Latest Artwork

I'm not sure where the idea came from, but I had to do a project that incorporated some kind of stitching for textiles at uni. 

So I built on my Beth Gibbons embroidery into some crazy multilayered eye embroidery applique.

It's not actually very easy to photograph or scan because it's not a perfect square.

I decided to play on the richness of patterned fabrics - brocades, silk charmeuses, burnout velvets and shimmering satins and silks, combined with the dazzling bejewelled effect of both stylised and more realistic eyes.

Hopefully you enjoy it more than my teachers did. The textiles teachers are really quite harsh, and one of them seemed to think I didn't display the necessary commitment even though I spent THREE WEEKS non stop doing this! I'm actually seriously considering transferring workshops - even though I love the work in textiles I'm really not sure I can keep on for another two and a half years with such critical and demanding teachers.

 Oh well..I'm proud even if they aren't.

Ok well since embroidery takes such a long time it's nice to be able to embroider a few small things, just to check technique. Usually small motifs like flowers are used, but I find eyes much more interesting and expressive - the iris also gives you the chance to try out many variations of colour. 

These are embroidered on a yellow plastic bag from a CD retailer, couched with a post it note.

It wasn't actually too difficult to embroider on this surface, although fabric would have been easier.

The stitches in this eye are scroll stitch for the yellow at the top of the eye, buttonhole stitch (which I now love) for the iris and lower eyelid, split stitch for the pupil, running stitch for the pink area and feather stitch and chain stitch for the other stuff. I tried to do french knots and turk's head knots but I can't do knots without them knotting in the WRONG place and getting a huge mess.

Much the same stitches used in these, with the addition of an open chain stitch for the lower lid. Embroidery is smashing! And since I'll probably be doing a huge project or two in textiles based JUST around eyes..I expect you'll see a lot of this sort of thing in the future.

It's at 8:29 in the Portishead short film To Kill A Dead Man 

I'd recommend you watch the film even if you are not a fan of Portishead; as it has a chilling score and incredible noir atmosphere. Well worth a look.

  And 8:29? Well I decided to embroider it. Which was a terrible idea. As a general rule, embroidery is done of small motifs and designs, rather than PICTURES, this is because it takes forever. It is possibly the slowest art form ever, even slower than assembling someone's face out of the circles cut from a hole puncher. To embroider as much as I did took TWO DAYS (it's about life sized if you want to know) so I decided to call it finished.

Why embroidery? Well I love its richness and its dimensionality..I'm not actually very good at it though. Oh well, c'est la vie, I can't just draw/paint things all the time.