Textile Landscape: Painting with Cloth in Mixed Media

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While the field of landscape art (pun intended) has been explored many times, the real pleasure in this book comes from Cas’ curation of the textile techniques you can try, and the involvement of other artists. Artists like Jane Fairweather are included for further inspiration The conch shell was part of my final work for my A level; I obtained the highest marks in Lewes College that year. This piece was the starting point of my journey with embroidery. The book honours the landscape as much as it honours the textile art traditions; if you were uncertain of the value in stitching landscapes, you will feel encouraged and prepared to have a go. But I can’t say when exactly I realised my use of found materials connected to the environments in which they were found. Instead, I think the process of connecting to place found me. Claire Benn: Plateau (detail), 2019, 94cm x 67cm, Mono print, painting and hand stitch, antique hemp, paper, cotton thread, earth pigments, acrylic medium. Photograph credit: Katie Vandyke

An article Sketch to Stitch relating drawing to stitch appears in Stitch Magazine, August/September issue 2013 (out the end of July). For more information about Stitch Magazine see our recent article: Top five textile art magazines.

TextileArtist.org: Found objects seem to be a key role in the creation of your work. What is it about re-using materials that is important to you and your process?

This debate about what we do as artists, let alone textile artists, has been churning in my mind for years. I recognise my practice sits between two worlds of practice: painting and textiles. But I wonder why a distinction of their values as an art form are still being discussed at length. This book is a response to that debate. Exploring the connection between landscape, people and place Cas collects found materials as she goes. marks are then created which combine cloth, paint and stitch with a disregard of the divisions of medium usage and application that often define the world of painting and textiles. Though Ahmed works in painting, video, and installation art, the Azerbaijani artist is most known for his fantastical carpets and embroideries. In these works, he playfully riffs on traditional weaving patterns, creating new rugs (though sometimes ripping apart old ones) that feature optical illusions, acid drips, and pixelated glitches. Ahmed’s process begins on the computer, where he uses Photoshop to create these psychedelic distortions. He then prints the design to-scale on paper before handing it off to a team of 20 to 25 weavers. In the early 1970s, Italian conceptual artist Boetti was thinking about collaborating with Afghan artisans. As a test run, he asked local craftswomen to create two embroideries, one with the words “December 16, 2040” (the 100th anniversary of the artist’s birth) and the other with the text “July 11, 2023” (the day he predicted he would die). The embroiderers strayed from Boetti’s original designs, however, surrounding the dates with floral patterns and decorations. Boetti—interested in the concept of chance in artmaking—enjoyed this surprise, and thus began his decades-long partnership with Afghan craftswomen.This is one of the most difficult questions to answer. I find the Australian landscape inspirational, full of texture and amazing flora and fauna, but alien. It tells its own story and it is one where I can only, as yet, find the most transient of connections. For the Aboriginal artist, the landscape tells its own complex stories of place and connection to people. European settlers brought with them Western conventions of pictorial landscape painting to interpret the land. At best my experience is only ‘fleetingly felt’ as I travel and feels ‘borrowed.’ Finding a more solid connection to place takes time, if it comes at all. As I go deeper into the experience of living with this land I find myself drawn towards using more natural pigments, dyes and print-making techniques, such as eco-printing, as the basis for stitching. These processes call for endless experimentation, tempered by just a little on-line research. There is no substitute for making a technique your own, through the use of the materials and work conditions that you have to hand. As the viewers were encouraged to turn and switch the Chromatic Navigation tiles around to transform the overall pattern, and moved their bodies to physically engage with the pieces, it reminded me of why I’ve enjoyed creating wearable art collections. When the theme is right, a garment becomes a moving sculpture on a body, also changing how the wearer feels and moves depending on the design and structure of the piece. Our connection to the landscape and the natural world is deeply felt and meaningful. And as I recognised its value in informing my own practice, I wanted to share that with other makers. Using a combination of friction, soap and water to felt together wool fibres, a new fabric is formed that can be moulded into whatever you desire.