UNBOUND: Exhibition of my Textiles

I am so pleased that I was approached to be a part of the Unbound exhibition. I really enjoyed getting it all together with the 3 other women who were showing, and it is interesting to see your work alongside the work of other artists. The four of us were chosen well - the artwork was very different, but the artists' approaches really complimented one another.

I have not shown my textiles work since the Orchard Square residency exhibition. I have created so much new work since then, which seems crazy, given it was only 9 months ago and I spent 4 of those months away in Australia, so not stitching at all. 

It was really useful to have a reason to get it all mounted up and on the wall, because it's quite hard to get of sense of what you are doing, when your recent body of work is not visible but, being an attic, my workspace doesn't lend itself to putting work up.

I also showed 5 large chalk drawings that I created a short while before I started creating the textiles. They are based on my experience of being out in the landscape:

I haven't looked at them for over 2 years, but was going through the plans chest in the run-up to the show and suddenly noticed that there was a strong connection to the textile mark-making and flow, so I thought it would be good to show them alongside the more recent work.

We had around 100 people at the private view, which was fantastic. I was kept busy, chatting away all evening. I'm told I got rather squiffy, but that can't be true, can it? It was such a great space for it - so big! I loved the post-industrial look to it (it was once part of a scissor-factory, I'm told).

We had a lot of fun, then it was oh-so-suddenly time to take it all down again. The space looked so bare when we were done - just like when you take down the Christmas decorations in the New Year.

If you missed the show, you can see all my new work on my Facebook page Lynne Chapman: Fine-Art Textiles. This is in lieu of a website for the moment. I'll get that sorted sometime next year. It feel like I only just finished setting up the Lynne Chapman Urban Sketcher site and it's such a lot of work. Which of course stops you doing the real work. At the moment, I think the most important thing is to keep going with the textiles as much as I can, seeing where it takes me.

Mounting Work for my Exhibition

I'm spending this week getting ready for my exhibition. It's less than 2 weeks away! I have been working hard and so have a plan's chest drawer full of textile pieces which need mounting up:

Because the raw, uneven edges of the fabric, and the slight unsquareness, are an important part of the work, I surface-mount each piece onto a stretcher, which I create myself, with John's help. The first time I showed my textiles work, as part of my Orchard Square residency, I bought a big roll of lovely raw cotton from Whaley's, to make the canvas stretchers. Luckily, it seems I have just enough left to do what I need.

That first time, John made all the stretchers for me from scratch, which took ages, but we have now discovered a company where we can buy individual, ready-cut, wooden pieces at different lengths, so it's a much quicker business to put them together. Here's the first one, hot off the press, so to speak:

We have to hand-stretch each one, which is a bit of a tedious business. Pulling the cotton tight to keep up the tension, ready for stapling, makes your fingers hurt, but we'll get it done. 

After that, I use Bondaweb to attach the work to the stretcher fronts (plus a little stitching here and there for the larger work, just to be on the safe side). They look so lovely once they're done. Here's the latest piece I finished early last week, now all mounted up and looking posh and ready for the exhibition:

The show, called Unbound, opens at the Gage Gallery, at KIAC in Kelham Island (Sheffield S3 8DB) on Dec 7th. I am sharing the space with 3 other women artists. Here's a short bit about each of us:

Lynne Chapman
Lynne hand-stitches into fine layers of textile, building up areas of intense colour and texture. Her most recent work is inspired by petroglyphs: the frayed, ambiguous glimpses of ancient stories, the idea that we leave behind an echo, consciously or unconsciously.

Helen Purdie
Helen’s precise and colourful studio paintings and her gestural plein air works are influenced directly by the world around her. As a recently, late-confirmed autistic woman, Helen will also be exhibiting a new autobiographical piece exploring the challenges and beauty of her day-to-day human interactions.

Katie Jamieson
Katie chooses to use materials that have the qualities of softness and absorbency. She is constantly responding to the organic nature of the work. It reflects the balance between creation and destruction; building layers up and knocking them back down again until the whole piece emerges.

Lisa Wallbank
Lisa's whimsical approach to assemblage presents curiosities, fragments and debris from the toybox, in amusing and puzzling combinations. Each artwork invites the viewer to construct a story, but obvious narratives are confounded by details that just won't fit. Or will they?

Exhibition of my Australia Sketchbooks

Although I finished my Australian residency back in May this year, we didn't have a proper exhibition of the work at the time, just in informal event with wine and nibbles, in the research centre itself:

Six months later, the sketchbooks have at last all been exhibited in Perth in what looks to be a far posher venue! This delay was because something rather dramatic happened during my residency... 

When I was commissioned to do the work, the Centre for Transformative Work Design was part of the University of Western Australia but, by the time I arrived in Perth to begin my work, Professor Parker had already decided that she wanted to move her research centre from UWA to Curtin University, the rival Perth university. The whole time I was working there, secret negotiations were going on behind the scenes. It was all a bit cloak and dagger!

The deal came to fruition around the time I came back to England. UWA were not best pleased to lose the centre and so we put things on ice until the researchers had settled in at Curtin. 

I got an email last week, showing me some fabulous photos from what seemed to be a very successful event. Prof Parker did a talk about the residency, using my very first batch of sketches, from the tip attendant in Peaceful Bay's rubbish dump, as an illustration of how useful the visual record is to her research.

They had all the project's research-sketching competition entries on-screen too, as well as photos from 'behind the scenes' - me in action in various places, I assume, like these photos of me sketching at a massive opencast mine site, in Wyalla:

For the exhibition, they had some of my work printed onto canvas and they displayed those pieces on easels, which was an interesting way to create visual contrast in the space:

It's such a shame that I couldn't be there in person, but so lovely to see the photos and hear about how the event. You can see more photos here.

I'm Having an Exhibition of my Textiles!

Hi all. Sorry for the absence. I have been trying to concentrate on my work, specifically, I've been getting stuck into my hand-stitched textiles. I am building up a new body of work, getting ready for my exhibition in a month's time, at KIAC, here in Sheffield.

My work has been evolving since I got back from Australia. The trip was a long time to break off from what I was doing; after four months I felt I'd lost my momentum. But it's turned out well in the end, as it made me pause, assess the work so far, and think about what I was interested in. As a result, a lot of the newest pieces are a reflection of my fascination with passing time. This has been a preoccupation for a while, but in the past it has been more a part of my reportage sketch-work.

During my trip with John to Scotland, I saw some ancient carvings, in Elgin. That got me researching images of very old mark-making and I found myself getting excited by petroglyphs - the scratchings and paintings left by ancient peoples on rocks and in caves. 

My new work tries to evoke the sense of different people's inhabiting a space, like a cave, through time: the marks they leave; those which almost disappear and those which don't. I like the idea of layers of time embedded in the rock, like my layers of organza in the work.

The show is in a huge industrial space, the Gage Gallery, which has its own feel of layers of habitation. I am sharing the space with three other women artists from Sheffield. We all work in very different ways, using different materials, so I am really excited to see how it all sits together.

If you are based in our part of the world and want to come along, the opening evening is on Friday December 7th, from 5.00 until 10.00. There is also a 2nd late night though, the following evening. The work is only up until Tuesday 11th December, so mark it in your diary now, so you don't miss me. If you are a Facebook person, here's the Event listing.

Hope you can make it!

Delivering 'Maps' to The Point

Today we have been battling with bubble-wrap, as two of my textile pieces, which were on show for the first time at Orchard Square, have been accepted into a new exhibition at The Point gallery in Doncaster. They are part of Rebel Daughters, which opens on January 18th, featuring the work of 60 different women artists.

I chose these particular two pieces, both based on local maps and walks, as they make a good pair. They were also my most recent pieces at the time I made the submission, given that the new Coffee House piece was already promised to The Cupola's Christmas 'Unique Beauty' exhibition (which closes on Jan 6th, if you wanted to visit).

The sad thing is that I won't get to see Rebel Daughters, as it opens the day after I fly to Australia to do my next residency, and comes down on April 7th, well before I get back. Which is a great shame, as it's a smashing gallery and I would have loved to have seen the rest of the work. Hey ho. I can't really complain, can I?

Both pieces had to be mirror-plated, cocooned in bubble-wrap, then driven to Doncaster. While we were there, we had a quick look round the exhibition which is about to come down to make way for Rebel Daughters and were lucky to catch a touring show of Matisse cut-outs: wonderfully up-lifting on a dreary, wet afternoon!

One thing you might like to know, if you are at all interested in buying my work: The Point does not add commission to the artist's price, as it is a publicly-funded gallery, so the work is less than half the price it would be in a private gallery.

Christmas Exhibition

Because of the nature of what I do, I don't generally exhibit my work, but all of a sudden that is changing and it's rather exciting.

As well as the tree paintings I have had on show recently at Yellow Arch Studios, as part of the Sheffield Tree Action Group's mixed show, Fallen Boys, Standing Trees, I also have my Coffee House piece in a Christmas exhibition called Unique Beauty at the Cupola Gallery in Hillsborough, Sheffield. It's another mixed show, with a really wide range of artists, showing work including print-making, ceramics, glass, jewellery, sculpture and, well, all sorts, as well as the painting, drawing and of course textiles. There are all sorts of interesting things there to see and maybe a Christmas present possibility for someone (or yourself...).

It's open until January 6th, so get yourself down there.

24 Hour Urban Sketching to SaveTrees

On 11th November, Armistice Day, I took part in a unique event, bringing together lots of different things I am involved with. We even made it onto BBC telly - who spotted Andy Kershaw above?

Street Tree Art Sheffield (STARTS) have been organising flash-mob style sketching events for a few months now, to raise awareness locally about the thousands of trees being chopped down in the streets of my home city. I have been along a few times and created the paintings you see above and below.

But the trees on Western Road are extra special. They are a living memorial. The avenue of 53, hundred-year-old trees were planted for the WW1 dead of the local school. Incredibly, almost half of these trees are under imminent threat. So, to try and shame the local council and to get media coverage, STARTS arranged a memorial event followed by an all-day, mass sketch-in under the trees.

This is artist Dan Llywelyn Hall (he's painted the Queen!), who also helped to set the event up and who created this massive painting of Western Rd:

It was a fabulous day and a huge success. Even the littlest people were able to get involved:

I've been told that near to 200 people registering to sketch, including local artists, people who just love trees and lots of children. Some people dressed up:

I got involved because I love trees too, but also because of an interesting coincidence. This year is the 10th anniversary of Urban Sketchers and they have been arranging different events to celebrate. The latest, the 24 hour Global Sketchwalk was scheduled for November 11th. See where I'm going with this..?

Luckily, their idea didn't involve anyone sketching for 24 hours - phew! The plan was to set up sketchcrawls around the globe so that, at any one time over the 24 hours, there would be people out sketching somewhere in the world. There was a live Instagram feed, where all the photos and sketches appeared, as the event swept around the globe. Amazing idea. It inspired so many regional Urban Sketchers groups that each was featured on the live feed for just 15 minutes!

Anyway, I decided to combine the two events and invited Urban Sketchers Yorkshire to take part in the mass sketch-in. Here we are at 10.30, getting ready to get stuck in:

STARTS allocated a specific tree to everyone who took part, so we would spread out down the long street and all the trees would be immortalised, just in case the council get their way and bring in the chainsaws. Mine was tree no 48. I wrote onto it the names of the men it was in memory of:

The local pub, the Cobden View was brilliant. They supplied tea and coffee on tap all day, to help us warm up, with a bounty of biscuits. Yum. They also provided the welcome reward of hot samosas and spring rolls at the end of the day.

Many of those hardened sketchers who braved the cold and stayed all day painted bonus trees too. This is my second tree: no 49. I worked a bit bigger than usual, because I knew that the artwork was going to be put into an exhibition...

... an exhibition which is opening on Friday!

It's going to be fantastic - there was so much fabulous work created. STARTS collected it up at the end of the event. The exhibition is called Fallen Boys Standing Trees, and is at Yellow Arch Studios. There is a celebratory gala day at the show on Sunday November 26th. Come along, see the wonderful tree pictures everyone created, have a glass of wine and listen to some live music.

Considering Key Themes Within My Work

Friday was the last day of my textile exhibition / open-studio residency at Orchard Square in Sheffield city centre. It has been a fantastic experience and a very enjoyable 4 weeks.

One of my main motivations in applying for the project, was to get the opportunity to mount up and display all my textiles, so that I could get some sense of the 'body of work' created so far. Up to now, it's all just been bits and pieces, stashed away in the plans chest drawer, so it has been hard to get a feel for what I have achieved, what holds it together and where it's going. Seeing everything together, properly displayed, was really useful for me.

It was also very interesting, having to talk to so many visitors about the work. It helped me to crystallise what my themes and interests are. I realised that, though the subject matter is quite varied, there are underlying elements which carry through and which link the textiles to my sketch work.

For instance, I am fascinated by the relationship between enforced randomness and more controlled creative decisions. I realised that there were strong random elements in every single textiles piece on display. I routinely create backgrounds before I know where a piece is going, to enforce unplanned juxtapositions; I often work with fabric shapes as they come out of the rag-bag; I reinterpret randomly created compositions; I work with maps, where roads, borders and areas of water are enforced shapes to work around.

I am also very excited by the way line and linear mark-making can work in tandem with, or in opposition to, areas of colour. Again, this comes through in both my figurative and abstract work, and is there in the stitching, as it has been for some time in my paintings.

I spent quite a while chatting to most visitors, then I asked people to write a comment on a feedback shape, to decorate the outside wall. I counted them up today - 83! With those who didn't get to leave feedback for various reasons (some slipped the net before I nobbled them for instance), and including the people who came to my workshops (more later), I reckon I must have had around 130 visitors through, all told. Which I am very pleased with, given there is no real 'passing trade', because of the location of the unit, tucked away upstairs.

The feedback shapes were a much funkier system than a visitors book and hopefully made the unit look welcoming:

Visitor numbers and my interaction with them did impact significantly on the amount of work I got done of course, but I didn't really mind, since I very much enjoyed the conversations and met some interesting people. I got some great tips for techniques too (ironing beeswax into teabags... watch this space!).

I did a fair bit of sketching around the shops in the first couple of weeks, but concentrated on sewing for the last half of my time. I finished one simple piece, above, based on a combination of 3 different sketches, done early on. My 2nd, more complex piece, based on the Costa coffee-house sketch is ongoing. I'll try and finish it next week if I can, although I have 2 days of school visits to fit in too, so maybe that's a bit over-confident.

It was sad to have to start taking down the work on Friday afternoon. John came in and helped me to wrestle the Velcro fixings from the walls, I packed everything up and we loaded the car.

Early-doors on Saturday morning, we did a 2nd car run to collect the last few bits and to pass on the keys to the new incumbent. Micheal Bukowsky is a perfume artist and he is going to create 'scent portraits' of people, for £5 a time. Sounds intriguing, doesn't it? Pop up there and see how it works. I certainly will!

Don't forget, you can follow the progress of all 4 artists in residence on social media, by using the hashtag #artistupstairs. Thank you to Making Ways and Orchard Square for a fascinating project.

Ideas Bazaar with Sheffield University

I had a really interesting day earlier this week...

A little while ago, I discovered an event at Sheffield University that could have been devised just for me, it was so perfect. Ideas Bazaar was a kind of match-making day, helping Sheffield's scientists to find artists to work with. It turns out that the university have a pot of money to fund collaborations between art and science: they advertised for artists who wanted to get involved. Naturally, I bit their arm off! 

On Tuesday afternoon, John and I set up a little exhibition in the university's rather grand Firth Hall, showcasing the 'best of' my Morgan Centre project sketchbooks. As you can see, we were the first to get set up. We needed the time though: it proved very tricky indeed to get all 8 concertinas pinned up completely straight and parallel right along their length. Bit of a nightmare, but we got there. 

Regular readers will know, I've had work with both Manchester and York universities, but it does seem daft to have a major university on my doorstep, but have no contacts there. And it was SO interesting, talking to all the various scientists who came round. I had conversations with a neurologist studying the brains of fruit flies, a sociologist researching mass shootings in America, a geneticist studying brittle bone disorder in children, a keeper of the National Circus Archive, a professor of Health Informatics, interested in how people with terminal diseases get support from social media... and more besides.

I don't know if any of the contacts I made will translate into actual work or not, but quite a few people did seem genuinely interested and chatted to me for a fair while, so we'll see. It was certainly well worth putting on a nice frock and getting my best smile into gear.

I'll let you know what happens. Wish me luck!