Precious objects
Join me for a free, drop in workshop for adults during Gifted 15 at the National Centre for Craft & Design on Saturday 28th November 2015 10am-4pm.
Bring along an every day object or piece of junk and transform it into a precious amulet with some simple textile techniques.
I’m delighted to share my new film about my work for Narrative Threads, made by the fantastic R&A Collaborations.
The exhibition opens on Saturday 14th November 2015 and continues until Sunday 10th January 2016.
Exhibition events:
Part of my Narrative Threads exhibition artist residency has been to work with local communities around Sleaford and the National Centre for Craft and Design. I built this into my Arts Council funding so I could experiment with new ways of working with different audiences, continue to build my community arts CV and try and engage the local community with my work and the messages around it.
A lot of the work created in these workshops and events will be displayed as part of Narrative Threads.
Earlier in the summer I worked with a Sleaford primary school on a project exploring amulets and objects with stories. In the first session we investigated words and symbols which have significance across cultures and in different time periods. The children made tags with special messages, images and symbols. For the second session they brought in special objects and collected natural materials to use to make their own amulets. We used printing, sewing and wrapping to make the amulets and each child wrote about their amulets and why it was special.
Sleaford Alzheimers Society
It has been particularly rewarding to work at the Sleaford Dementia Cafe run by the Alzheimers Society. In the first session we created Memory Collages, using fabric scraps and felt to build up pictures of special places or hobbies.
For the second session I took along a reminiscence box of old clothes and textiles to spark memories and stories similar to my textile memories project. These will be embroidered onto a cloth for display in the exhibition. I had hoped it would be engaging for the participants and their carers to reminisce about textile memories from their families. Many people talked about their childhood, their mother’s embroidery skills – or lack of them – and their own sewing for their children. It was a fascinating and absorbing day, and I hope to do more of this kind of work in the future.
I have also run workshops for families during school holidays, making painted and embroidered pincushions and other drop-in craft workshops.
Yesterday I ran a workshops for Arts NK’s community wellbeing event at Waddington, Lincs making memory tags- a decorated luggage label telling a story of a happy memory or something important in your life.
I am currently working with A Level textiles students who are creating work inspired by mine as part of the assessed portfolio. Their finished pieces will also be in the exhibition.
Once the exhibition is open I will continue to work with groups including a GCSE group and community sessions for a local sheltered housing scheme. I have also set up Crafts for Relaxation, a free monthly workshop for people who might not be able to afford or attend normal workshops, with the idea of participants meeting new people and getting some time to themselves. This programme has taken some time to get up and running and it has been a challenge to reach the right audience but it is a useful process for me in working out how to self-run community projects in the future.
My solo exhibition, Narrative Threads, opens on Saturday 14th November The National Centre for Craft and Design, Sleaford, Lincolnshire. This exhibition is the culmination of a year-long residency at NCCD, funded by Arts Council England.
Please join me to celebrate the opening of the exhibition on Saturday 2-4pm with cheese and wine! It includes lots of new work, community collaborations and the textile memories project.
I will also be launching a fabulous 20 page catalogue of the exhibition with new photography and background to the pieces in the exhibition and my working processes.
Ruth Singer Narrative Threads
Exhibition events include a weekend masterclass on 5th & 6th December and Artists’ Talk and Q&A on Saturday 12th December as well as a collaboration project which you can join in with on Saturday 28th November as part of Gifted. The exhibition continues until 10th January 2016.
I will *also* be continuing my artist residency at NCCD and will be in the exhibition on various dates which will be advertised on my website, on social media and through my mailing list.
Alongside my Narrative Threads exhibition at the National Centre for Craft & Design, I am running a weekend masterclass on 9th & 10th January 2016 (rescheduled from December). Spend the weekend immersed in creative, slow, experimental techniques inspired by my work. The workshops include simple, experimental natural dye techniques, embroidery and using found objects. You can create a series of samples, pieces to incorporate into other work or art textile pieces to frame.
Day 1
Our first task of the weekend will be to manipulate and colour cloth using natural dyes, plants, food, rust and inks. We will experiment with shibori dye, hand painting colour and creating patterns from rusty metal to create original and exciting patterns and marks on cloth. We will also dye threads and other materials to use on day 2.
Day 2
Using the cloth we have created in day one (or purchased on the day if you have not attended day 1) we will look at using simple embroidery stitches to create marks and patterns on the dyed cloth. We will experiment with layering and cutting away the fabrics to create new textures. We will also explore ways of incorporating found objects into our work to add depth and narrative to the pieces.
£50 per day or £95 for the weekend, including basic materials, with additional materials available to purchase at the workshop. Book with NCCD on 01529 308710 info@nationalcraftanddesign.org.uk.
During my residency day at NCCD in April I tried some further experiments with recording dye processes using video, this time using my iPad set up on a plate stand, which seems to work quite well. There’s more to be done on this but it looks promising and I hope a film can be included in the exhibition. I have more sampling and testing to do but it is exciting to be making progress with a conceptual idea captured on film.
The Beauty of Stains continues to develop wonderful stain patterns and shapes, which I have decided to stitch into the cloth to make them permanent.
My major making work continues to be the Criminal Quilts patchwork which will keep growing throughout the year including during the exhibition itself. I’ll soon start working into the areas of completed patchwork, adding more depth and narrative to the patchwork base.
Away from the studio I have been on some incredibly exciting research visits to Oxford, London and Gawthorpe Hall. The museums were all I was expecting and more, giving me masses of inspiration for my work on amulets and memorials. I haven’t yet processed everything that I took in, and am looking forward to spending more time in the studio working through some of the ideas that have been generated.
This week (Friday 29th May) my residency day includes a workshop activity for all ages, contributing to a hand-sewn textile panel. Please drop in 1-3pm to take part. I will also have open studio 11am-1pm and 3-4pm where you can see work in progress and some completely new things I am working on for the exhibition.
March was a time for reflection, thinking and planning. I’m working, slowly, on new pieces. I’m revisiting older work and pulling ideas together. Ideas for new work are sloshing around and beginning to settle. A few days holiday at the end of the month gave me vital thinking time, sitting on the front of a canal boat, pondering. Walking. Looking at the water. Watching the stars come out. All of these are essential parts of my creative process and it is often hard to achieve this kind of peace and contemplative time when my walk to the studio is through the city centre (where there is little green space) and my life is overcrowded with house renovation works and exhibition installation. None of these things is bad at all, but it all takes away from the creative space which is needed to think and make.
This month I have taken The Beauty of Stains out of the NCCD cafe to review the marks it has built up since February and contemplate what more to do on it. I’ve catalogued all the stains, and given it a gentle, cold water wash to remove actual solids while preserving the stains left behind. The piece is building up a fine patina of use, which I am delighted with.
Whether to embroidery the stains or to leave them is troubling me today. I can’t decide.
Meanwhile, Many Hands isn’t yet showing much in the way of marks of use and remains not very changed from when it went up. I don’t know if this is people being very gentle when touching it or if it is more sturdy than I thought. A few more months will tell.
My funded research visits start this month, with trips to Nottingham, Oxford and London next week and Gawthorpe Hall at the end of the month, with many more planned for later in the summer.
Community workshops in Sleaford were part of my original plan for the residency but have proved harder than expected to arrange owing to the limited contacts I have in the town, compared to Leicester, where I have all the right networks already established. This in itself is a learning process for me and goes to show just how important it is to have roots in a place.
March’s workshop at NCCD was inspired by my pincushions, with samples made by work experience students Amelia and Neena and wonderful, colourful pieces also created by workshop participants, some as young as 3!
My next residency day is 29th April, followed by 29th May which will include another free drop-in workshop.
A few days ago I finally had my first Narrative Threads residency day at The National Centre for Craft & Design after January’s went awry with snow and illness. It is such a rare treat to spend a whole day focussed on just one project and a day just making my own work is still disappointingly unusual (although that is set to change very soon).
I’ve started working on a new piece in the Criminal Quilts series, using tiny hexagon patchwork pieces and mainly old fabrics, which I’ve been carefully cutting out to preserve details. My aim is for this to be a major piece in the Narrative Threads exhibition.
I also got the chance to do a first experiment with some dye ideas I’ve been pondering, which needs some more work but I think it going to create what I want. Watch this space for developments.
It was a fantastic treat to see this amazing fragment brought in by gallery staff member Harriet, which she had found in the walls of her ancient house. It looks to me like a neckline of a shirt or smock-type garment, 18th century or earlier I suspect, and undoubtedly a deliberately concealed garment. I’m hoping to include it in the exhibition in some way. This is just the kind of intriguing piece of textile history that I love.
My next residency day is Monday 30th March. I’ll be around, working in the 4th floor workshop from 10am-4pm including running a workshop for all ages (adults welcome!) making pincushions inspired by mine shown below. Experiment with some dye techniques, paint, pens, print and stitch to create effects on fabric then make it into a little pebble pincushion,
I’m delighted to announce that I have been invited to become a Fellow of Design Factory.
“Over the years Design Factory has nurtured a strong network of selected designer/makers who continue to prove their commitment to Design Factory and British craft and design. They have grown in their practice and become leaders in their field of expertise. Fellowship provides substantial benefits to our established makers and also offers an opportunity for them to ‘give something back’. Fellows become part of our team and play an important role in the development of Design Factory. Fellowship is by invitation only and consideration is given to membership commitment, participation and contribution to Design Factory’s programme.” Hayley Banks, Design Factory Membership Manager.
Personally, I hope that being a Fellow will enable me to support other makers as they develop their businesses. I also want to help create exciting new opportunities within Design Factory for other Fellows and exhibition opportunities for non-product artists and makers. My first task was to take part in the selection panel for new members this Spring, which was a very interesting and enjoyable process. I’m also exhibiting at Design Factory’s sister gallery, NCCD until July and working on a solo exhibition there in 2015.
My collections and selections will be on display in the window collection at National Centre for Craft & Design, Sleaford, from 3rd May to 13th July 2014
When faced with the task of selecting some objects which define my inspiration, I was almost overwhelmed. For years the main source of my ideas has been museum collections, buildings and the emotions surrounding objects and places. I can’t put any of those into a cabinet…
What I have gathered together for this exhibition is a selection of objects of significance in my journey towards being the textile artist that I am today, from early childhood through to my first career working in museums. Some are directly inspirational, such as the historical textiles, while some represent aspects of my character which come out in my work as an artist and maker. Others are by makers I admire while some are just interesting and curious things that represent how magpie-mind works, drawing inspiration from all kinds of sources.
My current work is around textiles and emotion. I am interested in how cloth is so emotionally powerful and how stories are deeply embodied in the fabrics we touch every day. This really stems from my training and first career in museums, where I was very focussed on the study of objects; their makers, their owners; their stories.
The exhibition also includes some of my recent work as well as some early pieces, showing quite a radical change in my style. Creating non-functional exhibition work and installations rather than products has been hugely liberating for me, and finally it all makes sense with my collecting habits too, as I am now using the old, worn fabrics I love and incorporating curious found objects.
Private view, Friday 2nd May 6pm
Ruth Singer 