Recycle, reuse. reinvent

Again, over lockdown I was trying to use what was at hand. I am a real sucker of buying unfinished work from the opportunity shops. These hexagons were some that I had acquired in that manner. A bag of hexagon that someone had lovingly cut out and then not used. I mused about their history - had someone passed away, were they surplus to a project or had someone just got tired of joining them together I joined them together and then cut out some leaves and added some eco dyed and some stitched between organza real leaves. The diagonal strip of machine quilted coffee bag inner acts as a strong visual and this line is repeated in the pale yellow block at the bottom left. The pods hanging from this diagonal are actual pods that have been encased in organza. I added some bits cut from an old book and laminated onto the piece and then stamped freely with some softie stamps to knock back some of the pale lemon hexagons that were too bold. The whole is mounted on felt

Through the Lens of Steve McCurry

As my interest in thread painting older faces developed, I found some wonderful portraits photographed by Steve McCurry who was a freelance photographer for National Geographic. I wrote to his studio and was granted permission to use his photographs as a starting point as long as I referenced Steve in my work. At the same time my interest in using teabags as a substrate within my work was developing and it seemed a good match to place the images in a teabag substrate stamped with a camera and having the images surrounding an image of Steve with his camera. All the teabags were salvaged from use dried and attached to a background of cotton with the teabags being attached with gel medium and a layer of gel medium over the top. The background took on an aged leather look. I called this quilt “Through the lens of Steve McCurry. Below is a close up of the individual images including some that were not used in the finished quilt.

Over the years I have learnt a lot from Steve’s photographs both in composition and of creating the ordinary/mundane into photographic work of art.