Chapter
12
Study
three artists
The
brief is to look at the work of two artists Jae Maries and Barbara
Lee Smith and then select another of my choice who has inspired has
inspired me in any aspect of the of the work studied in this module.
Jae
Maries
Sian
has provided a little information about each starting with Jae Maries
who is a free-lance artist and tutor who has exhibited widely,
including solo shows in the USA and Switzerland. She is a member of
the 62 Group of Textile Artists and the Designer-Craftsmen Society. She chooses themes for her work which are based on stories or comments on
society and uses simple shapes and colours to create a mood and to tell
the story in a visual way. She makes her designs in
coloured paper collages and interprets these freely into embroidery, colours her fabrics with dyes and paints and then uses appliqué
techniques with hand and machine stitchery.
‘Ebbtide’
(BBC collection)
As
I researched further I was fascinated by information available on
both the 62 Group website and
jaemaries.com:
http://www.62group.org.uk/artist/jae-maries/
In her work, Jae explores her personal environment through a Visual Diary. She combines several techniques including oil painting, printing and hand and machine stitching. She has work in several public collections and it can be seen in various publications including her book ‘Contrasting Elements’.
For
many years, Jae’s work explored the relationships between people
and their environment but recently her work has taken a much more
personal slant. She is now interpreting, through stitch and paint,
her immediate environment using sketchbooks to record her daily
life, using symbolic and abstracted marks and forms which are then
translated into larger artworks.
Her
work is unplanned and evolves through a series of processes each
exploring certain events, actions, feelings or memories on a daily
basis. The subsequent layers, maybe in paint, overlay the previous
marks suggesting the fading of memories as time passes
Jae
enjoys the challenge of using mixed media techniques in her work
especially that of combining oil paint with stitched textiles
relishing the contrast between the hands-on sensual quality of
working with fabrics and threads and the thrill and spontaneity of
brush marks.
Jae
works full-time on artwork and has work in several public collections . She is a freelance lecturer and
tutor and has published a book Contrasting
Elements.
Jae has BA Hons. Fine Art and a Diploma in Creative Embroidery from Brighton University. She exhibits internationally and has now returned to being an ordinary member of the 62 Group having been Chairperson from 2009 – 2013.
Jae has BA Hons. Fine Art and a Diploma in Creative Embroidery from Brighton University. She exhibits internationally and has now returned to being an ordinary member of the 62 Group having been Chairperson from 2009 – 2013.
Water, water.
Barbara Lee Smith
Barbara Lee Smith
By painting,
spraying and printing colour on fabric which is then collaged by heat
fusion and stitched with machine embroidery, this leading American
artist and teacher creates powerful, large scale work. This
celebrates the space, time, light and colour associated with
landscape in a series of atmospheric, lyrical impressions.
On further research
and via her website www.barbaraleesmith.com/about-the-work I
discovered that Barbara describes her work in three stages -
painting, collage and drawing. She paints on an industrial grade
polyester non-woven fabric which serves as her artist’s canvas
before bonding several layers together to form a heavy base on which
to collage small elements of the same painted material. When the
composition is complete she machine stitches a line resembling a
topographic map which visually ties the layers of paint and collage
together.
In an interview for
textileartist.org Barbara recalls being taught to stitch by her
sister as a child and then as a young mother discovering books by
Mariska Karasz and Constance Howard. It was coming across an
Embroiders’ Guild exhibition which finally influenced her.
I can so strongly
identify with this – the family connections with creativity,
discovering the work of contemporary textile artists and then as a
young mother happening upon an Embroiders’ Guild exhibition in
Glastonbury, Somerset.
White caps:
Carol Naylor
Carol Naylor is a contemporary textile artist specialising in machine embroidery.
In an interview with
textileartist.org she recalls a love of drawing as a child and an
appreciation of the work of Gaugin and Klee from an early age.
Having studied Art
Foundation at Hastings School of Art Carol moved on to Goldsmiths
where she gained a BA and post graduate diploma in Textile Art.
Following a successful career in teaching and lecturing she became
freelance in 1997 and went on to develop a unique style in machine
embroidery. She is a Fellow of the Society of Designer Craftsmen, has
exhibited widely in the UK and Europe and has worked as a guest
lecturer in USA and New Zealand.
Translating her
ideas from her drawings and notes taken on location Carol stitches
directly onto artist’s canvas using a wide variety of threads and
changes in tension. Working mainly in cable stitch she creates a
surface which undulates and flows directly as a result of intensive
continual stitching. These are then complimented by the addition of a
sculptural quality which develops as a result of the tension and
thread changes.
Carol describes her
work as an exploration of surface and mark making looking at
qualities of light and colour observed on land and over water,
shadows and tonal contrasts are explored through heavily stitched
surfaces.
I have selected
Carol as my third artist for her machine embroidery skills which
reflect somewhat the directional free machine stitching, whipped
tension effects and cable stitch I have used to represent the sea
water and opposing tidal currents in my final project.
I love this piece below, Sea Divided, for it's textures, tonal qualities and colourways.
