! w ll ie fu ev e Pr y th ue s Bu is
THROUGH OUR the HANDS Magazine
Interview:
linda seward talks to Margaret Ramsay
Sue Stone Jenni Dutton Terry Grant Canaletto and more...
issue 5 May 2015
Socialize! http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIel3pccql6pOSj2Y9eq74g
Cover Cover: Jenni Dutton, Mum with White T-shirt and Black Cardigan.
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Through Our Hands ‘the magazine’ Established 2014. Editors: Laura Kemshall, Linda Kemshall, Annabel Rainbow Design: Laura Kemshall Submissions and advertising enquiries: throughourhandsmagazine@gmail.com Issue 5 Published by Through Our Hands, May 2015 © Through Our Hands, 2014-15. All content copyright. No part of this publication to be copied or reproduced in any form without prior written permission from the copyright holder(s).
www.throughourhands.co.uk 11 Knightcote Drive, Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire
Contributing authors Linda Kemshall Annabel Rainbow Laura Kemshall Linda Seward Terry Grant Sue Stone Jenni Dutton
Barbara Franc Laura Sindall Mary Beth Schwartzenberger Sandra Meech Vivien Zepf
throughourhands. co.uk@gmail.com 07877 402455
Find out more about our contributors on the website: www.throughourhands.co.uk
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In this issue... Welcome 4 Sue Stone: A Journey from Here to There 5 Jenni Dutton: The Dementia Darnings 11 Interview: Linda Seward poses the questions to Margaret Ramsay 17 Canaletto: Celebrating Britain 25 Terry Grant: For the Love of Scissors 31 Soapbox - The Hand of the Maker 35 Mary Beth Schwartzenberger 39 Spun 43 Desert Island Designs - Sandra Meech 49 The Liberated Quilt 51 Show and Tell 55 What’s On? 59 Barbara Franc 61 Laura Sindall 65
Linda 17 seward interviews margaret ramsay
39 Showcase Mary beth schwartzenberger
Sue Stone A Journey from Here to There
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31 Terry grant scissors
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25 canaletto: celebrating britain
showcase -jenni dutton
55 Show and tell - readers share their work
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Through Our Hands Magazine, Issue 5 | MAy 2015
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Welcome Hello! Before I tell you all about this latest issue of the magazine, I have to let you know about the Through Our Hands exhibition which has just opened at Bilston, Nr Wolverhampton. It’s called The Liberated Quilt, and is an amazing collection of work from 24 of the Affiliated Artists, including portraits, landscapes, still-lifes, abstract works, exercises in pattern and colour, and complex conceptual pieces as well as personal and political statements. It’s beautiful, and challenging, and well worth a visit! Opening times, and all the information you need to know before your visit can be found on page 38.
Annabel Rainbow annabelrainbow@gmail.com
As a special celebration, we have produced an extra-large catalogue of all the work on show at The Liberated Quilt, complete with additonal details, artists’ statements and some of the inspirational ideas behind the work. A pdf version will available for you to download, or print off and keep. There’s more information on our website. We also have lots of other articles to inspire and interest you in this edition, including a visit to the Canaletto exhibition at Compton Verney, Mary Beth Schwartzenberg tells us about her work using Japanese Kyoseishi paper, we hear from Sue Stone about her Journey From Here To There, and look at the most amazing Dementia Darnings from Jenni Dutton. We also feature the mother and daughter team, Barbara Franc and Laura Sindall, and venture into the world of Cosplay.
Laura Kemshall laurakemshall@gmail.com
Of course, all your regular favourite features are here too. Linda and Laura are on their Soapbox discussing the impact of technology on their work. Sandra Meech is our marooned guest artist on the Desert Island; she tells us she had quite a bit of fun answering our questions. Linda Seward interviews Margaret Ramsey, and Terry Grant shares her love for scissors. Finally, if you’re going to be at Festival of Quilts this year, do come along to the Through Our Hands stand and say hello. We’ll be there with a whole new collection just for Festival, and we’d love to welcome you and tell you about the work on show. Love, Annabel, Linda and Laura throughourhands.co.uk
Linda Kemshall linda@lindakemshall.com 4
Affiliate Artist
We are thrilled that Sue Stone is now represented by Through Our Hands as an Affiliate Artist. Here she tells us more about her work.
a journey from here to there
Combining the slow build of an image in hand stitch with the dynamic spontaneity of free machine stitch and paint is my passion. Hand stitching into a piece of cloth and the feel of that cloth in my hands is for me a therapeutic process. It reminds me who I am and where I came from.
Text by Sue Stone Images by Sue Stone unless otherwise stated
Facing Page: The Universal Child, 2013 Below: I Listen to the Radio and Hear His Voice, 2013
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Sue Stone
Growing up I was surrounded by cloth and making. Fabrics, buttons and threads were my playthings and sewing was an everyday activity at home. My Mum was a talented seamstress, professionally trained as a tailor, so I learned to cut and sew cloth at an early age. Without a great deal of success, my Mum tried to help me realise the making process is not as instant as I would like it to be. I was impatient and really more interested in designing, which
is immediate, rather than sewing which takes time, so I designed clothes, first for my dolls, and then later on for myself. After a chequered journey through schooling and employment I arrived aged 17 at Grimsby School of Art and followed that with a period at St Martin’s School of Art in London, studying Fashion and Textiles. Not feeling I fitted in at St Martins I left midcourse, but I enjoyed living in London so I stayed. After a couple of years hopping from one job to another, not finding anything I wanted to do longterm, I decided to go back into education and finish my degree. I lived just up the road from Goldsmith’s College so I wrote to Constance Howard, head of the Embroidery course, to ask if she would look at my work. I had never done any embroidery so I took along my fashion drawings. Constance was a small, charismatic person with bright green hair, who introduced herself as Mrs Parker, and it was Mrs P’s enthusiasm for embroidery that awakened my own passion for stitch. My time at Goldsmith’s was exciting and enlightening, the polar opposite to my experience at St Martins and I graduated in 1975 with a first class honours degree.
Through Our Hands Magazine, Issue 5 | may 2015
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Through Our Hands Magazine, Issue 5 | may 2015
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Returning to Lincolnshire on completion of my degree I joined the business started by my husband and became a designer. It all began with a market stall but by 1979 we had expanded the business, opened a shop and had two lovely children. Business and family took over my life for 27 years so my own work went on hold. Manufacturing and retailing was hard work but great fun in the early days. Later on, when the business had to become more commercial to survive, designing Facing Page: Double Take, 2014 Below: Portrait of a Grimsby Girl, 2014, photo by David Ramkalawon.
became a chore. Of course a career in fashion will, by it’s very nature, always have it’s ups and downs and we certainly experienced those. I was 50 before I knew it and I’d had enough of designing other people’s clothes so in 2002 I started stitching again. This was mainly due to encouragement from my friend and former tutor at Grimsby School of Art, Alf Ludlam. Since then it’s all been a bit of a whirlwind. I’ve produced a lot of work and exhibited it widely, both in the UK and beyond. My work is mainly figurative, it’s personal, but not sentimental, and I sometimes tackle serious issues. The fish has become my signature, a symbol of where I’m from and the images in my work often portray
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women or children holding fish. Familiar images from past and present combine and connect to explore relationships between people, time, and place and the partial narrative offered to the viewer sometimes displays my surreal sense of humour. I’m very driven and disciplined in my approach to my work and for this I have to thank my Dad for passing on his determination and his work ethic. I’ve come a long way in the last 13 years and am now an exhibiting member of the 62 Group of Textile Artists and in 2013 somehow, became Chair of the group. I am also a Fellow of the Society of Designer Craftsmen.
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Above: The Unknown Statistic, 2014, photo by David Ramkalawon, detail right.
I still live and work in Grimsby and it’s a fairly isolated place in many senses. The town is located on the south bank of the River Humber but travel any further east and you would fall into the North Sea! Being part of the 62 Group of Textile Artists and the Society of Designer Craftsmen helps me get my work seen further afield and because the exhibitions for both groups are selected it also keeps me on my toes. My two sons now have careers of their own. Joe is currently resident director of the West End show Matilda and Sam is a talented freelance Graphic Designer and Animator. From visiting the many exhibitions where I have shown work they have also developed an enthusiasm for the medium of textiles on a wider scale and in 9
Through Our Hands Magazine, Issue 5 | may 2015
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2013 they launched the innovative website textileartist.org. The site began with series of interviews from members of the 62 Group of Textile Artists and has gone from strength to strength with contributions now coming from contemporary artists and textile designers across the world. It’s the kind of website you can visit time and time again and always learn something you didn’t know or see something you’ve never seen before. This Spring they launch their first book entitled 3D Mixed Media Textile Art which explores the world of mixed media sculpture through the eyes of 50 practitioners working in this field. Each chapter tells the story of a different artist; their creative journey, what inspires them
and the processes they use. I am currently taking some time out to produce a new body of work which explores self and the wider relationships with self, it’s a sort of visual family tree. I’m also in the process of writing a book. My relationships, my life experience and my environment have, and will always be, the inspiration for my work. I portray what I know and how it has affected me. My Dad had a maxim which I find useful to remember when life and work are not going my way. “Nothing’s impossible, the impossible just takes a bit longer to achieve.”
Above: A Girls’ Day Out for Hilda, Nellie and Ida, 2012
For more about Sue: womanwithafish.com womanwithafish.wordpress.com facebook.com/suestone. womanwithafish?ref=hl twitter.com/womanwithafish textileartist.org 62Group.org.uk societyofdesignercraftsmen.org.uk
what’s on? INSIDE ~ OUT An exhibition of textile art by the Brunel Broderers. Nature in Art Museum and Gallery Wallworth Hall, Twigworth, Gloucestershire, GL2 9PA 11 - 31 August 2015 Opening times 10am -5pm daily. Closed Mondays except Bank Holidays. Normal admission charges apply Good accessibility for disabled. brunelbroderers.blogspot.com nature-in-art.org.uk Come and see working in Artists in Residence Studio from 11th - 16th August Charlie Poulsen & Pauline Burbidge’s OPEN STUDIO
Creative Recycling for children workshops with Alison Harper & Carla Mines on Weds 19th August for full details and booking visit nature-in-art.org.uk
Allanbank Mill Steading
Also lunchtime talk - Making INSIDE:OUT by Susi Bancroft. No booking necessary
31 July - 3 August 2015 11am – 6pm
shown inside and out. You will also see new developments in the garden!
This will mark Charlie & Pauline’s 22nd OPEN STUDIO exhibition, a really well established Borders event. We are delighted to welcome Lizzie Farey as our guest artist this year. Lizzie’s work engages with nature; through the medium of willow, larch, ash, hazel and other local woods. She focuses on recreating the essence of natural form. In our OPEN STUDIO she will be showing her wall pieces, akin to willow ‘drawings’, influenced by her time in Japan, and other 3D pieces which capture the simplicity and beauty of the materials she employs.
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This year Pauline will be showing mainly work in progress, as she heads towards a major exhibition which will be held at the Bowes Museum, Co Durham, due to begin in November of this year, (it will also tour to the Ruthin Craft Centre in North Wales during 2016).
Charlie has continued to explore new ground in his splendid large scale drawings, many of these will be on show this year, together with sculpture
Please come and wander around our garden and studios. It is a lovely summer experience – enjoy the artwork, the steading and the tea and cakes. Come and say hello!
Through Our Hands Magazine, Issue 5 | may 2015
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Quilt Art: Small Talk 30th Anniversary Exhibition Festival of Quilts, NEC Birmingham 6 - 9 August 2015 Quilt Art: Dialogues 30th Anniversary Exhibition The Quilt Museum, York 11 September - 31 October 2015 Quilt Art: Small Talk 30th Anniversary Exhibition Macclesfield Silk Museums 15 September - 30 October 2015 quiltart.eu
Are you organising an event or exhibition? Let us know all about it and we’ll list it in the next isssue of Through Our Hands. All listings will also be posted on the Through Our Hands website for maximum exposure! www.throughourhands.co.uk throughourhands.co.uk@gmail.com
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Sue Stone, I Listen to the Radio and Hear his Voice.
www.throughourhands.co.uk 11 Knightcote Drive, Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, UK 07877 402455