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Friday 23 December 2011

Christmas Threads & Wishes






This is just a quick post to wish you a merry Christmas and to say thank you for your visits or comments on my blog.
It has been a very busy, exciting, challenging year and I have been stitching more than I have been blogging!
Next year I have workshops at The Herbert which will be exciting as I have a huge array of beautiful threads from Madeira to experiment with. 
I will share my workshops here on my blog in the New Year
Enjoy your festivities.

Michala x

Wednesday 14 December 2011

Painting With Threads

One Of My Sketch Books At The Herbert Art Gallery



A few weeks ago Mary Miers the arts editor of Country Life Magazine came to visit me at home.
She was intrigued by my art work, collections of threads and the methods I use to create my landscapes.
Here is the article she wrote.

PAINTING WITH THREADS

Michala Gyetvai’s passion for threads infuses her swirling stitched and felted artworks, which can be seen at the Herbert Art Gallery in Coventry until 24 January. The vibrant pieces express her deep-rooted love of nature, the seeds of which were sown during her childhood in rural Northamptonshire, when she roamed woods and fields collecting wool and other organic fibres. These she transformed with natural dyes and wove into ‘little worlds’ on a homemade loom. Since then she has squirreled away jars and jars of fibres - twisted twines and antique silks, lustred and matt threads shimmery and sheening, crocheted cottons and metallic strands – so that her workroom resembles a Parisian brocante. With no formal training, Mrs Gyetvai developed her craft-based fine art while attending evening classes; she derives particular inspiration from the English Romantics. Working from studies in pastels, she ‘paints with the fibres’ on old dyed blankets, moving around the piece like a dancer as she lays them out and punches them in. Then she draws in the lines and builds up the texture of the composition with her threads, stitching them in by hand and machine. The whole process has an affinity with music and ballet, the results being highly rhythmic and expressive of the physical energy that goes into their making. Trees are a favourite motif, conveying the artist’s own emotions as well as the landscape around her home town of Kenilworth.

By Mary Miers

I feel very privileged to tell you that she has recommended my exhibition at The Herbert Art Gallery in Coventry as one of the best to see in December, in this weeks Country Life Magazine including a small piece about me.

Monday 5 December 2011

"Seas Of Grass" Is Open!





I can't believe my opening day finally arrived at The Herbert on Saturday, the date had always seemed so far away.
I had spent a very rewarding, educational week at The Herbert as they hung my exhibition, nothing could prepare me for the surreal experience for seeing my work hung collectively.
I was relieved that my largest pieces, that I had stitched onto canvas, looked as I had envisaged.
It was exciting to see how my mark making had become integral to the actual wool blanket.
Now being able to view it from a distance, I was aware of how sculptural my work had become. The more three dimensional aspect revealed patterns and shadows.
The actual opening day was all the more rewarding because I could share it with many of my friends and relatives, I will never forget this day.
I now have my own website which you can see here  http://www.michalagyetvai.co.uk/  this includes lots of information about me and my art (my life history!), including all the work at my exhibition and price list. You will also find my first limited edition prints of some of the paintings. I will be making my postcards and new brooches available to buy through Etsy later this week.