Work in France

I have sent work to France for an exhibition at La Porte Peinte art centre in the beautiful medieval village of Noyers sur Serein in Burgandy. The joint exhibition is entitled Bee. The piece which I have sent consists of 100 sheets of tea stained paper from old duplicate reciept books. They are arranged into groups of five pages, with pressed flowers and a stitched circle on the cover pages. The four following pages in each 'book' have a circle stitched in gold thread.

Each group of five pages is pinned to the wall with entomology pins, reflecting concerns about the fast declining bee populations. Will they be concined to the boards of rare entomological collections?
All of the twenty pressed wild flowers are ones which attract bees and other insects.

Staining the paper with a mixture of teas, including chai, gives a lovely colour but also adds texture and fragrance.

Exhibition in Aberteifi

I have just installed some work in a joint show in a gallery in Aberteifi (Cardigan). The work is based on the Immortelles and the dried flowers. I picked daisies in the grave yards where I had photographed the porcelain flowers. Having pressed the daisies and some other flowers I put them into small books which were made of tea stained paper from vintage duplicate note books, which has a lovely fine quality, but is quite strong. I covered them in the end papers from old broken books.

 For this book I used the cover of an old book with lovely gold detail around the inside edge.

 The circles which I stitched into the books, some gold, some plain, represent the glass domes. In some of the books I glued circles of tissue paper over the flowers, partly obscuring but preserving them.

Inspite of the original subject matter I did not want the work to feel morbid as they are small saleable items for an August bank holiday exhibition.
I am enjoying working with this theme and a lot more ideas are coming.
There are some lovely pieces of work in the gallery showcasing a wide variety of skills, materials and techniques. It includes textiles, ceramics, furniture and mixed media etc. Well worth a visit.

Flowers Under a Magnifying Glass

Inspired by the porcelain flowers under glass, I looked for a way to place my little dried flowers under glass or something which would represent the idea of a protective dome. I laid an old magnifying glass over them and then took photographs. This protected them to some extent but the weight of the glass squashed them slightly which of course can happen as a result of over protection. It also placed them under close scrutiny, magnifying their detail and sometimes distorting their shape and at certain angles they would appear to vanish completely.

Interestingly the magnifying glass changes the effect of the light but it also seems to intensify the colour of the flowers.

I used a wide aperture on some of the photographs, which increased the light and gave the impression of slight over exposure. I love the effect which this has but I also like the darker richer tones which are closer to the original conditions.

A buttercup and wild strawberry flower, not under glass, but thrown in for good measure.

I have taken hundreds of photographs of the dried flowers and these are just a few of them. Hopefully all of this inspiration will turn into some actual work, but as always the investigation and the development of the ideas is a very exciting part of the whole process. Who knows where it will lead.

Photos. Lynnette Miller

Immortelles

In this area there are still a lot of the glass domes containing porcelain flowers which were once left on graves. Most of them have a wire cover and many have broken, but surprisingly some are still
intact. I don't have a morbid fascination with grave yards but they are very interesting places, both historically and visually.

I was looking at the idea of  preserving flowers, such as pressing and drying them, when I remembered the Immortelles in the graveyards. There is something of Miss Haversham's bouquet about them, which gave me the idea of tying the dried flowers in little bunches. It is very inspiring but potentially quite a heavy and unsettling area to look into. For me it has a lot to do with the flowers themselves and the preservation of species and so on and our fear of losing the familiar.

Having picked daisies from the graveyards where I photographed the porcelain flowers, I dried some of them and pressed others. I think that they will become part of little books or boxes of some kind.

I also photographed some flowers from the garden, which look lovely when they are dried. The abundance of plants, both wild and cultivated, at this time of year is so inspiring.



Photos. Lynnette Miller

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Capel Y Ffin

My sister and I went to Mynwy (Monmouth) to collect some work which I had in a joint textile exhibition there. We decided to take the scenic route home and visit Capel Y Ffin on the way. It meant a bit of a detore but was well worth it. We travelled along about 20 miles of remote single track road, which took us through tree lined lanes and over a mountain track called Gospel Pass. The tiny church, St Mary's, was built in 1762 and seems to be occupied by a rather lovely ginger cat.

 The interior is simple and utterly beautiful. One of the pews is carved with the date 1783.

                                        The view from one of the windows,

This angel, which dates from the 1700s, is part of a plaque on an outside wall.

A similar angel in the grave yard.

A beautiful chapel which we passed on the road a few miles from Y Fenni (Abergaveny).

I shall definately travel that road again, it was an extraordinary trip, but the mountains, though stunning, are bleak and I am glad that I live at the top of a hill looking across lush green views which even after 40 years still take my breath away.

Photos. Lynnette Miller

Dye Samples

These are samples of wool which I dyed with various natural dyes last summer.
They are Brazilwood, Madder, White Onion skins, Red Onion skins, Turmeric,Weld, Indigo and Ornamental Maize and some which are a mixture of two of these. They were all mordanted with Alum.
I have one small bag of Brazilwood left but unfortunately I shall not be replacing it as I have discovered that the Brazilwood trees are endangered. It's a shame as it produces the most beautiful reds and when lime is added it makes the rich pink seen in the sample above, so I am treating what I have left like gold dust.
The grey/ purple colour in the bottom left of the image above was achieved with home grown Ornamental Maize. I am hoping to grow some more of that this year. Ideally I would like to use dyes that I have either grown or found locally, but I am bound to be tempted by the lovely colours of some of the imported dyes like Madder.

WELD AND INDIGO

Photos. Henrietta Miller

Wool yarn, which I sourced from charity shops, dyed with Weld and Indigo. The colours really were this strong. Although Indigo is a substantive dye, I pre mordanted all of the wool with alum, as I did a large batch, suitable for any of the dyes. It seems that dyeing fabric and yarn is a summer activity and that crocheting and knitting is something which I mostly do in the autumn and winter months.