TEXT / TEXTURE / TEXTILE - virtual workshop - created as part of
"imagine if..." March 1 - March 4 2021 - A festival to celebrate the life and legacy of Sir Ken Robinson
"imagine if..." we could retain that playful relationship with materials and making
that we had when we were four or five years old...
text (n.) late 14c., “wording of anything written,” from Old French texte, Old North French tixte (12c.), from Medieval Latin textus “the Scriptures, text, treatise,” in Late Latin “written account, content, characters used in a document,” from Latin textus “style or texture of a work,” literally “thing woven,” from past participle stem of texere “to weave,” from PIE root tek-* “to weave, to fabricate, to make; make wicker or wattle framework” |
"An ancient metaphor: thought is a thread, and the raconteur is a spinner of yarns — but the true storyteller, the poet, is a weaver. The scribes made this old and audible abstraction into a new and visible fact. After long practice, their work took on such an even, flexible texture that they called the written page a textus, which means cloth." [Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style] |
Making things with our hands - knitting, drawing, painting, collage, sculpture, crochet, weaving - is good for our brains. Psychologists and anthropologists have known for decades that manual tasks can soothe anxiety, relieve stress and improve concentration and calmness. In a time when physical touch is compromised by Covid restrictions, this virtual workshop invites you hunt and gather textures in the world around you, and to make a creative response using found materials, to experiment and enjoy the process of simply making, without worrying about perfection. Share your work with others - @weimagineif @houseimaginatn @forestimaginatn @roomtowrite.bristol #weimagineif #texturehuntergatherer
Hydrangea petals retain a lace-like texture as they become skeletons. Here is the beginning of a petal skeleton made in threads of single crochet chains. |
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Find or photograph flowers, leaves or petals and see if you can crochet some of their patterns. Making a single chain is very simple. Experiment and don't worry about getting it 'right'. Enjoy the process.
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You can use found materials like sticks, strips of newspaper, dried leaves and twigs to make woven texture. This flexible packaging is perfect material to weave other things into. Lose yourself in the activity of moving the strips in and out. You don't have to produce a finished article. You might prefer to pull it apart and make something different from the same materials. |
I love this poem Russian Birch, by Nathaniel Bellows, particularly the way he describes the texture of the tree: "white spires like fingers", "an ivory buttress", "pink skin beneath the paper", "settlements of scales". And the words "static of the past" in the final stanza remind me of the sound birch leaves make in a breeze.
Look closely at the bark or shape of a tree. What does it remind you of? Try to write similes "white spires like fingers", or metaphors "an ivory buttress" and develop them into a poem.
Inspiration
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"Liz Atkin is an artist and educator. She reimagines her Compulsive Skin Picking and anxiety into drawings, photographs and performances."
In 2020, I was inspired by artist Liz Atkin to become a #texturehuntergatherer. Liz encourages texture hunter gatherers to find textures and colours in urban and natural environments and use these as a creative focus to combat anxiety in unsettling times. The slideshow contains some of the textures I have gathered since March last year. |
Victoria Rose Richards is inspired by the rural landscapes of Devon to create incredibly beautiful embroideries of aerial views. She uses different stitches to create different textures.
The Boyle Family make full scale cast images of textures in urban and non-urban landscapes
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