Category Archives: Embroidery

7 Strands

Helen Banzhaf


I am very excited that the 7 Strands exhibition is to be hosted by Gate Gallery in my hometown of Grimsby. See the Gate Gallery website for further details .This will be a rare opportunity indeed for Lincolnshire folk to see such a diverse high quality Textile Exhibition . www.gategallery.co.uk

7 Strands brings together the work of Helen Banzhaf, Lucy Brown, Dorothy Ann Daly, Ann Goddard, Christine Gornowicz, Tilleke Schwarz, and Sue Stone, all members of the Internationally renowned 62 Group of Textiles Artists working in various disciplines including Stitch, Weave and Conceptual Textiles which challenge the boundaries between Fine Art and Making.

The images below are a taster of what you will see in the exhibition. 2 June to 23 July 2011.

David as Dali (left) and From Grimsby to Gracia (right) by Sue Stone
Tilleke Schwarz

Dorothy Ann Daly
Christine Gornowicz
Lucy Brown
Ann Goddard



At a Tangent – Textiles by The 62 Group – Gallery Oldham

At long last I managed to visit the exhibition. Gallery Oldham proved to be a great venue for the work, although I did feel the lighting could have been better. It was a small but varied exhibition. I’m not sure it was one of the group’s best exhibitions but it was great to see handling samples and sketchbooks on display. My own personal highlights were a fantastic mixed media piece by Jae Maries  and 2 beautiful woven pieces by Christine Gornowicz:
Image below courtesy of Christine Gornowicz.
Also on display at the gallery  was :Threading Dreams: the Art of Kantha
I am so pleased I caught this exhibition before it closed. It was so inspiring.
The exhibition showed early Kantha embroideries by textile artist Lynn Setterington with a selection made by women and children of the Sreepur Village Charity in Bangladesh. 
Visit www.sreepurvillage.org for more details about the work of this charity. 
To buy charity cards visit www.sreepurcards.org 

Afghanistan Inspiration European Tour is still in progress

       
To see details of the tour please visit:   www.oneearthtextiles.co.uk.  
My piece  ‘A Mug for Maida ‘ can be seen next at Verona Tessile, 8 to 13 March 2011,
Galleria d’Arte Moderna Palazzo Forti – Volto Due Mori, 4 , Verona, Italy


I had just finished reading ‘ A Thousand Splendid Suns’ by Khaled Hosseini  when I came across the Afghanistan Inspiration project on the ‘Embroidery’ magazine website. The life of the women in Afghanistan is so difficult and so very different to my own. I knew right away I wanted to be involved in this project. The square I chose for my inspiration was stitched by Maida. I chose this square mainly because the colours and shapes are ones I would use in my own work. I have tried to echo the design of Maida’s square using the same colours and zigzag design to compliment the original shapes. I wanted to make Maida’s original piece ‘the star of the show’ by placing it as the decoration on my own vessel , a coffee mug. The resulting collaboration is a small hanging made with a mixture of hand and machine embroidery combined with applique.


At a Tangent – Textiles by The 62 Group – Gallery Oldham

I am privileged to be a member of the 62 Group of textile artists which includes many textile artists with established international reputations. The members’ individual work explores diverse current social, domestic and personal issues.

The next 62 Group exhibition ‘At a Tangent’ runs from 22 January 2011 to 10 April 2011 at Gallery Oldham .
 This exhibition demonstrates the group’s energy and vitality, and their continuing determination to produce innovative, exciting work.

Sue Stone’s ‘From Grimsby to Gracia’ – a Weekend in Barcelona , detail shown left, was inspired by a recent visit to Barcelona, this self portrait references a cardboard cutout of Dali seen outside the Dali Museum , the Gaudi mosaics and tiles in Parc Guell , a colourful tiled floor from a neighbourhood bar and a fish from the artist’s hometown of Grimsby.

For more information go to www.womanwithafish.com

Machine Stitch Perspectives

My stitched textile Woman with a Fish ’07 is featured in Machine Stitch Perspectives, a new book by Alice Kettle and Jane McKeating . This piece was one of two which were selected for the Embroiderers’ Guild exhibition Art of the Stitch which toured Europe from March 2008 until November 2009.