Wednesday 2 September 2015

Felt,silk and scrim wall art, ancient swimming fish


I got the inspiration for this textile piece whilst at the V&A in London. In the ceramics section I saw a bowl with a design of fish that was so unusual. On reading the label I saw that it dated from c.1300-c.1400 hence the naivety of the design. The bowl was made in the Sultanabad region of Iran. I knew then that a textile piece had to be made.
 I wet felted a piece of white merino wool and attached a piece of green cotton scrim. I then cut out the fish in the same design as the V&A bowl from a fabric I mad previously made using a variety of antique silks. The fish were embellished with machine stitching using modern bronze threads. An addition of antique silk was felted for rocks and strands of wool was wrapped around wool fibres for seaweed. Further machine stitching was used in metallic threads to add depth to the piece. Finally the whole piece was made firm with the addition of a painted lightweight pelmet vilene.
Measures - 23cms/9" x 21.5cms/8.5" at the widest points.

 
#felt #art-felt #felting #fish #ancient-fish #sea #seaweed #embroidery #machine stitching #silk #antique-silk #wool #cotton scrim 

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