Patchwork Object

Items

• Patch by Claire
  As an experienced Architect, Associate lecturer and designer-maker of concept jewellery and handheld objects, I have been creating uniquely expressive statement pieces exploring materiality for a number of years, however it is only in the last five years that I have begun to understand that a major driving force for my creativity is my thirst for new knowledge. Recognising this has led me to explore the potential for design as a research tool, undertaking a practice as research PhD at the University of the West of England. This patchwork represents my PhD research project “Ply Could?” which explores the potential of thin plywood, as a sustainable material for making. Combining tradition craft practices with digital making techniques, I am pushing the material to its limits and exploring its material affordance. By means of craft based creative enquiry and research by design, can the exploration of novel material affordances uncover new opportunities for the use of thin plywood? Plywood is a natural material, strong, lightweight, and extremely versatile. Its method of construction, layering alternate veneers perpendicularly, makes it immensely strong for its size, and reduces the likelihood of shrinkage and warping when exposed to variations in environmental conditions. Despite the recent increase in use of plywood as a sustainable alternative in construction, it is currently little-used on a small scale. The embodied carbon value for plywood is a fraction of that for plastics and metals. Plywood can be softened and moulded into complex three-dimensional forms, providing increased strength, much like in an eggshell, resulting in good economy of material. By working on a small scale (using 0.8mm and 1.5mm thick sheet) it is possible to push the material to its limits, activating it using moisture, heat and pressure and utilising 3D printed formers to set it into complex shapes.
• Patch by Hannah
  My patch is ridiculous and over the top, and probably a bit naughty as it has tassels that might drape beyond my own patch square, but I guess that is what this patch is about... confidence to be expressive. If you lift the tassel panel it says "Thank you to my mum & my sisters. To Mrs Betton & Jan Ruddock. Tanks to the clothes show & caring Franklin, to Vivene Westwood & Kate Moss ( who I will later regret). Thank you Bjork, Iris and Frida, to Cruella, Roisin, Susie & Gem for inspiring me to express myself."
• Patch by Moira
  The piece of stitched fabric that I have contributed is a fragment from a piece that has been kicking around for a long time. It is a perfect example of the quandary we face as textile practitioners regarding the value of the work we do. It started life as a response to the sea at Porthmeor Beach viewed from the café in Tate St Ives. (Middle class arty farty nonsense). It grew slowly away from the seaside, and I never quite loved it and was left with something that had small artistic worth and that I couldn’t turn into anything else. Yet I was unwilling to throw it away. This is often the situation with pieces of textile work – particularly embroidery. We wonder if it should be displayed on a wall, or made into something “useful” such as a cushion or bag or tea cosy or quilt, or, or, or (I guess artists in other media have the same problem with pieces that haven’t earned their frame, but surely none of them are hoping that a painting can be turned into something “useful”). Anyway, I’m happy to have found a new life for a small portion of the work and now that I’ve had the courage to cut it up, I’ll probably be able to incorporate the rest of it into something else.
• Patch by Ruth
  The fabric for these 3 patches came from my friend Ros' stash - pieces of which were given away at her funeral. She dyed them herself. Ros was a dear family friend. She was a teacher by profession and quilter. She sadly passed away in 2023. I wanted to include her in this patchwork project because I always think of her when I’m stitching a quilt, I wanted to mark her influence on me personally at a sew-er. Her family have said they're are very happy for these patches to be included and agreed the subject of this Art of Fiction project would have been right up her street! One of the patches has words sent to me in an email by her husband telling me all about her creative quilting practice. Her family are currently in the process of cataloguing (and potentially exhibiting) all the quilts she made, of which there are many.
• Patch by Ruth
  The fabric for these 3 patches came from my friend Ros' stash - pieces of which were given away at her funeral. She dyed them herself. Ros was a dear family friend. She was a teacher by profession and quilter. She sadly passed away in 2023. I wanted to include her in this patchwork project because I always think of her when I’m stitching a quilt, I wanted to mark her influence on me personally at a sew-er. Her family have said they're are very happy for these patches to be included and agreed the subject of this Art of Fiction project would have been right up her street! One of the patches has words sent to me in an email by her husband telling me all about her creative quilting practice. Her family are currently in the process of cataloguing (and potentially exhibiting) all the quilts she made, of which there are many.
• Patch by Ruth
  The fabric for these 3 patches came from my friend Ros' stash - pieces of which were given away at her funeral. She dyed them herself. Ros was a dear family friend. She was a teacher by profession and quilter. She sadly passed away in 2023. I wanted to include her in this patchwork project because I always think of her when I’m stitching a quilt, I wanted to mark her influence on me personally at a sew-er. Her family have said they're are very happy for these patches to be included and agreed the subject of this Art of Fiction project would have been right up her street! One of the patches has words sent to me in an email by her husband telling me all about her creative quilting practice. Her family are currently in the process of cataloguing (and potentially exhibiting) all the quilts she made, of which there are many.
• Patch by Ruth
  This patch represents the women artists who have inspired me and let me believe that my bedroom drawing, making and sewing could be taken seriously and that I could become an artist too. Cornelia Parker, Rachel Whiteread, Tracey Emin, Clarissa Galliano, Frida Khalo, Phyllida Barlow, Vivian Westwood, Mary Quant, Sarah Lucas, Sister Corita Kent, Louise bourgeois, to name just a few. I still think about that little girl dreaming that she might one day be an artist, I feel lucky that I get to do that in my real life now I’m all grown up!
• Patch by Ruth
  I was recently doing a project that required me to use some of this silver material and it took me back to when I was an art student in the 90’s, when I found a very similar roll of the same silver material in my local Scrap Store (a warehouse filled with industry off-cuts where you could load a trolley and pay £5 for the lot!). I remember taking it home and sewing together a pair of flared trousers which I then proceeded to wear to a party that same night. I didn’t have a sewing machine in those days so they were constructed by hand. I didn’t care for their longevity, more for their one night of fun. I remember literally sewing myself into them just before I left the house. Needless to say, the material was not the most comfortable of things to wear on a hot dance floor! This piece of fabric represents the fact that my mother taught me to make my own clothes when I was 12 and how this knowledge meant that I could be creative (and be spontaneous) with how I expressed myself, which for a shy teenager was a powerful gift. I have continued to sew my own clothes throughout my life, made clothes for my children and taught them to sew their own too. Thank you to my mum, Moira Broadway and to my Granny, Betty Irvine who taught her.