Category Archives: mixed media

Oct 30 2019
2 Comments
book binding, creativity, fibre art, mixed media, Poetry, Publishers and Books, Sewing Projects, textile art

brick by brick

Brick weights/LauraWythe

My friend had a friend lay square bricks in a circle at the far end of her beautiful back garden. It looks like it’s always been there.

There were left-over bricks, and I don’t usually work with bricks, but “borrowed” a few to use as weights for a bookmaking class I’m taking though CEG London. The rough surface needed covered, so I pulled out the thickest felt on hand and made some of those geometry nets like we did in school. I attached the edges by blanket stitching first, then weaving a thick thread though to join the seams and seal the brick up inside. The joining is based on a technique I saw at a Textile Museum of Canada exhibit featuring Central American weaving and clothing.

Brick by brick, I’m approaching the new techniques required for book making, trying to understand. And this finished book cover looks good after a day of rest beneath the felted brick.

In Praise of Ironing (Pablo Neruda)
2019 Laura Wythe
Advertisement
Tagged , ,
May 07 2019
4 Comments
creativity, mixed media, People and Places, Uncategorized

Missed Call

detail of Missed Call, paper coming though silver mesh fencing; a bar "Call the Office" in the background

We whisper a message and it gets passed along. It’s never the same in the end.

This piece started in a paper stitching class, with picture hanging wire coiled to run through a press to emboss a square of paper. It looks like an old-fashioned telephone cord. Later, I treat green cotton rag paper with konjac paste, and fold and crumple the paper. It is quite sculptural. The feel is of old paper, like matchbooks, kept and folded until they become more than paper. Like memories. once fragile, but oddly more permanent through repeatedly turning them over. I take the coiled wire from the embossing and pierce this paper. A telephone connection is made. I list telephone ideas and choose 2 for a conversation that didn’t quite happen. As I stitch, I ask why not? Why didn’t they connect?

Embroidering on cotton paper treated with konjac
Laura Wythe

I remember this colour of green: Call the Office. The paint trim around the tired old windows of this London establishment matches the paper perfectly. Like the paper, it is crumpled but stands up well despite much abuse. It’s where you might meet someone and promise to call.

The fencing is a chance encounter in a craft store, looking for something else. Shiny aluminium mesh to go with the picture wire. Jagged edges.

Missed Call is phone tag, is the whispers game, but on a visual level. Thanks for starting this round of the game — Jan Taylor and Canadian Embroiderers Guild, London

Missed call, complete photo of multimedia relief, fabric, aluminium mesh, wire and paper on linen
Missed Call by Laura Wythe
12″ x 12″
fabric, wire, aluminium mesh, paper and threads on linen
Tagged , ,
%d bloggers like this: