New at Heart Space Studios – weekend lunchtime talks – about anything and everything textiles. We started with two ‘show and tell’ sessions, Lisa Keating ( who is conducting a 2 day corset making course – see Heart Space web site for further details) brought and talked about corset history, leading into her own designs and working samples; Jan Connett spoke about her own work using corsets as a metaphor for society’s age – old unreal expectations of feminine beauty.

Lisa gave a demonstration of the way that the corset can be manipulated to squeeze the waist up to seven inches smaller, by means of two sets of separate ribbons at the back of the garment.

Michelle who regularly models for Lisa, reported that at each subsequent fitting she has been able able to get her waist to a smaller size.

Feminists or not, we were all fascinated and when the samples were passed around the audience were able to really study the intricacies and refinement of the construction of these modern day “stays”.

I like the idea of ‘reading’ a corset like an open book – see below – what stories would it tell?

the workmanship was truly worth the examination

Lisa also passed around her design drawings of wedding and evening dresses that use the corset construction. I was reminded of my early career years as a fashion illustrator and decided I could include these techniques in my new drawing club at Heart Space.

Before we went on to hear Jan Connett’s talk about her art works we broke off for tea and biscuits with cupcakes that were provided by a new company, Clifton Cake Couture, who are going to rent space in the studios to run their own cake decoration classes later in the year… these cakes taste as good as they look, we were lost for choice – they were the perfect accompaniment to the glamorous frivolous corsets.

And now for something completely different – Jan Connet’s corsets, these really made us sit up and think. Jan introduced her talk by saying how much she delighted in the frivolity of the corsets but how she now used them as a metaphor to make work questioning our whole attitude to women, in particular the obsession for overt sexuality embodied by the fascination in the display of the female body.

Jan talked about the tension between her choice of materials, metal, fibre, paper, reflecting the tension between her love of the object and the fact that it is a repressive and damaging garment when taken to extremes, both physically and metaphorically.

She told us of her research that had revealed that girls as young as 3 years of age are being diagnosed with anorexia nervosa – an affliction embedded in control of appetite to control the body’s appearance; of high street shops selling padded bras and pole dancing kits for for 7 year olds……but she also made us aware that we are all complicit in this. One of her works was called “Before I go out of the house” and showed how we all use make-up or fashion to bolster our own sense of self esteem before we allow ourselves to be seen in public.

Her new work is based on the Barbie doll, and she has several dolls ready to be incorporated in a new corset, which is in brilliant, shiny, sparkling, pink fabrics – again the duality that textile affords is apparent, we can delight in the colour and frivolity of the fabrics and forms but they set up the perfect trap of making us feel slightly guilty for being so easily  attracted by the surface – but this heightens the personal questioning that comes with the realisation that not everything is what it seems to be.

I was truly delighted by the talks;  the audience also liked the 2 opposing but complementary points of view, we had happily laughed at the extremes of earlier fashions in Lisa’s talk but were shocked by Jan’s revelations about the current generation’s obsession with young female bodies. This is where textiles interest me most, after I have enjoyed the surfaces  there is a  wealth of material to express views, ideas and arguments; most people have an innate understanding of fabric – it surrounds and sustains us from cradle to grave – so for me it has become the perfect media to work in.

I am leaving you with 2 images that perfectly show the allure of present day corsets…

and this blurred but evocative image of Michelle, could be a Renoir or a Tissot…….except for the denims.

I have been researching a new course to run at Heart Space Studios for the autumn and winter months – making a kimono, well a shortened version of one really – more of a jacket but using several techniques found in traditional kimono. Many years ago, I visited Japan on a Royal Society of Arts bursary to study kimono design; my way of seeing the world was never quite the same again and my textiles changed radically. I adapted several of the dyeing, stencilling and embroidery techniques for my own work but I never made an actual kimono.

Everywhere, everything I was ever served to eat was a visual delight, which more than made up for the fact that I first found the food bland and boring to eat; everything looked so -well – Japanese!

I eventually got to like some of the food, particularly the lunch boxes of Sushi…now a regular food everywhere – but in 1981 I had never seen a roll of rice and fish and seaweed before.

When my Japanese family saw my drawing they thought I could write and therefor speak Japanese, and when later that evening I drew the recipe for Tempura, they were sure I was fooling them with my non existent Japanese vocabulary… I began to see the difference of the Western style of drawing and the Eastern ways of seeing and recording.

They simply could not understand that I could perfectly copy the label for the leeks and not be able to read it. And when I drew their daughter Kyoko asleep under the table and it LOOKED just like her, they thought I was an artistic genius. I tried to explain the difference between the Western art education – educating the individual to draw directly from life as opposed to the traditional Eastern way,  learn from a master the key symbols for each item and emotion……

And that is when the bartering started, wherever I went I drew a picture of the people I visited, they gave me something or even better demonstrated a technique for me – I went to Kyoto almost daily to study traditional textiles, meeting with designers, weavers, spinners, embroiderers of kimono, I swapped these stencils for a drawing of the artist who cut and made them.

So looking thought the day book now I am intrigued by what I  eventually did make with all this information. I will try to show some of the results in further blogs, but right now I think that the visual mind has a strange way of making connections between disparate stimuli, because I made work for a patchwork book from this study trip….

and now some 30 years later I am eventually giving classes in making kimono.

We have had so many interesting fabric jewellry classes at Heart Space Studios recently that I have decided to develop a fabric jewellry course for the autumn using all the jewellry tutors to take a class each. I got the idea from attending Teresa Searle’s workshop and even though I was the most talkative student I produced enough ideas to develop some old pieces of work to make fabric, enamel and beaded jewellery.

You can see just Teresa’s hand pointing out a flower brooch at her recent class, she brought a wonderful selection of samples and ideas to inspire everyone not just me. She showed us several ways of making fabric into rosettes for flowers..

strings for beading,

appliques for making bracelets and has lots of ways to achieve good looking finished and wearable pieces.

Other tutors teach how to make beautiful fabric beads, here Patricia Brownen has strung her beads with pretty glass bought beads. Stringing up to colour co-ordinate is real skill and she has developed interesting and simple ways for beginners to achieve beautiful combinations in her workshops.

Other tutors make brooches out of recycled fabrics and threads, Debbie Bird always bring piles of lovely things to play with.

Jan Connet has made some lovely daisy chains for her workshop for machine embroidery using vanishing muslin

These would make lovey bracelets and necklaces if she makes them stronger, I like the idea of adding them to the fabric strings I made with Teresa. It is this combination of ideas and materials which will  make our jewellry course so fascinating for everyone involved.I also think that Jan’s paper making class could develop into bead making…the combinations of colours and materials give plenty of scope for new ideas.

I am also interested in developing and integrating the ribbon roses into the course which we made in a previous workshop.

But what I really want to achieve is a mixture of media in the new course, fabric with beads, enamel, paper, wood, bone…….the idea is to get the different materials to work together so that they form new and exciting combinations for textile jewellry.

Heart Space Studios went blue last week – indigo blue, our first Shibori dyeing class by Teresa Searle who is a textile designer maker and author and now developing new workshops for us, her next class is textile  jewellery and she is working on a course in experimental stitching for later in the year. When I walked into the class at mid morning there was plenty of experimental stuff going on.

There were stones, elastic bands, thread, and all kinds of fabrics being worked on, from embroidered silks…..

to cotton dusters.

I even found someone stitching.

The fabrics were also being wrapped around tubes and tied in a seemingly random fashion – I could be wrong – it may have been very mathematical.

After the morning’s work spent wrapping and tying all the fabrics were into put water to soak

while I organised lunch

Simple lunches are always provided at our whole day workshops, I have found that eating together gives everyone, usually all complete strangers, a chance to catch up and see who does what, and very often as this is a local venue, find that they have all sorts of things in common other than a love of textiles. The food is kept simple – salads, soups, decent breads with fruit and cheese and we always cater for tricky diets – most of us have had allergy problems ourselves. Also it makes the whole experience more of a treat, students can  just concentrate on the class for the whole day. Apparently this group thought they were getting wine when I brought out the stemmed glasses – fat chance – wine, then in charge of a dye vat! I don’t think so….must get new glasses to save further disappointment.

Then outside to do the actual dying, the indigo needs oxygen (and it does tend to stink) to make the reaction from deep green to that beautiful singing blue…watching the colour change is always fascinating. Teresa gave a simple and informative demo and explanation of times and strengths of dye, rigged up a washing line and let them all get on with it while being on hand to help, everyone was so excited – especially me.

The dyed pieces were then left out to dry, while the students got on with more experiments.

I wish I could have seen the faces of the students when the first ties were being pulled off –  pure magic – as are the finished results.

If you want to try this with us keep checking theHeart Space Studios website  for the next classes, Teresa is planning some different typed of shibori dyeing classes for later in the year.