Spurn Cloth 2 (extended)

Textures of Spurn opened last Friday at The Bowery, Leeds.  This exhibition sees Spurn Cloth #2 hung in a new way.  Rather than hanging the 10 metre long cloth vertically as before, it has been hung horizontally round the gallery to form a band of texture or a horizon that surrounds the viewer.  The installation has then been completed by continuing that band of texture and marks round the room to form a circle, only interrupted by doorway and window.

The new section has been made from rusted paper and print using the same beach-combed items from Spurn as were used on the fabric.  I've collaged the layers of paper straight onto the gallery wall - something that was scary but satisfying to do!  

More detail can be found here.  The exhibition is on until 5th July.

count down

The countdown continues with just a week to go now before the residency exhibition.  I've spent most of this week quietly stitching away on Spurn Cloth #1 in my studio at home.  This 4.7 metre long piece is a patchwork of rust-dyed silk and I've used stitch to add further texture to the marks already there.  Some parts I've left without stitches: this space is important.  The stitches confirm the creases in the cloth giving movement, like ripples on the ever-moving water out there, or the ripples set in the sand each time the tide comes in and then out again. 

In the lamp room this will be hung in a curved form so you can't ever see all of the piece at once.  The visitor will walk round it on their way to the platform to look at the view.  This piece quietly reflects that view, with a horizon of sorts along the whole length of it.  Soon it will be time to roll it up in my studio ready to go back to the lighthouse.

multiple horizons

I've been developing some of the experiments I did in a small sketch book when I was last at Spurn.  I'm working on a larger scale and using a variety of different media to explore some of the horizontal views.

 

sorting textures

I've been sorting through some of the textures and ideas I collected at Spurn last weekend.  One of the main things that strikes me about the place are the bands of texture and line: linear arrangements and almost always horizontal. 

As the tide comes up and goes down there is this constant change of the bands: 

patterns in the sand, 

the strips of salt marsh on the estuary side, 

never-ending sequence of waves rolling in on the seaward side, 

lines of groynes.

As a way of focusing myself I sorted the images that I'd had printed into three groups of textures:
ripples and wave patterns in the sand;

the waves themselves and the marks left when the water sorts and drops the material it is moving;

  

bold textures of the rusty, weathered groynes, the saltmarsh and other debris on the beach.