Somerset Arts Week

Gillian Widden - The Horn of Plenty interior view

Outside view

Yesterday was the first day of Somerset Arts Week. The piece below is set in the most amazing woodland garden. The theme for pieces set in the garden trail is 'Abundance', hence The Horn of Plenty. This piece is site specific and is very large. The opening is nearly as tall as me and it peters down to a space too small the enter.

The garden has been made since the end of the 1960's and is full of beautiful specimen trees including many very rare species.
If you are in the area it is Venue 34 and near Taunton. The artist is Gillian Widden, very talented and fascinating to talk to, as was the garden owner. Well worth a visit, we were there for ages looking at the work and the garden.
An extra bonus for me was that I was able to collect loads of leaves for dyeing.


Venue 34 is also well worth a visit, lovely textiles, driftwood art and paintings. I think the two venues are quite close but my sat nav seemed to have found the most obscure route with narrow windy lanes to take us on.

Exhibition in Lyme Regis

I am taking part in this exhibition, the centre image of the three smaller images is part of one of my pieces of work.

Words

I am no writer but these words came to me this morning and for some reason needed to be shared.

She continued on through time and space, set about by ordinary things but dreaming of another life.
She walked along beaches and through woods collecting objects and storing away thoughts as squirrels store their nuts,
She observed butterflies and bees and spoke to frogs gently coaxing them to safer hiding places,
She listened to the birds and ate blackberries among the brambles.

She listened to Mother Earth and Father Sea as they combined in ecstasy, washing away words written in the sand until she was at peace,
Sitting on a sea washed log carried by water from far off places.





Well this might become embarrassing but I'm posting anyway.

Enid

Recently I treated myself to a small gift. One I have been wanting for a while. 

 The unwrapping was a delight she has been carefully protected with cloth and lichen, a couple of small sea shells also accompanied her.

And here she is, Enid, an exquisite little character, 10 centimetres tall

Divested of her travelling cloak

but nice and warm again now.

Her maker is Anthropomorphica Artdolloddities

Dyeing and Weaving

Printed from fallen leaves found in a garden centre

Includes eucalyptus and vine leaves

Have completed another centimetre of weaving

 Its a drear day here, raining non stop and windy. Hence these images have been taken in very subdued light. I am very pleased to get such clear images of the leaves. Printed on silk noil.

Cloth dyed with flowers from 60th birthday bouquet

A permanent momento

Mo Crow showed an image of a real leaf she had waxed on her blog http://itscrowtime.wordpress.com/ the other day so I have tried that as well, seems to have worked. Next year I am doing a piece called 'A Walk in the Woods'. If the leaves last they would look great.












And yes I have done a little weaving and an image for my next piece.
I have a way to go still.






Instead of throwing my birthday bouquet away when the flowers died I dyed a piece of cloth with them. This piece is about a metre by half a metre, dyed using wool which takes up the colours so beautifully. The close up is a more accurate view of the colour, it also has patches of green and blue in it. I am thrilled with this and it is such a lovely thing to be able to keep.
The only problem is that wool makes me itch so if I decide to stitch it this I could probably only complete a little at a time.

Spider Webs

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Spider in this one

Sculpture by Tean Kirby

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Hibiscus and Phlox

Woke up to these this morning, there had been a heavy sea mist during the night

Sunset on 1st September