Monthly Archives: January 2021

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Patternmaking

Euphorbia stamps

I enjoyed making the Turn End Herbarium but I feel that I haven’t exhausted the subject yet. On reviewing the above book https://www.hunterbooks.co.uk/turn-end-gardens.htm  (see projects completed) I realized that I had made some interesting patterns in the contemporary pages. Mainly by the leaf printing but why not with the flower heads?

What is pattern making? Does it matter? Early Greek philosophers studied pattern, with Plato and Pythagoras attempting to explain order in nature. It has been defined as the repeating of art motifs in regular or cyclical fashion to create interest, movement, and/or harmony and unity. Rhythms can be random, regular, alternating, flowing, and progressive.

Several contemporary artists I have studied have moved on to designing for textiles. Usually this means making repeat patterns from their art.

Elizabeth Blackadder, a Scottish artist born in 1931, painted flowers, amongst other things, that are not in vases or gardens they are more in lines as an herbarium would be laid out. Reading her biography, I understand that she collected wildflowers as a youngster and pressed them and then began to paint them. The repetition of the upright stance of each flower looks like an army on parade.  

Elizabeth Blackadder

Angie Lewin, born in 1963, is another artist inspired by all aspects of nature. Nature drawn with meticulous detail for use in lino or screen printing and then using those designs for dress fabrics. Her book shows a good selection of her prints https://www.angielewin.co.uk/pages/plants-places 

Angie Lewin

I decided to experiment with making some rubber stamps of my flower head drawings from Turn End Herbarium and explore pattern making with them. Making rubber stamps is a similar process to cutting lino for printing, I used the same tools but much softer surface, rubber.  The photos show some prints on white paper and one on a gelatin printed paper.

Flower head stamps

 I think that the stamped image on a painted background gives it depth and can tell two stories.

All this experimenting has started the creative juices running. Next some words to accompany these designs or maybe use words as a background. 

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12 days of Christmas

During lockdown I have been enjoyed following several slow stitching internet sites. It is so relaxing and takes me back to my former textile love. When Sew4thesoul set a challenge for a textile book I was there. www.instagram.com/explore/tags/sew4thesoul12pagesofchristmas

I have also been collecting small vintage boxes to encase my books and by chance I had a deep glass box that was to be perfect for a textile book. A treasure in the making.

12 days plus box
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Completing Turn End Herbarium

Most monasteries in Medieval times had a physic and herb garden that an apothecary used for making medicines for the local population and the monks.

With the research of herbal remedies and plant-based medicines upper most in my mind I was able to visit the following monasteries during the next couple of years.

In East Sussex, Michelham, https://www.gardenvisit.com/gardens/michelham_priory_garden an Augustinian priory was founded in 1229 and has one of the earliest physic and herb gardens in UK. A replica garden has been built on the site by Sussex Garden Society.

Abbey Lagrasse in South West France was elevated to Abbey status in 779 and it is still a Benedictine monastery with a physic and garden open to the public. https://www.beyond.fr/picssite/lagrasse-abbey0042b.jpg. It was here that I saw some of the oldest herb varieties being grown including a cannabis and sage plants.

Lagrasse Abbey

The pressed flowers were ready, I had researched the medicinal properties for each, I had experimented with printing from the relevant leaves, I had drawings of each flower and I had written a poem for each

For example

Hydrangea

white climbing lace cap heads

turn gradually to rusty pink.

Other colours determined by the soil

but all extracts reduce fever.

But how to present these various elements still alluded me. The problem was that I wanted to update the method presentation of the plants.

Another coincident happened, an article about Michael Holroyd’s Grandmother and her fern collection, later a book called “Ancestors in the Attic”, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ancestors-Attic-Including-Great-Grandmothers-Silent/dp/1910258849  whose sewn ferns were so artistically placed and named. How could I place the plants in my herbarium artistically and safe from handling? This was to be my next area to experiment.

Books can take a long time to germinate and can often be put in store until something suddenly arises that can take it forward again.

On a visit to Wiltshire and on finding a wonderful junk shop that specializes in vintage and antique boxes; I found that something. A two-compartment box.

The presentation was sorted. The closed box has a textured finished panel attached. The bottom compartment housed a traditional herbarium and the top compartment my modern interpretation. Job done.