Whereas a painter buys (or fabricates) a canvas and creates his piece on it, for a textile artist, the canvas is his piece (or at least a part of his piece). This can well be seen as causally determined as canvas is fabric. –
“Waste not, want not!” is a motto often used within the upcycling community. I am not specifically an “upcyclist”, but as a textile artist, re-using fabric, upcycling fibers and re-modelling cloth comes with the job. Of course I also buy new fabric from time to time. But I also like to manipulate spare fabrics I already have or have been gifted.
So I decided to focus an this upcycling theme and create a new series.
Above is the first piece of this series. It is a “crazy patchwork freestyle quilt” kind of thing, sewn on painted canvas. The background is made of snippets of an older summer dress of mine which I upcycled into a skirt, so there was plenty of spare fabric!
No. 2 of the Upcycled Series is “Map of passions”. It is made of left over fabric of pants that were tailored for a ballett show of my dance class (we performed Cinderella). Dancing is another passion of mine, therefore the title. 😉
“Proof of waste” entirely made of thread and clothing labels. Some plastic waste and glass beads added for adornment.
This is the most elaborate piece of the series. The background is made of left over gauze bandages (some with tea stains), machine sewn together. Then stitching was added. I grouped the stitches and deliberately left some space between them untouched. The gauze symbolizes the body and the stitching cared for injuries on various body parts. The gauze background was then sewn onto a white fabric with “surgical stitches”. The white fabric was sewn and padded and left un-ironed to resemble a used hospital cushion. Finally, I sewed the whole piece on a white canvas.
With “Evidence of injuries”, I was nominated Palm Art Award Nominee 2018.
“Cycle of life” consists of dried leaves my son had collected for me once, silk ribbons and glass beads. This paraphernalia is stitched onto a canvas made of used tea bags, machine sewn together. The stitching style is Sashiko (or Boro if you want).
This is the last piece of the Upcycled Series. When I was working on this piece, I also created a few art cards and art patches or brooches to sell at crafts fairs. I wanted to experiment with using patches in a more “artful” way. 😉
The piece is made of old jeans and an old scarf of mine. The colors of the embellishments are contrasting nicely with the subdued colors of the background. It is a delightful piece I think.