Back To Stitching

It's a return to stitching this week and my threads are now my paints.
I'm just taking my time to enjoy working experimentally, playing with my ideas and exploring the recent mark making in my sketch book.
I visited Compton Verney this week to see the Stanley Spencer exhibition which is featuring many of his English country gardens.
His work is incredibly detailed and gives us a romantic view of village life in the 1940's and 1950's.
 But if you look closely you will see many boundaries, fences, walls, hedges and barbed wire which protect these beautiful idyllic gardens, which is said to have been Stanley Spencer's heaven.
Perhaps subconsciously he is protecting this very English garden of Eden.
You can find out more about Stanley Spencer here http://www.stanleyspencer.org.uk/

Exhibitions And Stitches

It's been a while since I have updated my blog due to the amount of stitching I have been immersed in.
I'm working on a whole blanket, my landscape engulfing me as if I am part of it!
My stitching becomes more intense as I work over the larger areas of tree tops, the light more dramatic, the colours more vivid.
I will show this larger work at the exhibition, the picture above is of my miniature landscapes which, I think, are like my stepping stones to the vast pieces I am working on at present.

A couple of weeks ago I met Richard Elms who interviewed me about my work for The Herbert Art Gallery Podcast Boiler Room series.
You can here a snippet of my interview  here http://www.theherbert.org/index.php/home/podcasts, it's episode three and I'm half way through the programme.
The rest of my interview will be on their website nearer the time of my exhibition.
Talking of exhibitions there are many interesting ones to visit this year at The Herbert, do check out their website, at the moment they have a costume exhibition which you could get involved with, see here http://www.flickr.com/groups/herbert_dressed_up/
They are asking you to contribute photo's of your very best outfits and the best ones will be included in the exhibition!
I'm looking forward to visiting many exhibition this year including one in the Summer at Compton Verney, a historical house and gardens which is now an art gallery.
The exhibition is Stanley Spencer and the English garden and looks at Spencer's lesser known garden views and landscapes painted before and just after the second world war.
I know that this exhibition will be inspiring.