Blog - Page 35 of 171 - Arnolds Attic

5th July 20235th July 2023

Maggie Scott – Meet the Artist

A little textile inspiration from my YouTube Collection. Today it features the colourful nuno felting by textile artist Maggie Scott.

Join Maggie Scott as she shares her beautiful work in the ‘Five Times More’ exhibition.

Maggie Scott: https://maggiescottonline.com/

Five Times More exhibition

‘Five Times More’ depicts the intimate relationship between mother and child, reflecting on both personal and collective experiences of pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood.

Maggie Scott’s technical practice is unparalleled in the landscape of contemporary British art, sitting at the boundary of tapestry and digital media, she employs a combination of photography, digital collage and silk and then injects colour by laboriously pushing vibrant merino wool fibres through silk in a process known as Nuno felting.

The intensely physical process of felting is followed by the careful process of using stitch to emphasise the smaller details of an image, evoking both the physicality of childbirth and the careful attention and tenderness of what follows. In working with fibre Scott pushes a medium traditionally associated with craft into the realm of fine art. As a textile artist, Scott employs distinctly feminine materials, but with soft images, she speaks hard truths. 

Birth is the most innate experience of human existence yet for centuries, childbirth has also been the most dangerous undertaking of a woman’s life. Rates of maternal mortality have dropped dramatically in Britain since the mid-18th century. 

However, the effects of modern medicine have not been felt equally. In 2019 MBRACE UK published data within its Perinatal Mortality report, which revealed that people of colour remain at a much higher risk during pregnancy and childbirth within the British healthcare system. Most disturbingly the report revealed that in the United Kingdom a Black woman is five times more likely to die during childbirth than her white counterpart.

Five Times More  humanises the statistics published by MBRACE UK.

Filmed at the Knitting & Stitching Show 2022.

28th June 202328th June 2023

Vivienne Beaumont – Meet the Artist

A little textile inspiration from my YouTube Collection. Today it features the beautiful machine and hand embroidery by Vivienne Beaumont.

Join Vivienne as she shares the art in her ‘Seeds, Flowers and Flowing Hair’ exhibition and explains the processes and stories behind the work.

https://youtu.be/9WZeg9zjIog

Vivienne Beaumont: https://www.viviennebeaumont.net/

Hand & Machine embroidered artwork by Vivienne Beaumont

Ripe with seeds, pomegranates and scenes of harvest, Vivienne’s work is shaped by stories and symbols. She takes inspiration from myths and nature, from female archetypes and the process of transformation.  The work has a soulful quality and often a sense of otherworldliness – her frequent use of gold threads reflects something of the Rumpelstiltskin, the fairy tale.   Her figurative scenes look to the ephemerality and cyclical nature of life, representing both life force and loss.

“Fields are often aglow in the late summer, through the harvest and its aftermath. I try to capture something of this in my work, as well as something of the folk tale or fairy tale: the jeopardy of the miller’s daughter, the alchemy of weaving straw into gold. That these tales have endured the ages, suggests they hold a deeper meaning for us.

The Red Riding Hood story, for example, is at heart the tale of a maiden’s rite of passage. The young girl is growing up, the mother is letting her daughter go on her own into the woods. The story alludes to virginity and the spilling of blood. The wolf traditionally plays the role of the sexual predator, but I portray the wolf as the protector, the threat instead from the darkness and the unknown. 

Mothers and daughters, love and rites of passage – the repeated cycles from one generation to the next – these loom large in my textile story.”   
Vivienne Beaumont.

Filmed at the Knitting & Stitching Show 2022.

28th June 202328th June 2023

Ilkley Arts Open Exhibition 2023

I’m pleased to announce that Summer 2022 Part 1 & 2 have been selected for the Ilkley Arts Open Exhibition 2023.

The selection panel included Clare Alton-Fletcher (Chief Executive at West Yorkshire Print Workshop), Jane Kay (Creative Director at The Gallery at Sunny Bank Mills), Martyn Lucas (Artist and Curator at Turnpike Gallery) and Joanne Tinker (Artist and Gallerist at Tinker Gallery).

The exhibition on the theme of ‘Take Time’, takes place at Ilkley Manor House, Castle Yard, Ilkley, West Yorkshire LS29 9DT, and is open Sat 16th Sept – Sun 15th Oct (open to the public on weekends)

Over 400 artworks were submitted by 200 artists.

Summer 22 Part 1 - part of Ilkley Arts Open Exhibition 2023 — Summer 22 Part 1 – part of Ilkley Arts Open Exhibition 2023

Each artwork is 21 x 21 cm. Hand embroidered, hand stitched. Vintage Sylko thread, cotton cloth.

Thank you to Ilkley Arts for selecting my art in the exhibition.