Making As Learning - The Sixty Two Group - Salt's Mill, Saltaire

Jae Maris - Widening Horizons

 

The Sixty Two Group's recent exhibition Making as Learning has now finished in the roof space at Salt's Mill in Saltaire.  We are told that "The theme 'Making as Learning' was inspired by and dedicated to former 62 Group member Audrey Walker MBE (1928-2020), both as an educator and artist.  The exhibition explores the role of making and learning in our creative practice.  Members interrogate their textile practices, unravelling working processes and inspirations as part of a continuing journey of discovery." 

Jan Beaney - Transience

There was some great work on display and here are just some of my top picks.  I am drawn to mixed media pieces, assemblages and texture so expect to see a preponderance of such works.

Jae Maris's shoreline scene (top image) experiments with new techniques, materials and approaches to her textile art.  Off cuts from a visual diary and old work make up the boardwalk. I love the movement and texture in this piece.

Jan Beaney's Transience (above) is inspired by Charmouth beach and the eroding and etched stone surfaces revealed at low tide.  You just want to run your hands over this to feel the uneven surfaces.

Ann Goddard - Collection #2 (Collaged Constructions) detail

Ann makes constructions from rusty objects, natural materials, recycled artworks and other items from her stash.  She experiments with these materials and I am fascinated by the results.

Eszter Bornemisza - Delve and Discover

Eszter experiemnts with new materials and techniques as a matter of course to turn her ideas into something tangible.  Distortion, layering and transparency are all techniques employed in her joined up samples here.

Gavin Fry - Unfinished Symphony II

Gavin's assemblage of handstitching and found objects is an expression of the foregrounding of touch over practicality.  This is a particularly pleasing, curious piece.

Jane McKeating - Flight Path

Jane McKeating's work is a connection between the story she is telling (what is happening in the world beneath a flight path) and the materials she chooses to experiment with to tell it (roller blind fabric, printing, gouache and inks)

Hannah Lamb - Inheritance

Hannah's cyanotypes and textile making is something she has learned through making, through watching others, through doing and undoing to gain knowledge which she can now pass on to her students whilst also recognising that she can also learn things from them.

Helen Yardley - Cerise Wall Felt & Cornish Grey Wall Felt

Helen Yardley's colourful wall felts are decorative acoustic wallhangings inspired by Matisse's collage with added paint, print and stitch.  I love the stitched elements of these simple abstract pieces.  They are quite wonderful.

Debbie Lydon - Findings (out)

Debbie Lydon collects found objects with which she experiments through manipulation, treatments and reworking.  They may be stitched, waxed, painted, glued, bound, suspended or contained and remain her learning experiments rather than finished pieces.  I love them.

Shuna Rendel - Spinning out of control

Experimenting with apple prunings, bark and maize husks, Shuna has experimented with her materials to create a piece inspired by the mill setting in which it is exhibited.  She is hoping to evoke a picture of bobbins of wool with trailing threads.

Sue Stone - Integrated detail

Sue's piece, Integrated, is a collage of digital prints of previous works which have then been worked on with hand and machine stitching to provide extra detail. A combination of traditional and modern techniques, they are hung so you can see this stitching clearly on the reverse as another layer, and almost another work. 

Lucy Brown - Loss (Ball 'n' Tress) detail

Made from the artist's hand spun hair tresses and handmade hairballs, Lucy Brown's piece references the mill's spinning room.  In fact Lucy taught herself to spin using her own hair to create the piece.

A selection of pieces from this exhibition will be on display at the Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate so you may have seen them there if you missed them at Salt's Mill.