My Grandmother was a talented embroiderer, as were many women in her day. She also made lace, decorated cakes, everything hand crafted. My Mum is unwell now but she was a talented dressmaker when she was younger, making beautiful clothes for herself and for me when I was a child. She was also very good at knitting, a skill which she taught me when I was a teenager.
Anyway, back to the box of threads. My Mum has also given me a lovely book printed in 1959 entitled '100 Embroidery Stitches'. I think that the threads and book could tie into my work with textiles and clay. I am very interested in creating ceramics that can be explored with touch. So I am going to try stitching fabric with embroidery stitches and casting that into clay to see how the stitches look and feel when cast in porcelain. I am keen to teach myself a few of the stitches in the book. I like the fact that I'd be using an object of sentimental value - I don't embroider, but it would be nice to incorporate it into my own work. It's a way of recycling materials, of using something that belonged to my Mum, of creating surface texture, perhaps like a form of braille...
When I researched visual impairments for my FMP for my foundation, I came across museum programmes for the blind or visually impaired. The non-profit organisation 'Art Education for the Blind' has produced an art history training programme for the blind and the visually impaired. Amongst the tools used is a tactile diagram to feel examples of art works. Some works of art are complex and therefore the AEB have developed several different types of raised patterns to fully describe compositional and stylistic details:
The various patterns used by the AEB for their tactile diagrams
The image on the right is the AEB's tactile version of Michealangelo's painting 'Creation of Adam' pictured on the left.
I think this work is very interesting and I am wondering if I can use this idea in my work.
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