Tag Archives: a-n the Artists Information Company

tapestry design detail

Decisions, Decisions – Electric Brae

As we go into the New Year, 2021, I have been making decisions repeatedly about how I should proceed with the tapestry currently on my loom. The design development is based on a painting by Gordon Perfect's painting "Electric Brae", held in the Scottish Art Collection at Gracefield Arts Centre in Dumfires and Galloway.

My tapestry will be part of an exhibition there by the Solway branch of the British Tapestry Group later in 2021. They invited me to take part as I come from that neck of the woods. The criteria for the work was to respond to a selected work in the art collection but not to make a copy of it.

I selected this painting because not only do I like its colours and the textures created by Perfect's handling of the brush, but also because I have a strong memory of experiencing the illusion of the phenomenon known as the Electric Brae near Ayr on Scotland's west coast. The challenge for me was to find a way of representing the original work as a tapestry whilst also referencing my own experience of the subject - hence the in depth decision making.

I am not showing my design at this stage (other than the detail above) but can say that the tapestry will have an interactive audio element to it and one of the materials I am using is conductive thread. I am being helped with this aspect of the work by the funding I received as an Artists Bursary from a-n the Artists Information Company. The rest of my time spent on the work is also funded by a Stabilisation Fund grant from the Arts Council of Wales National Lottery Good Causes.

On another note, I am pleased to say the the Fabric of the North exhibition (see previous blog post) was extended through to the end of March 2021. This is due to the fact that all galleries have been closed for most of the originally scheduled exhibition dates. Hopefully they will be able to open again before the end of March.

Supported by an Artists Bursary from a-n The Artists Information Company and a Stabilisation Fund grant from the Arts Council of Wales National Lottery Good Causes.

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Great News!

Work can now go ahead on redeveloping existing, and creating new means of interaction in my sound and weave work.

I am very grateful to the Arts Council of Wales for a grant from their Stabilisation Fund. This will allow me keep going with developing new work in which the interactive element of sound becomes based on non or indirect contact.

An expected result of the coronavirus is that there will be a continuing nervousness around multiple people touching the same surface. While the nature of tapestry weaving and the materials I use is tactile, and I have enjoyed the fact that people, to date, have been able to touch my work in this field to activate different audio elements, I am also excited by the possibilities for engaging my audience through a range of interactive techniques that do not require direct physical contact.

I am not going to say at this stage what some of my ideas are regarding this - you will just have to watch this space, as they say. The first step, however, will be to utilise the a-n Artists Bursary Award I mentioned in my last post, and develop my coding skills with Python 3. A better understanding of how this can be used with a Raspberry Pi and Arduino to achieve the audio interaction I am aiming for, will be very helpful.

So thanks again to a-n The Artists Information Company, Arts Council Wales and the National Lottery for the support to do this work.

This is just the start of this project. I will be posting about my progress and crediting my funders regularly here on my blog as well as on the a-n blog page and on social media.

Supported by a bursary from a-n The Artists Information Company.

Twitter: @an_artnews  Facebook  Instagram: @anartistsinfo

This project was made possible through funding from the Arts Council of Wales’s National Lottery Fund.

Twitter: @Celf_Cymru @Arts_Wales_ Instagram: @celfcymruarts  Facebook

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Thanks to National Lottery players, up to £600 million has been made available to support communities throughout the UK during the Coronavirus crisis.