june update from Amanda

It's the start of another creative season for The Textile Art Forum. Our new theme is Stitching the Legend. As usual, each of us will interpret the theme in our individual way, exploring concepts that catch our imaginations and spark creativity.

For myself the theme keeps me in my beginnings as a clothing designer and I plan to explore images from the work of three legendary fashion design icons: Schiaparelli, Dior and Quant. Their distinctive design silhouttes are the starting point for my work this season.

Each of the Forum members has a piece of matching tea-dyed cotton, a reel of metallic thread and an 18" canvas to make a signature piece which describes the flavour of this year's theme. These are my first pictures - my idea in the raw - paper-doll like figures dance across the cloth, capturing the essence of their era with a connecting timeline linking them together. There isn't any stitch on this yet, but there will be soon...

update from Frances

During the residential retreat in February at Ballydugan I played around with this wall quilt, using my hand-dyed fabrics and a sort of cathedral windows and bargello combination. Then it sat on the shelf. When the April oil spill occurred in the Gulf of Mexico, I knew that I needed to finish this piece and dedicate it to the lost sea creatures, to the birds of the air, to those who lost their lives on the oil rigs and to those whose lives will be forever altered due to this rape of the environment. I also wanted to raise awareness of the greed that propels companies such as Shell, BP, Exxon, etc. The quilt's body is almost finished with the quilting process (lots of lumps and rumples to sort out), and I am now experimenting with black and white organza to use as symbols for the oil gushing without stop, killing without end. Titles: "Drill, Baby, Drill" as a reminder of the moronic Sarah Palin and her disregard for the environment; "Here Comes the Exxon Valdez" as a memory of the attack on the ice columns of Alaska; "Coming your way from BP" as a statement that what the oil companies have wrought can never replace the nature they have shredded. Sadly, there are too many titles.

time for an update from Amanda

It's been a while since I posted...I'm wrapping up my work for the 'Make it New' theme, printing out photos of the Bullrush dress and tranferring them onto fabric, tying up other loose ends and framing. My Black and Blue series of prints have been finally finished. After some months of considering their purpose they clicked into place as a message bearer regarding the oil spill in the Mexican Gulf... eco-friendly prints using water based inks on natural cotton, framed with petrol blue silk, they seemed appropriate for adding text and saying how I feel about events. 'Respect the Planet'