I wanted to write a blog near Gimmicky Art Cross-run up, which I something I have previously written about on a_n, and y'all may even be able to dig out my erstwhile blog.

Contemporary Art Cantankerous-stitch is a name I created to differentiate between cross-stitch as a form of contemporary fine fine art, and other forms of cantankerous-stitch.

I take been cross-stitching since the historic period of 12, but information technology was merely when I was around 28 that I started to recall about using it in my fine art exercise. I was stitching for a hobby and had get bored with the patterns that were available. It of a sudden dawned on me that, every bit an artist, I could create my own patterns, making conceptual pieces of artwork in cross-stitch. Although this may sound obvious now, cross-stitch equally a quiet hobby was so much a function of my domestic life that I merely hadn't thought almost it.

My first cantankerous-sew together artwork was an adaptation of one of my paintings, The Middle of  Heartless World.

I wasn't entirely happy with just adapting any picture to be a cross-sew together blueprint. Now my cross-run up works need to have a sound conceptual ground for me to exist interested enough to encounter ideas through to completion.

Over my upcoming weblog posts I will explore further my attempts to intermission away from cantankerous-stitch equally craft, and some of the concepts and experiments I have been working on.

My previous mail about painting on Aida looked at the beginning of my experiments. After rejecting the thought of either painting or stitching the outline on painted works, I moved forward by embracing the messiness of the process.

I produced a piece of work for an exhibition calledFailed to Connect about my failure to connect with faith every bit a kid while attending a Methodist school. I used to sit down in the cream painted empty church building and long to be immune to get out. The work is in the style of a banner (one of the few decorative elements inside the church), on a cream piece of fabric. I wanted the heart in the painting to reverberate me, restless and full of life. The opening words of The Lords Prayer are stitched beyond the meridian of the banner leaving a blank space in the centre. In this instance I felt that the painting on Aida worked actually well.

Empty Words. Acrylic paint, metallic thread, & cotton on Aida. 2017

I have likewise been working on a large scale piece of piece of work over the last year. Information technology'due south in the mode of a prayer carpet, with a repeat design made up of interlocking anchors. In the centre there will be a large hand painted anchor. There is plenty more sewing to do before the painting can begin, and lets just hope that paint doesn't drip on the stitched areas when that happens.

Section of blueprint for Prayer Carpet [working title] Contemporary Art Cross-sew together work in progress

Prayer Rug [working title] work in progress

A major aim of my Contemporary Art Cross-stitch practice is to push the boundaries of what cross-stitch tin can be, and endeavour to create new means of working within the medium.

I began to experiment with painting on cantankerous-stitch fabric, originally with the idea of stitching the blackness outlines, usually constitute in my paintings, onto the finished work. Even so, I didn't similar the finish on this piece of work due to the distortion on the lines because of the grided fabric. I quickly moved on to adding embellishments to the work in cross-stitch, meliorate utilising the grided nature of the Aida, rather than fighting confronting it trying to create smoothen lines.

Sample of Eurydice, Acrylic paint, cotton, Aida. 2017

I took an early, experimental piece of work with me to Athens in 2017. This work was based on the Aboriginal Greek Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. In the myth, Eurydice dies and Orpheus journeys to the underworld to think her. In ancient Greek pottery the images are often portrayed with Orpheus in colour (terracotta) and Eurydice in shades of white and grey to prove that she is expressionless. In my work, the red living heart represents Orpheus, while the grey heart is Eurydice. Silver thread has been used to embellish on one side, while gold has been used on the other.

Orpheus and Eurydice. Acrylic pigment, cotton wool, Aida. 2017

A major failing in this piece of work for me is the painted outlines. I take an obsession with outlining my work when painting and it can be hard to go over. I hate how it looks on the Aida, and and then abandoned the painted outline on my next piece of work.

As in whatever of my practice, I hate the excuse that something can't be washed only because I don't have the right equipment or materials, or plenty money etc. There are creative solutions to these bug if y'all look difficult enough. While I was working on The Thread of Life project, and travelling around giving workshops, I found myself with null to occupy me at times. I had pieces of pre-cutting Aida, needles and various cross-sew threads, but wanted to make a demonstration piece in a not-traditional way. And and so I began to unpick the edges of a piece of Aida and so to stitch the design with the frayed fabric.

Working in this way fabricated the pattern almost invisible, with the colour matching perfectly, giving an embossed impression. I too liked the idea that the slice of fabric shrank in size as I worked, making a kind of self-imploding, or self-subversive, piece of piece of work.

This first try was simply an experiment, but it inspired me to brand new piece of work using this method. I decided to piece of work on a simple labyrinth pattern, taken from the dorsum of an Ancient Greek, Minoan money, which I would take with me to exhibit in Athens atPlatforms Project 17 last year.

Minoan Maze, piece of work in progress, 2017.

I was really pleased with the texture and the overall wait of the piece, but beyond this it has inspired me to develop the idea of making something out of nada, which is something I volition certainly return to in futurity projects.

Minoan Maze, Aida on Aida, 2017.

In May 2017 I was invited to join a group of artists exhibiting in Athens, Hellenic republic, as part ofPlatforms Project 17. I have an interest in Greek Mythology, which often comes into my do, and then I wanted to make work to reflect this.
For one of my pieces of piece of work (I took 3), I decided to build on thePenelope slice I had previously fabricated (run into my concluding web log post), only this time work with Greek text. I speak a footling Greek, and notice the language and the Greek messages beautiful, so I chose to use the word for Faithful (πιστή Pisti) to again stitch and un-stitch.

True-blue [work in progress, earlier the text was united nations-stitched]. Cotton on Aida. 2017

This slice was smaller than thePenelope slice, due to time restrictions on making something of that size. The Greek Key blueprint was stitched with white cotton on black Aida, and broken up a footling to mimic aboriginal mosaic patterns. Again, the discussion was stitched and united nations-stitched, leaving larger holes in the cloth, and so that the messages could be seen.

Faithful. Cotton on Aida. 2017

The work was very pop with a Greek audition, especially the secretive nature of the lettering, which became clearer as the cloth was touched.

While in Athens I was lucky enough to visit various archaeological sites and museums. The patterns that come upwards again and over again on Ancient Greek pottery are very inspiring to me, and lend themselves well to cantankerous-stitch. I volition be returning to Athens again this twelvemonth, and I am currently developing work to showroom, some of which may well describe on this inspiration.

Aida tin can exist very unforgiving if you brand a error while sewing. Where the needle passes through the fabric information technology enlarges the pigsty, and if the sewing is then unpicked, information technology leaves behind a trace of where information technology once was. Of course at that place are tricks to put this right, only the space left backside by united nations-stitched work has long since fascinated me.
A long time agone I came across the story of Penelope, the married woman of Odysseus in Homers Odyssey. It was believed that her husband, the Male monarch was dead, and and so many suitors wanted to marry her. Believing her husband to however be alive, she came up with a plan to keep them at bay. She said that she would non marry until she had finished her embroidery, and so every day she stitched information technology, and every nighttime she unpicked it once more.

With this in mind, I created a slice of work on a sewing frame, to look unfinished. The work has had the words "Until Expiry Do Us Role" stitched and unstitched, leaving behind the stretched holes, revealing this missing text. The boarder is a Greek Fundamental design.

Penelope. Aida, cotton, wood. 2016

Penelope [detail of text]
This first attempt at stitched and united nations-stitched cross-stitch work was very successful in terms of how visible the text was, and lead me on to other experimental cross-run up works.