Back last summer, whilst at Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, (UK) like many people I met up with a number of lovely ladies.  Meeting up with friends is always something to look forward to, but making new friends is always an added bonus. Whilst at the show Stephanie Crawford (fellow CQ West member) and I met and started chatting to two lovely French ladies - Denise Gregoire and Lydie Bihlet. They were both delightful and after a few minutes we all realised we shared lots of the same interests. As we chatted we realised that an opportunity to create an informal 'friendly'  group was staring us in the face and we made promises to 'keep in touch'. I am happy to say that we did not let the opportunity pass us by and to cut a long story short, we took the opportunity to start up a new group based on our mutual interests. To make the group a little bigger we decided to ask two of our fellow CQ West friends (who also speak French) to join us and as such, our group was born. We call ourselves 'Six Dames' and we are (left to right): Denise Gregoire, Claire Passmore, Ana Kirby, Lydie Bihlet, Fran Griffiths and Stephanie Crawford.

As yet we have not all met together, but thanks to modern day technology we have struck up new friendships. ​To help us to easily share our work we set up a blog which you can visit by clicking on the link below:

https://sixdames.blogspot.com/ 

We treat the blog a bit like our diary, so it is possible to follow along and see how some of our work is made too. Every 3 months one of us chooses a photograph to inspire the group. So far we have worked on 2 photos (see below) and are in the process of working on the third. Our aim is to create a small textile piece ( around 16 inches or so in size) in response to the photo. 

To get our group started I chose the first photo. You would be forgiven for thinking it would be an easy task  - just pick a photo!!!- but the responsibility of finding a photo that will hopefully inspire people to create something exiting is not as easy as you would think. In the end I chose a photo that was not the run-of-the-mill beautiful scene. It was of some shadows on a pavement (and a pair of curious boots).....this is it.

Rather than explain how it all works here, you can see the quilts we all made on our website by clicking here. It was fascinating to see the different quilts we all made using the same starting point.

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Three months later we were all very keen to keep going and Denise presented us with a new photo - again something very different. This time it was of a huge sculpture situated in the Port of Antibes. 

You can read more about the quilts we all made in response to this fabulous photo / sculpture by clicking here.​

And finally, our new photo, chosen by Stephanie. It is another fabulous view - this time closer to home. Do you recoginse the location? (It was he colour of the paint that gave it away to me). By the end of May the quilts for this challenge will be complete, so watch this space!

Although our small group is still only very new we have alredy had some exciting news......we have been invited to exhibit our work at: 

Biennale Internationale d'Art Textile
15th - 18th April 2020
(also known as BIAT and previously known as Quilt en Beaujolais) 

How fantastic is that!?!

By next March eah of us will have completed 5 quilts - so there will be 30 beautiful quilts to hang / display at this superb show in Villefranche-sur-Saône, France. I am excited already. I will also have a solo exhibition of some of my favourite quilts and Denise and Lydie will also be exhibiting their work. Some of the other 'Six-Dames' may also be coming to enjoy the fun. 



Here is a glimpse of some of our work so far. Please visit our bilingual website to see more.

https://six-dames.weebly.com/

​Thanks for reading.
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Whilst making the 'Flexible Hexagonal Pavement' a few months ago I discovered a new way of working - a much more open ended, 'trial and improve' style. For me this was very different. I am used to spending a long time reseraching a subject, thinking carefully about the story I want to tell and then dwelling on the many ways I could tell that story. It is a style of work that suits me. However, this new, much more spontaneous approach to creating work fascinates me. I have suddenly been bitten by a bug that has given me more ideas than I can keep up with. As fast as I can make something I have ten more ideas that I want to try out. As a result my design walls have become covered in dozens and dozens of small samples - and still the ideas keep coming. I am excited and overwhelmed at the same time. 

Here is a brief view of what is filling my head and my studio.

Rather than continue with the hexagon shape I have reduced the number of sides I am working with and chosen to begin with triangles - half square triangles to be exact, a staple of the traditional patchworker. As I began my textile work making traditional patchwork quilts I am familiar with this shape and the many interesting patterns that can be created with them. For a time they were my nemasis - getting those points to match was something that drove me mad! Now, having probably cut and stitched many thousands of them, their corners do not torment me as they once did - they are now familiar and I am ready to do something more with them. 

The first thing I am exploring is joining triangles to create a module like the one above. It isn't complicated, but by joining just 3 or 4 triangles a pyramid shape is formed. If I had joined six I would be back with the familiar hexagon shape - but this pyramid offers something different - a whole new dimension to start playing with - and that opens up so many more possibilities. 

Using 6 of these pyramid modules I began my exploration. As I connected them together new and interesting shapes and forms started to develop.

​The more modules I connected, the more interesting things became. 

I find them very satistying - and also very beautiful. The jewel-like colours are particularly nice to work with. 

The other thing that I find fascinating is that all these possibilities have come from one arrangement of the triangles - depending on how they are posed or positioned, all these different forms can be made - so you need never get bored of looking at the same piece!

​If I was smarter I might understand the geometry behind all this and be able to plan - but I am rather enjoying not planning at the moment, and allowing the surprises to happen.

I will be demonstrating the print making process I use to make these modules at the West Country Quilt & Textile Show on the afternoon of 29th August. As you probably know, I belong to the superb group  'Contemporary Quilters West' and we are using our gallery space as an 'Open Studio' so visitors can see exactly how our members create their work. This piece - 'Connectivity II' , along with work by all our other members will be part of a small exhibiton also in the studio.
If you are planning on attending I look forward to meeting you!


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West Country Quilt & Textile Show: 29th - 31st August 2019. University of the West of England Exhibiton Centre (UWE), Filton, Bristol. BS34 8QZ. Website:http://westcountryquiltshow.co.uk/ 
(Free onsite parking. Use this code 'QTL' to save £2 if you buy your tickets online. )

Contemporary Quiters West (CQ West)  'Open Studio' demonstrations and meet the artists 10.am - 4pm daily. Do come and visit. 
Website: https://www.contemporaryquilterswest.org/
 

Thanks for reading.
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I can hardly believe that 3 months have passed since the last quilt I made for the group '12 By The Dozen' was finished. Time really is flying. The last day of February was the day that the group unveiled their latest pieces of work based on a nominated artist. This time it was me who chose the artist to inspire us all and I decided to change the tone a little - instead of opting for a traditional / widely recognised fine artsit I chose a street artist named Shamsia Hassani. I think she is an incredible young woman. You can find out a little more about her here from her website.

This is a small selection of her work which demonstrates her strong individual style and subject matter.

Shamsia Hassani is not only a street graffitti artist, but also a fine arts professor in Afghanistan's largest university in Kabul. The aims of her work are many; she wants to change the way people inside Afghanistan feel after so many years of war - for her it is important to look to the future with hope and to portray women in a strong and modern way. She also wants to try and change the perception of Afghanistan to people from outside of her country. She is a realist and knows she can't change much by herself, but her message is that through her work she can play a small part, and if more people do that, then bigger change can seem possible. 

Being a woman creating street art in what has been categorised as the worlds most dangerous country takes courage. There is sometimes hostility from a few who still have leanings towards the old beliefs of the Taliban, There are still abandoned land mines in some derelict buildings and occasionally other violent acts are still  carried out within the city. It is not always safe to spray her art on the walls of old buildings - danger that is remote from our understanding here in the west. For this reason she developed an idea she calls 'Dreaming Graffitti', where she takes a photograph of a place or building and then creates her art onto that. An interesting interview between Shamisa Hassani and Dr. Jessica N. Pabón-Colón explains the concept better at the link below:
https://jessicapabon.com/2014/04/19/digital-interview-with-shamsia-hassani-dreaming-graffiti-in-kabul-afghanistan/

One of my favourite of Hassani's 'Dreaming Grafitti' pieces is of a place called Bamyan in Afghanistan where she has added her imagery to a photograph of some incredible cliff caves. To me, the concept and the imagery is inspirational.

For my piece inspired by Hassani's work I chose to use her idea of 'Dreaming Grafitti' and apply it to a photograph I took at the end of 2018. This is the original photo below. Whilst I find it an intreaguing place, it is very sad to think that this was once someone's home. 
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The location is not somewhere I think most people would expect to find a building in this sort of condition;  in fact, I think it is a well kept 'secret' (I would say over half of all the buildings on the island were in a similar state or worse). A good proportion of the population of Grand Bahama have left the island as when the tourists stopped coming after the hurricane, their jobs in the hospitality industry disappeared. Hotel owners took their insurance money and left, so rebuilding did not happen. The tourists found other places to go and the Government lost a large amount of its tax revenue.  As a result  the whole place has a very bizzare sanitised abandoned look about it that is difficult to explain. Despite this,  those who remain still have an optomistic outlook on life and have a stoic positive attitude. 'Forward, Upward, Onward Together is the Bahamian national motto, which I think is echoed in the message Hassani is also sending to the world.
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Taking the photo I edited it using GIMP software and turned it into an image that I had printed onto fabric. This is not my usual method of work and I must admit, I felt a little uncomfortable with it, but I wanted to embrace the 'Dreaming Grafitti' concept, so I decided it was a good way to try out one of the many online companies that custom print fabric. I chose a company called 'Woven Monkey'  http://www.wovenmonkey.com and the fabric I received was very good. Their website was easy to use, the fabric choices were numerous and the quality of the print was excellent. I chose a cotton sateen which has a nice feel. The whole process from order to delivery took less than a week. I also felt it was reasonably and competetively priced at a little over £21 for one metre (delivered).

​This is the photo I uploaded to their site; I chose to make the building blue in recognition of the blue all-covering burqa that many Afghan women were forced to wear during the days of the Taliban. 

 
​Once I had the background fabric I was able to start to develop my idea for adding my version of Shamsia Hassani's 'Dreaming Graffiti'. I did not want to completely copy her imagery, but I do want to ackowledge that it was her work that was inspiring me. I tried to make the faces I drew similar, but not carbon copies of her work. I also wanted to portray the air of optimism that pervades Grand Bahama, despite the way things seem on the surface. This is a sketch of the face I used. I repeated the  face several times, each time changing the angle a little to give the appearance of her gradually looking upward, raising her head and spirit. I also chose to give her a little expression, that of joy.
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And here it is 'on' the building.
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If Shamsia ever sees it, I hope she will like it. 

To see the fabulous work created by the other members in  '12 by the Dozen' inspired by Shamsia Hassani's work,  please do visit our blog:
 https://12bythedozen.blogspot.com/2019/02/

Thanks for reading.