I had an amazing day out at the Knitting & Stitching Show at the Alexandra Palace. I attend more to look at modern textile artists work in the galleries, than to shop, although I do usually end up buying something that I would find difficult to source elsewhere (this time turquoise lace weight wool).
First I found Harriet Riddell, a UH graduate from 2 years ago. She had a stand where she was doing her stitched portraits. As the show had just opened and she had not had any customers yet, I sat down and she drew me on her sewing machine. As she started to sew, it gathered a crowd, so I told them all about Harriet's achievements: achieved a first at Uni; won a prize at New Designers last year; won the One Year On prize; now at the Knit & Stitch in only her second year. And when parties of schoolgirls took photos, I asked them to credit the artist when using the photos in their sketchbooks. From that point on, I think she sewed portraits all day long. 15 minutes to do each portrait, £35. Great value.
The Embroiderers Guild had a gallery where they had textile competition prize winners displaying their work. The EG are to be commended for doing this, as they had funded stands for about 12 graduates to show their work, and all the artists I spoke to on this gallery would not have been able to fund it themselves. Bethany Walker had worked lime green pom-poms in a style reminiscent if a sprey of flowers and set them in small blocks of quick drying cement. These were wall mounted on very sturdy steel hook and ring settings. Very original and very effective. Susan Syddall had drawn telegraph poles and electricity pylons. She had worked direct into an A3 rag paper sketchbook, using brusho paints, then incredibly, machine sewed black outlines around the telegraph poles. Made good use of space. Nothing crowded. Lovely use of colour. She had also made up some professional photo books of her work. Great idea.
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