Festival of Quilts 2015

I am very, very excited to have a piece shortlisted for the Fine Art Quilt Masters prize at Festival of Quilts this year.  The prize is one of the biggest competitions in the quilt world in Europe.

I can’t show you the piece as that would invalidate my entry but it is from the ‘Error bred in the bone’ project up at BARC, University of Bradford.  It’s based on an x-ray of a skull from a medieval cemetery attached to a leper’s hospital in Chichester, and the archaeological dig plans of the site.

The image above is also from the ‘Error bred in the bone’ project and is a detail of an archive x-ray from a leper’s hospital in Addis Ababa from the 1980s.  This piece is in the Quilt Art 30^th anniversary exhibition ‘Small Talk’ which is in the gallery section of the Festival of Quilts.  This show of smaller pieces is the companion show to Dialogues which will open at the Quilt Museum in York in September.  You can buy the accompanying catalogue here. http://www.quiltart.eu/quiltartpublicat.html

AND finally I will also be on the Festival panel discussion ‘How does a quilt become a piece of fine art?’ along with Sue Prichard, Keeper of Textiles at the V&A, Dr Sue Marks, Helen Parrott, and my dear Danish friend Charlotte Yde on Friday 7th August, 12.15pm - 1.00pm.  A big subject for a 45 minute discussion!  You can find out more and book tickets here.
http://www.thefestivalofquilts.co.uk/Content/Panel-Discussions/8_42/

So it will be a very busy Festival of Quilts for me.  If you don’t see me on the Fine Art Quilt Masters gallery, or the Quilt Art Small Talk exhibition, or the panel discussion then you’ll find me on the Pfaff stand driving the long arm Powerquilter.  Please come along and say hello!

Error in the bone installed Part 1

Last week I went and installed some of the work that I have made in response to the activities within the Biological Anthropological Research Centre (BARC), University of Bradford, in the workspaces of the Centre itself.  As part of the installation we made ‘interventions’ mixing my contemporary artworks with items from BARC’s collection.  The image above shows some of the digital embroideries based on x-rays in the Andersen Archive in the teaching samples display case in the Keith Manchester Laboratory.   Those of you with an attention to detail will notice the mix of skulls ranging from Neolithic to modern human to apes.

The image below shows one of the Andersen hand embroideries alongside some of the x-rays from the archive on the light box used for teaching.

A big thanks must go to Drs Jo Buckberry, Andy Wilson and of course Keith Manchester for their support and patience on this project.

You can see more example of the Andersen Archive here

http://www.barc.brad.ac.uk/FromCemeterytoClinic/xrays.php

Collect 2015

The Crafts Council have asked Matthew Howard from The Centre for Robotic Research, Kings College London and myself to speak at Collect about the Parallel Practice project.  If you want to hear more about the embroidered circuits and sensors that we have been working on we are on in the lecture theatre at 11 on Monday 11^th May.  It’s a chance for us to share some of the photos and videos of the project with the public.  You might remember that we worked on embroidered EMG sensors and circuits made from conductive threads to collect electrical muscle impulses and map arm movements.

If you are in the Saatchi Gallery on Monday please come along and say Hi!

Dialogues with Quilt Art

The first work to come from the ‘Error bred in the bone’ project at the Biological Anthropological Research Centre at Bradford University went on public display at Textilmuseum Max Berk, Heidelberg, Germany as part of the Quilt Art exhibition ‘Dialogues’.  The piece above is based on an x-ray of a pelvis with Paget’s disease, a debilitating and degenerative condition and an extract of Wallace Stevens’ poem ‘A postcard from the volcano’.

The show looked fabulous and is accompanied by a full colour catalogue with essays about each member by critic and curator Dr Susan Marks. You can order a copy of the catalogue here http://quiltart.eu/quiltartpublicat.html

Not going to be in Heidelberg before the 2^nd of August……don’t worry the show comes to the Quilt Museum in York, UK 11^th September – 31^st August.  There are other dates for this shows tour and its smaller sister show ‘Small talk’ here http://quiltart.eu/quiltartvenues.html

Just cant help myself

Yes, yes we know that the Parallel Practice residency is supposed to be over but sometimes you just cant help yourself.

We have been working off plan on our sleeve.  To be honest it is really technical and if it hadn’t been for Brendan’s patience then I might have given up and gone home. It was that complicated.

The top image is a photo of the circuit drawing that I had to stitch out using conductive thread.  It was a tricky balance of as few ‘crossings’ as possible and being as neat and short as possible in our connections.

The second image is Brendan testing the conductive threads for short circuits.

I’ll keep you posted on the progress of the sleeve.