2020 A Handmade Life Exhibition

Gill Brooks

Creature Comforts

Is the exploration, in the time of Covid, of the human need for a sense of safety and protection and the role that clothes can play to achieve that aim.

The soothing balm that nature brings also provides us with a sense of calm and comfort.

Using nature’s bounty of plants in the dyeing process and wool fibre in the construction Gill has combined the two in an eclectic array of wearables, mimicking this erractic year of perpetual change.

In sourcing the raw materials Gill has utilised the bounty of second hand and remnant textiles in her work, whether it’s the comfort and security offered by a vintage wool blanket or delight of seeing anothers hand at work on an old crocheted doily, all combine to fill the senses and bring a sense of comfort and timelessness to the pieces.

Romana Toson

Smoke Signals

The brooches are made using burnt driftwood that was washed up on a south coast beach in January 2020.

The pod forms are a recurring element in Romana’s work. They are a universal symbol of wholeness, potential, cycles. The gold leaf was chosen for it’s light reflecting ability and as a symbol of hope and regeneration.

Forest Bathing

Organic forms, botanical dye, natural and recycled materials are used to explore the idea that Nature is not something that is separate from us.

Ro Cook

A Passage from India

In a year with the backdrop of a global pandemic, The Handmade Life collective have relied upon their resourcefulness, individually and as a group. For Ro this has meant looking at what she had at hand and projects that have been formulating over time.

Mahatma Gandhi instituted the production of Khadi cloth (a simple cotton cloth – grown, spun and woven in India for the Indian people) as the symbol of India’s self-reliance.

Ro Cook’s current practice is heavily influenced from trips to India investigating cultural textiles, mainly from the Gujarat state. In 2020 self-reliance and India and Indian textile skills have been drawn on to create her work

For the double-sided pieces, she has used Indian hand spun and hand loomed cotton cloth. The prints created from woodblocks, carved by artisan block makers in Pethapur to Ro’s designs. (They were initially keen to straighten her lines!). These pieces are crudely stitched to embellish and functionally hold the layers together. “I have always been interested in the reverse of artworks – revealing the construction, provenance and authenticity of works.” This is particularly evident in Field.

The single sided pieces are screen-printed onto Thai hand loomed hemp. The motifs are inspired from Indian carving, architectural and embroidery details.

 Ro invites people to look and/or use her artworks, allowing the new owner to carry on the story of the textile in the way they would like. Wear it, look at it, sit on it, sleep under it or eat off it – enjoy it.

Meryl Blundell

Phoenix Rising

The year that was. The year that wasn’t!

The Rising Phoenix – a story of a bird that self ignites then rises from it’s ashes to be reborn. A message of hope, strength and renewal of energy.

Wouldn’t that be a great notion? That we could all find a Phoenix inside us and individually rise as needed. Then join together to create one huge Phoenix which would renew our planet.

A fantasy, maybe.

At least in this fantasy there is hope. As our summer ignited and our life began to change beyond our control, thoughts of renewal and rising up became an ideal to aspire to. Meryl created these pieces with the desire to inspire the wearer to feel like a phoenix, find strength, to rise up and feel renewed.

Repurposing copper linked it with the idea of rebirth and enabled Meryl to approach the process more freely, playing with movement, form, texture and colour.

Kim Davies

Comfort and Cheer

This year, Kim I started working as a bush regenerator. Kim explains, “Hand-weeding is a bit like unpicking stitches across the tapestry of the landscape. It is relatively slow but accumulative work; you soon see the results as stitch by stitch is unpicked to reveal other layers.

I contemplate how those weeds got there, all the different and innovative ways they disperse their seed.

I think about weeds as social indicators, tracking patterns of colonisation, migration and trade. Many weeds were deliberately carried here as medicine, or food, or both when the two ideas weren’t so separate.

Next I catch myself delighting in a colourful patch of weeds flowering in the landscape from the window of a car; it sits uncomfortably with what I know.

I myself am an ‘introduced species’ living in an introduced culture, on an ancient land.”

This ‘cheerful’ collection of weeds is made from old blankets and reclaimed tapestry wool. They hang, without stems or roots, a little like badges or emblems of disconnect and comfort all at once.

Lorri Evans

Embraced

2020, a year of confusion, loneliness, sadness and yet hope. These emotions have all been part of 2020 for Lorri. As we have all been forced to turn within, the limits of a pandemic can often be a welcome time out for the maker and craftsperson, an excuse to just sit and create with less intrusion from the practical world.

However the creative brain, when given too much time for introspection, can become a negative force. We have all been bombarded by voices of dissent in a world that seems at logger heads with one another across our globe.

All of these emotions have woven their way into Lorri’s collection of artworks for this exhibition. It has highlighted her need and love of friends, working and sharing the crazy things that life throws down for us to wend our way through. The need to embrace and be embraced has never been more evident.