Celebrating Textiles - Textile Challenge.

Celebrating Textiles

A couple of years ago I was asked by the previous curator of The Queens Park Gallery - Janice Whittle to take part in an exhibition - my first exhibiting some of my new textile work.  She also mentioned Boro Shashiko which I was not familiar with at the time and gave me two challenges to explore Boro and to go much larger in size with my work than I had previously gone.  

You can check out the video below of the exhibition

What is Boro?

Derived from the Japanese Boro, meaning something tattered or repaired, boro refers to the practice of reworking and repairing textiles (often clothes or bedding) through piecing, patching and stitching, in order to extend their use.

At first I couldn't imagine how I would tackle such a large piece and also learn a new technique and create a piece for an exhibition but Janice encouraged  and I became excited at how I would execute the challenge.

It took me months to get started - just as well she had given me 10 months notice!  I decided to create a series of small pieces, the size that I was used to and then join them all together.

This made the world of difference, I could just focus on that piece and then move on.  I found the stitches to be also relaxing, Boro is also known as 'The Mending Stitch'

I gathered my jeans fabric and set about creating stitches on them

I also added elements such as painted fabric, laying  and using alternative colors on the fabric.

This is the finished piece.  The wood is Moringa and Cotton Tree wood harvested from my garden

Art by Amanda Trought - Wall Hanging

My challenge for this piece was to learn something new and go much bigger in size than I normally do.  What have you challenged yourself with this month that has stretched you?

Stay blessed and be a Blessing

Amanda

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I am also taking part in the Ultimate Blog Challenge and you can check out all the posts HERE

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Fabric and Textile Art - Slow Stitching

Over the years I have been combining a lot of slow stitch and working with fabric within my work and have really enjoyed the process.  It started getting serious at the beginning of lockdown when the whole world seem to changed overnight and we had to come to terms with a new normal.

As I looked at the creative activities that I was doing none of them seem to still my mind until I remembered the work that I had done the previous year for a textile exhibition in Barbados at the Queens Park Gallery called Celebrating Textiles ( I will share about the exhibition tomorrow).

I realized that I liked the detail that you could get with stitch, fabric and paint - I was keen to experiment, learn new stitches and it set me on an amazing adventure of embroidery, fabric and textile art.

I had done a few fabric projects and made things from fabric as you can see in some of my 'Material Monday projects'  which mostly included crochet pieces.  The stitching, painting, dyeing started to grow.

I combined my love for painting with stitching and haven't looked back.  I start out painting my backgrounds, adding the figure and then the stitching process continues until the piece feels done, learning new embroidery stitches and being comfortable with the supplies.

I am still learning about fabrics and how to work with all the different supplies to create the look and feel that I am after.  I have been enjoying the process and continue to allow my imagination to come up with different characters and scenes.

I  immersed myself into all the fabric, threads, beads and more that I had collected over the years.  It was all there waiting for me to recognize their importance in my creative journey, and so I set about stitching, dyeing, embellishing and bringing together an array of techniques that I had developed over the years into a needle, my sewing machine and all the supplies that welcomed me with open arms, and I have not looked back.

What creative activities have you immersed yourself in over the past 2 years that has helped with your health and well-being?

Stay blessed and be a blessing.

Art Journal Page - Inspired, Material Mondays!

 Art Journal Page Process

Today I share an art journal page process as I do quite a bit of mark making on the page.  I had already created the face, which is something I do a lot in my journals, either fill up the pages with background color or faces until I am ready for them.

Material Inspired

One of the other things that I would like to get back to is working with fabric.  I like creating different activities that enable you to play with your supplies.  These spools have been wrapped in fabric and lace and I have added stitching and a variety of different fabrics together

I also found some beads and buttons that were in my overspill container and was able to use them.  The container holds all those elements that I haven't yet put away and so I would see what could be used on a project.

I managed to put together 3 spools that I can use in other projects.  It was really fun working on them.

What do you have on hand in your creative space that you can get to work on if you had limited time to create, you have to try and make time for your creative practice?

Stay blessed and be a blessing!

Limitless - Your Brains potential

 

What would you do if you could see how much better it was going to get, how different would you act now? and what would you do with the time you have?

Limitless

I have always liked the movie that came out called 'Limitless' and the idea of being able to maximize the use of your brain to 100%  to learn and do all the things you wanted to do.  Though I wouldn't want to have to continually take a drug to do so.  Some say we only use 10%, others say it is a myth and we use far more.

I think it depends how we are looking after the bodies that we have been given.  How do you look after yourself, nurture and take care of your body?  What foods are you putting in, or rather what kind of foods are you putting into that which you want to take you all over the world, perform and interact  or not if the last two years have been anything to go on - When was the last time you had a health check-up?  Are you drinking enough water, getting enough rest, finding ways to destress in a stressful environment ? and the list goes on.

Are you doing all you can do to keep your body in tip top condition in order to use all your abilities to their maximum potential?  It can be a massive challenge when you are bombarded with foods filled with E numbers and preservatives or pesticides (The food industry determines that we can safely ingest a number of harmful chemicals), these are designed to make our foods look the 'right' color, bind them or keep them at a certain consistency - and that is just one part of our lives I will not go into the environmental effects on our bodies and brain health.  

With all that and more that we are told by big business that won't harm us but have been found years later to be responsible for cancers and other illnesses you can understand why we might not be performing at 100%

What can we do?

We can have an impact on our brain and overall health by doing several things:

• Get enough sleep, take a power nap if needed - don't feel guilty
• Eat a balanced diet - A variety of food groups - quality food, not processed, heavily salted or laden with fat or sugar.
• Increase your water content - most of us are drinking water but not enough - if you feel thirsty then you are already dehydrated.
• Exercise your brain - puzzles, conversation, social interaction, learn something new, teach what you learn to others.
• Fresh air - exercise your body, go out into the fresh air, get some sunshine on your body
• Take part in a creative activity - great for your mental health and wellbeing
• Plan what you want to do, set some goals - make a list, schedule and find time to pursue those things that are important to you, challenge yourself.
• Growing your own food
• Get rid of the clutter - mental, physical... and more

These are just a few things to get started of the ones currently on my list, let me know what you ones you do.  Stay blessed and be a blessing