We had the pleasure of hearing Bernice talk about her work and inspirations. She likes to use neutral and pastel colour palettes and for that pallet to be limited. Bernice has developed themes for her practice over several years and as a local artist has been inspired among other things by walks along the canal network. She has collected hundreds of photographs of canals and aqueducts. She has also developed work based on maps, this work was inspired by workshops at Little Heath Barn, a wonderful local resource that many of us have benefited from. Breakdown printing is often used in her work and she also cuts up pieces and recombines them as shown below.
Bernice uses workbooks to record her work and the work books and the work itself feed off each other. She makes fabric books and sometimes uses hanging books. She has used painting and procion dye and has a large collection of stencils and has also played with the top layer of serviettes with gel medium over the top. When she had an accident to her hand she also used photographs printed onto fabric when she couldn’t stitch she has also used machine preset stitches.
Bernice is running a workshop for out group Making Fabric Tiles with Venice as the inspiration Thermofax screens will be used as part of the process examples of what we might make are shown below. Given her fascinating talk the workshop should be very rewarding.
We also held our raffle with a large very cute bag from Janet M. And a beautifully stitched bag from Marion H.
We have a busy time ahead with our exhibition and farmers market stall in the summer, and with the book spine project for the exhibition. Our summer competition will be ‘Vintage with a Twist’. Our next meeting on 12th May will be activity based, making things to sell for the exhibition. The raffle bag colour next month is green.
Birmingham Embroidery and Textile Art 