Wednesday 1 April 2015

Alice Fox workshop day 1

Close up of Groyne (sea defences)
I have just got back from a four day workshop with Alice Fox,  http://www.alicefox.co.uk/ She was amazingly patient and calm with us all, we learnt loads about lots of different process and had a great if exhausting time.
Our day started with coffee and tea and then a walk on the beach collecting rusty metal and other flotsam and jetsam.











Rusty bracket on Groyne

I
Eastbourne beach

Collecting Day One

Rusty bits

More collecting day one

Wrapping and dyeing rusty bits

more rusty bits

and even more
In the afternoon we wrapped fabric and made marks on paper with the rusty bits we had collected which were thoroughy wetted with tea.
I had driven down the previous day and visited Charleston House near Lewes. I have been wanting to see this for years but somehow never managed it, it is a fascinating house where Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant lived. They were members of the Bloomsbury Group, Vanessa being Virginia Woolf's sister. The house is full of paintings by members of the group, even the walls and fireplaces are painted. I stayed with my good friend Liz (also taking part in the workshop)and her husband in a house we had rented on the marina, so great accomadation and company as well.

4 comments:

  1. It doesn't get finer than friends, literary history, treasures from the sea and rusty bits in a workshop- what a fine adventure Debbie and I await your bundle unveiling. As I write this comment, I too am working with rusty bits, a little cloth I made last year echoing the arroyos here in New Mexico. At first, this cloth was going to stand alone but I have a wildly exuberant cloth that I made to hang on my wall, begun in Tennessee to which I 've added New Mexico markings, even a tracing in cloth, dyed in walnut of Kokopelli, the Hopi trickster, fertility and music god. The rusty arroyo cloth is going to be stitched to the bottom of this wild cloth, I've changed the bottom section several times. I like to rework some of my wall hangings since I have a small house, by doing so I feel as if I have created a new cloth piece.

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    1. Hi Marti, your cloth sounds fascinating would be good to see a photo of it. I will be posting more pics soon though I got a bit carried away with the work and forgot to take many photos.

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  2. So neat to see what you collected and your rust-dyeing. I just finished a batch of that myself. Now to settle on an idea fir the fabric! Your shells with holes look like mine collected on the New Jersey coast. Some of them have ended up as Ghoulies' mouths. So much fun to make art of found items.

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    1. Hi Barbara I thought your results looked really good. I wish I had collected more shells with holes, there were also quite a few pebbles with holes in as well.

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