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BA2b - Embroidery.....

Within this unit my work has mostly been embroidery based. This is a medium that I started to look into within the last unit and was really interested in. I decided to carry on with it during this unit in between the individual projects that I had going on. 

For the pieces I have experimented with creating banners with embroidered imagery and text, inspired by the craftivist movement and the work of Sarah Corbett. For the image based banners, I used pieces of cross stitching fabric, embroidered the images which were based off of feminist iconography, and then stitched them onto patterned floral fabric in the same vein as the craftivist banners. I felt that it was really relaxing spending time just weaving in an repetitive motion and creating works with real meaning not only to me but to all women. I created an image of a uterus to signify how our bodies are our own and it should be down to women to decide what we do with it regardless of what others say - a prominent issue in the case of abortions and so on. The second image I created was that of a fist. This is often seen as an sign of empowerment and is often used with the female gender symbol as the icon of the feminist and womanist movement. 

For the text pieces, I wanted a more personal touch. I reflected back to my previous workplace where I had many negative experiences. Some of which were sexist statements made towards me. The two statements that stuck out in my mind were 'You're quite bossy' this was said to me as a another male colleague felt that I was overpowering him, even though I was just doing my job and realising what needed to be done and just doing it. It did upset me as I felt that because I was a woman and a manager I was seen as bossy - a stereotype often given towards female managers, yet male managers are seen as powerful and influential. It has struck me ever since and allowed me to become an even stronger person and influenced me to look into the feminist movement. The second statement was 'You're a woman. You know how to make things look pretty'. This was said to me when talking about a window display. There was no reference to my actual fine art degree that I was studying, just my gender and assuming from that that I was creative. This is another thing that annoys me, when my gender is used to assume my character and skills. Look at me through my skills not my gender. 

For my embroidery hoops, I've looked at different things - for my first one I decided to embroider the female gender symbols. I've have printed them, made a sculpture from it, and created digital designs based on it, but I have yet to embroider them. Once I embroidered the symbols I felt that the original occult reading really did translate strongly from them. I then decided to add some beading along the top and the bottom to emphasise the idea of craft and and product while still being a piece of art. This piece will be shown in the 'SELLOUT' exhibition, hence the need to emphasise the idea of craft within the piece.

For the second embroidery hoop, I was inspired by the artist Rossella Biscotti who combines statistics and weaving/embroidery, so I collated information from twitter via a poll which asked a basic question of where people experienced sexism the most - at work, in a public space and other. The results were 67% said at work which I was both surprised and not surprised at, considering my own experiences and knowledge of the recurring issue of sexism and misogyny at work, 33% said in a public space, which again didn't surprise me, but at the same time did show how women do face these kinds of issues in places where they should feel safe and be able to have a good time. I then had to plan out how I wanted to translate these numbers onto my hoop and went with a traditional line graph. I used different colours for each answer and black thread for the overall outline. I wanted it to be simple as to not take away from the actual issue of the statistics. I'm not overly happy with it,  as to me it looks quite basic, and I think I could take this a step further and experiment with materials and even incorporate other statistics into it as well.I think I'm going to develop this idea over the summer for next year. This was a quick experiment into using statistics in art and embroidery and does relate to the idea of craftivism.

For my final embroidery hoop, I decided to combine all of the feminist iconography that I had been looking at into one piece. I've also started to move away from the cross stitching fabric and into stitching onto thing fabric which I do prefer a lot more as the stitching marks look so much more interesting and delicate. For this piece I also want to start to explore the idea of stitching, and so for parts of this piece I will be experimenting with thread painting. I have looked at quite a few embroidery artists who use this technique and it looks so interesting and intricate in design and I think would work well for my practice as well as help me to develop my skills into embroidery further. This piece is a work in progress, and I was contemplating whether or not to show it at the SELLOUT exhibition, but I think currently we have enough products on show. I'm beginning to really like this design overall, but I'm concerned with how similar it looks to other pieces on Instagram. However, my main focus on this piece isn't solely the imagery used but the techniques I use, which I hope will stand out stronger. 

I was working on a quilt, but after starting my hoops, this has taken a back seat. I might come back to it in the next unit, next year. I also want to explore the boundaries of embroidery next year, and possibly start to combine it with other materials such as paint, collage, even printmaking. If I had more time in this unit I would have liked to start looking into this earlier but I'm definitely going to do so next year. Overall I'm happy with how my work has gone this year, although I do feel like I need to really develop my ideas more and possible experiment more. I'm really getting into embroidery and the use of textiles in art, and I think the idea of craft in contemporary art is beginning to be a key interest for me and my work. 












































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