pages of my Journal'

I am showing at two venues during the Stroud International Textile Festival, a really exciting show that celebrates textiles over three weeks with exhibitions showcasing some of the most exciting work in contemporary textiles, talks by artists and workshops. The show starts on May1st and goes on till May 21st at Stroud Five Valleys, England. In a relatively short period of being set up, the festival has achieved stellar reputation and enjoys a massive following among Textile enthusiasts.

I am showing a range of textile jewellery at the Jewellery Showcase which showcases 12 artists who are inspired by textiles and incorporate textiles in their work. I am showing silk necklaces in striking bold colours. Other artists include a range of established and emerging names like Susan Cross, Nora Folk, Nel Linssen, Yoko Izawa, Lina Peterson, Tanvi Kant, Ursula Hofmann, Jan Hinchliffe, Fiona Wright, Suzanne Potter and Sue Dove.

I am also showing quilts and interior furnishings at the Festival. My interior textiles and jewellery are being showcased at Made in Stroud Kendrick Street, Stroud Town Centre.

I am showing a small range of cushions celebrating colour and textures at Well Cushioned, an exhibition hosted by the Gloucestershire Guild at the Guild Gallery, Painswick Centre, Bisley Street, Painswick.

Fun Fun fun! And the best bit? My work is featured on the cover page of the festival guide and posters.

Those of you who can, please go and visit the festival and post your comments here. ENJOY!

Peacocks

I moved into my new studio today. Although I continue working from the Sion Hill studio, I have been offered the amazing opportunity of additional studio space at Corsham Court, just outside of Bath.

The court is a grand manor dating back to 1582. Sweeping formal gardens, huge staircases curling gracefully in a room that could easily accommodate 300 people, stately corridors full of beautiful china and paintings make for a place that is simply grand. While taking a 'tour of the property' with the housekeeper, I could easily imagine elegantly dressed ladies in swishing silks and gentlemen in evening suits smoking pipes near the fireplaces, with the family portraits looking benignly on.

So, I left for the Court early this morning, excited to begin a new body of work and to experience the space. I was curious how working from the new studio will feel...it's easy to feel overwhelmed by the grandeur of the place.

I had such a wonderful time there. I painted, worked on new ideas and had a productive day. And the peacocks there were the best part! There were atleast 10 of them, strutting about in the lawns, just sunning themselves. They were breathtakingly beautiful! Seeing them there, transported me back to NID (my design school in Ahmedabad, India) and suddenly I was back in the Apparel Studio which overlooked the lawns where the peacocks gracefully drape themselves on the gulmohar tree.

Peacocks at Corsham Court

Looking down from the studio window at Corsham Court, Wiltshire, England

View from my studio at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India

Text Textiles

A while ago, running a finger over my mother’s letter, I experienced text as a texture for the first time. The feel of the dents her pen had made on paper completely absorbed me. This encounter set off a series of experiments exploring textures evocative of handwritten text that have continued to shape my work.

Exploring the third dimension in textiles forms the core of my work. I develop textural, tactile and sculptural qualities in textiles using an array of traditional and modern techniques including embroidery, laser cutting, needle punching and silk screen printing. Graffiti, clay tablets, Braille, personal letters from friends and family, 19th century decorative schoolroom exercises are sources of inspiration that I draw from continually. Scribbles in sketchbooks become ideas for surfaces. Sculptural studies of text translate into wall panels and linear compositions on quilts recall scrolls.

I learnt yesterday that one of my works titled 'Poem', exhibited currently at Riverside Mill gallery, Bovey Tracey, has inspired a poet- Graham Burchell, to respond to it. Recently, he entered his poem into the Torriano Poetry Competition and has won third place. He will be reading the poem in London next month.

I was just thinking, isn’t it interesting is that my work which has been inspired by words has in turn inspired words.

Here is the poem.

---

POEM

She calls it Poem, yet writes of family letters,

of a running finger over the paper valleys made

by a mother’s pen. There she picks up the essence of her

as texture, as some spirit Braille perhaps.

I see silk the colour of meat, an open wound

with darker ghosting shadow, and ghost words in thread;

dead straight lines of script with shadow lines to draw one’s

eyes like 3D illusions that may swell from a flat page,

just as I hope for a message to rise from the loops

and springy flow of stitching. Is that a sorry, a soon,

sons, loose, flattened in tantalising proximity?

In places there are words over words; a mother’s scorn.

How many times must I tell you? Others are blurs

as if softened by tears, and some so small, so tight

as to be close-knuckled secrets, full stops or clicks

of voice; meeting points of silk-sound, text and texture.

Birthday Treats

So to treat myself, I went to the Tate to see the Rothko exhibition. Mark Rothko is one my favourite painters. I love the pulsating vibrant colours that seem to sing with joy.

This exhibition focuses on his work in series. Honestly, I was a bit disappointed. I wanted to immerse myself in saturated colour, but a lot of the works exhibited, like Black-Form paintings, his Brown and Grey works on paper, and his last series of Black on Grey paintings were so sombre. But then again, Rothko meant them to be contemplative. If you kept looking at what appeared to be a solid black canvas, you would begin to discern a difference in the way light reflected. I enjoyed the textural/reflective subtleties that emerged slowly. But this experience was so far removed from the vibrant works that I had gone to experience. Maybe I wanted the immediate rush of colour, while the works dictated a gentler, more sedate experience.

I was just reading the words I had scribbled in my little notepad while viewing the paintings-
layering, glowing edges, reds, sombre, purple-orange, iron-rust.

The gallery

Black On Maroon: currently on display

On a whim, I went into the Weston Gallery, which is a floor down from Rothko. A selection of contemporary paintings i.e. 1990 onwards were on display. I really enjoyed the works. In particular, Chris Ollifi's No Woman no Cry and Sergej Jensen and Michael Raedecker work both of who work with textile materials and/or techniques. Currently on display are Raedecker's Overnight and Jensen's The World.

I ended the day with Anish Kapoor's Ishi's Light.

The Tate catalogue describes it as: An egg-like structure opens to reveal a dark red interior. Kapoor has related this work to Barnett Newman’s paintings, in which a vertical stripe represents the creation of the universe. In Kapoor’s sculpture, a column of light appears at the centre, produced by reflections from the curved interior. ‘The column of light is like a virtual object’ he has said. ‘It isn’t simply on the surface’. The work is named after Kapoor’s young son Ishan.

Really cool.

Fresh, sparkling and new

Although I haven't posted in a while, I kept meaning to. While the past three months whizzed by, I kept taking photos, scribbling notes for posting, but somehow just didn't manage to. Well, it's my birthday today and I thought it's the perfect day to do things I enjoy. So here goes.

Get Fresh, an exhibition celebrating designer-makers based in the Southwest of England opened last Friday at the Riverside Mill, in Bovey Tracey, Devon. Organised by the prestigious Devon Guild of Craftsmen, this is a biennial show. I am showing my Scrolls quilt, new scarves and cushions there with 17 other really cool contemporary artists/designers. The show continues till the 1st of March 09. I was chosen as the Associate Member along with a few others, amongst them my friends Anne Selby and Claire Loder. So all in all it was a really good evening.

The Private View

My work

Erica Steer, Co-Director of the Devon Guild announcing the names of newly chosen Associate Members, chief guest Dame Suzi Leather looking on

Origin

Showing at Origin, at Somerset House in London at the moment. What a high!

Come and see me at Stand H3. And some really amazing work out there. Some of my favourite makers showing there are Ptolemy Mann, Alpa Mistry, Matthew Chambers ..... I could keep on going.

Looking forward to the next two days now and the wonders they might bring along.

THE (doll)HOUSE OF VICTOR AND ROLF

Victor and Rolf are one my favourite designers, I love their work. Caught their first ever exhibition in the UK at the Barbican Art Gallery just in time. Thank God for late night openings!

The exhibition was absolutely amazing! There was a huge doll house just as you walked in, with signature pieces of Victor and Rolf's collections over the past 15 years showcased on dolls. Each doll was made to resemble the original model who had worn it on the catwalk. The dolls and miniature garments were specially commissioned for the show. And then there was my favourite Russian Doll collection (1999–2000). Turning the Russian Dolls idea on its head, a single model was dressed by Viktor & Rolf into couture dresses of increasing length and complexity. This collection was displayed on life-size dolls, making the installation seem as though you'd almost walked into a doll house.

I could've spent the whole night there.