Katherine May textile workshops: "Since attending the workshops I have started to collect more fabric and family members have also started to keep fabric and old clothes for me as well."
Making-Ends-Meet
The work is all installed, and the private view has happened, but my piece is just beginning…
A structure has been built from my personal collection of textiles, each with its own tale to tell. But the structure is about housing a series or workshops, aimed at families to share oral histories through the generations.
Working as an orchestrator, and taking textiles as a starting point to trigger conversations and storytelling. I have made a space to bring people together, where ideas of community and resilience are acted out through participants taking part in a series of making workshops.
Everyday practices such as bread baking, craft and other making activities, is currently a topic of sociological research - ‘Life Projects’ that examines how people express themselves through these everyday practices, creating home into an enchanted space that is about finding new ways of living.
Tonight the structure begins to come to life as the first workshop for the teachers preview happens - in order to share ideas, techniques or project methods they may pass on to students.
More to come on the stories from the textiles I have made…
Making-Ends-Meet
A New body of work, titled Making-Ends-Meet, opens tonight. The exhibition is a group show of makers, who in 2010 were selected by the Crafts Council to be part of their development programme - Hothhouse. Images of the final work will be posted after the opening… But for now I leave you with some information on the project and its making…
How the textiles are made
Above shows how the textiles began, with me sorting through my fabric remnants. Working with materials I have to hand, at times without the use of cutting, existing fragments have been joined together - A grey dress becomes a narrow patchwork of triangles, handed down green cotton, lives again in a pattern that represents strength, resilience and and support. Each piece has taken its form and size based upon what fabric I had left-over. A process of choice by chance, as I find pieces that fit together. This method celebrates the practice of ‘making-ends-meet’, and traditions within quilting communities where limitations of material often led to the creation of exuberant pieces.
About the project
Working as an orchestrator, and taking textiles as a starting point to trigger conversations and storytelling. I have made a space to bring people together, where ideas of community and resilience are acted out through participants taking part in a series of making workshops.
Everyday practices such as bread baking, craft and other making activities, is currently a topic of sociological research - ‘Life Projects’ that examines how people express themselves through these everyday practices, creating home into an enchanted space that is about finding new ways of living.
This Project, and the continuing method to my projects, is a testing of models for change and an offering of space and time for people to reflect on what we may want these new values to be.
Workshop Kits
I am currently preparing for a workshop with my local wi group - Borough Belles. I will be giving a talk about my practice, then some hands on making - teaching them patchwork using the traditional hexagon shape and paper piecing technique.
I am also working on a range of kits for people to buy through my online etsy shop - coming very soon I promise! I have just sent 13 kits out a friendship group, who are helping me make a patchwork quilt for my old school friend who is getting married.
Sometimes quilt groups can’t be formed when we live far from each other, so we have to think of new ways to connect people.
Clara’s cotton shirt
Since Clara and I had a conversation over my fabric stash, I have really begun to unpick what is happening in my fabrics baskets, I have been remembering where pieces have come from whilst hand sewing them together and I am starting to record the fabrics journey.
Today it was a cotton jacket Clara gave me. She brought it to wear on her allotment, when she realised she wasn’t wearing it, she passed it on to me - I loved the lime colour stripes, but I every time I put it on, I kept wishing it was a cropped length to wear with my high waist trousers and skirts. So after some time of the jacket living in my mending basket, I decided it should become ‘fabric’ - to be cut and made into something else.
I began by removing the pockets - which I still have, and the sleeves, and cut the rest of the jacket into squares to be used for quilting with a group of adults with learning difficulties. This workshop is part of the Newham Patchwork. I will follow the fabrics journey till its becomes part of the finished quilt. I still have the sleeves and the pockets…
Oh Sew Brixton
Images from last Sunday’s workshop at a new venue - Oh Sew Brixton. Some really lovely pieces were started and hopefully will be continued at the quilt group - thank you all for a lovely day!
bricolage in Viewpoint
bricolage are featured in trend magazine Viewpoint this issue is about the rise of grass roots thinking and activity - and raw connections with consumers.
Our studio and portrait, from left-right: Naomi Paul, Katherine May, Clara Vuletich, Polly Burton and Yemi Awosile
How-to engage with emotions and memories through textiles
Yesterday Clara and I spent the day with Uli, doing more filming for our How-To video,which is looking devine! We talked to Uli about the importance of telling stories through our textiles and how we have realised we want to work through textiles to engage with other ideas, such emotions and memory, environment and well-being.
Yesterday felt like we were immerse in memory as we talked through fabrics I had in my stash and the journeys they have made. One story in particular linked Clara and I… The Yellow Dress… We realised we have much to share about the interaction of own textiles and we will be starting a series of conversations over our fabric stashes! You will have to wait and see…
Craft on video
Today I have seen some lovely videos that record craft & making processes, including a quick edit version, of a video from my own workshop. It is a real pleasure to see such celebration of craft techniques and the people behind the skill. This one about the weavers of Harris Tweed was particulary charming.
Uli Schade who is the wonderful artist that documented my workshop, has just sent me a sneak preview (which I hope to post here soon) of a series of ‘How to’ videos I have wanted to do for a while. But what I wanted to share - that Uli captures beautifully, is the making zone that you go into when working with your hands. Whilst watching, I felt taken back to the slow, contemplative space that we all created during the workshop. Video is a powerful tool for sharing things that often can’t be put into words.
