River grass

Reflecting On the Salt Marsh Landscape

Reflecting on my walk this week on the landscape of my local salt marsh I am happy that I took the walk when I did as I suspect this open landscape would have been even more cold in our recent weather than the walk I took at the tail end of Storm Emma (that will be next weeks posts).

Remains of last year

My focus on this walk has been more about the details than the open space and those details have mainly been the marsh grass and one or two of the features within it, such as the fences. I love some of the individual “marks” in this landscape – the spiky reflection of marsh grass in the river, the spiky barbs of a sinking fence, the spiky flicks of individual grass blades amongst the busy textures their stems, the crusty lichen covered surface of thin branches and the twirly wiggle of an old bit of rosebay willow herb from last year.

The audio element was there as well of course andContinue reading

From Snow to Ice

The snow stood thickly on this barbed wire fence at the start of my walk but by the time I had completed the circuit of the Lliw Lower Reservoir, it was melting to ice. I wonder if it fully melted before nightfall?

snow on fence

melting snow on fence

Digital Barbs

Working in digital print was, perhaps, a natural outcome of the fact that during the design and weave projects I ran with schools, I discovered that I was able to help teachers with some of the problems they had with their PCs when ICT (Information Communication Technology) was being pushed in the curriculum.

I bought a second hand Apple LC III computer in the early 1990’s and a new and exciting world opened up to me. To cut a long story short, it wasn’t long before I was running interactive digital media projects in combination with design and weave. These included communal large scale digital prints. This was something I had built up some skill with over a period of time and training as well as through liaison with printers.

The barbs kept coming back and in these two giclée prints on canvas, I was aiming to bring together a number of different thematic strands I have worked with over the years. Interpretation of the image and its different elements is entirely open.

These works are available for sale. There is only one other print of “Waves” and “Waves 2” is entirely unique. Anyone interested should contact me.

You can find further information on school projects and much more at Design Fibre ICT

Waves

“Waves” 95 x 125 cms Giclee print on canvas

Waves detail

“Waves” detail

"Waves 2"  100 x 130 cms  giclee print on canvas

“Waves 2” 100 x 130 cms giclee print on canvas

Tufting and Textures

I used to use tufting in my tapestry weaving – the long tufts of wool would hang down over the surface of the weaving. Sometimes I would wrap them with bright, lustrous cotton.

The textures I have used in my more recent weaving are rather different! Barbed wire is often the main textural feature of my weaving and although the reason for using it lies in the theme of “conflict”, we see it in many places around us.

The photos I take for StillWalks are often informed by my interest in texture. The images below illustrate different kinds of tuft and barb to those I have used in my tapestries.

You can see my tapestries at Design Fibre ICT and the StillWalk these images are from in the Old Churchyard Walk.

Tufted

Tufted

wool and barbs

Wool and Barbs