Embroideries

These are a selection from the final set of embroideries I've been pressing into my pots, they look nice in black and white - I'll pop these in the project book of images I'm making!

Newest pots

Working with an audience

There has been studio based chaos this week, I've been doing lots of late nights and had a small crisis midweek, but that's resolved itself now.

I'm quite enjoying working with what is now quite the little audience of faces.

I'm really pleased the hessian pots, more than the ones which are just embroideries on calico.

The edges which get trapped and distorted in the mould process are also really interesting, I've decided to embrace them rather than neaten them up, it's those bits that give them character.

Gt Uncle Norman

100th Birthday

Today would have been Grandad Ward's 100th Birthday

Here's some photos of him looking lovely. There's not very many photos of him in the biscuit tin collection. Dad says that he was always the photographer.

I've drawn him for The Ward Project recently, he's got a nice face to draw.

The stray 'Gardner' in the Holmes Family.

Well I was wondering where the name Gardner kept popping up from - it's not a name of anyone that i've heard of in the family.

I had a look at the family tree and worked out that there were some Gardner's on the Holmes side of the family but none of them were direct relatives of Jessie Elizabeth Gardner Ward (nee Holmes)

Having spoken to Dad, he tells me that the story goes something like:

There was a man once called Walter Gardner, he was a Jockey and he is meant to have died losing weight for a race. Apparently they used to sit in horse manure and the exothermic reaction (or something) overheated him and he died suddenly.

There is meant to be a legacy of a large amount of money left somewhere in the family, but no one to our knowledge has ever found it. Perhaps it's hidden under the floorboards of a house, or in a bank under a different name? Anyway, Jessie Holmes was given the Gardner in her name to entitle her to a share of this legacy if it was ever found.

How interesting - It's stories like this I had been excited about finding.

Faces and hessian in clay

Having been to see Sarah Purvey I got loads of ideas and since then I've done lots of experiments and I think I've almost come to a conclusion.

I really really liked the imprint of the hessian on the clay, it made the faces stand out really nicely and really made the most of the texture by complimenting the texture of the stitch.

I think the coiling idea has run it's course as well, though i'll have to talk that one over. I like the idea of making big slab pots in a mould, as that would allow me to got at deeper impression of the stitch and hessian.

Anyway here they are, Grandpa Holmes is looking pleasingly grumpy as ever!