The Museum of Old and New Art just outside Hobart in Tasmania was amazing, crazily bonkers and stupidly overwhelming. A fitting way to end my trip to Australia.

Mona run catamarans from the harbour in Hobart to the museum and that short trip alone was full of wonder … we sailed past a zinc works, a massive sprawl of rusty buildings, gangways, conveyor belts and chimneys that I could have spent all day looking at! But that’s just me!

The museum is built into a hill. Yes into. There are 99 steps from the dock up to the grounds and the entrance. I’m a bit of a building geek and I spent more time looking at the structures and the art in the grounds than I did in the galleries.

On entering the museum itself the guide suggests going down to the third level then working your way upwards. The first 10 rooms featured an exhibition Oceans of Air by Tomas Saraceno, each room having a different level of darkness. Some rooms were so dark his artworks seemed to provide the only source of light. It was really disconcerting at times and the lack of sense of direction was weird. His artworks were very varied, utilising a wide range of materials, some were fragile, some were in your face. An amazing experience but one that induced sensory overload.

I wondered through tunnels and vast spaces, looking at, but not taking in more and more, pieces of art. Too much for one visit. Which means that I’m just going to have to go back one day!

Thank you again Glenys, Chris and Roz for inviting me to teach, I would have never got to visit Australia otherwise, to meet so many lovely people and to experience so many new things. I owe you big time!!

And off we went again, this time with 12 new students for a three day workshop in the lovely Moonah Art Centre in Hobart. Temporary print surfaces fastened to our tables, we started with a little colour work - what else! - before moving on to a range of simple screen printing techniques. You will not be surprised to hear that there was plenty of breakdown printing along with some open screen work, some printing with loose paper resists and some masking tape resist screens. Most of the students in the group were new to screen printing but they all ‘got it’ really quickly and produced an amazing amount of work in just three days.

We had a lovely enclosed courtyard where we were able to eat lunch, dry fabric and dry breakdown screens. And they were very patient when I lost my voice (too much talking) and could only croak out instructions. As with every workshop I was tired at the end of each day but the happy, satisfied type of tired that comes from working in a group of creative, enthusiastic artists playing with colour, mark and shape. Yet again I find that I love my job!

And then there is the eye candy! In no particular order ……

Some weeks are just good. Mine got off to a cracking start with an email from textileartist.org to let me know that their article ‘Discover: The power of print’ had just been published online. I feel honoured (and rather chuffed) to be included in this article on five textile artists who use print in their work. I’m in great company as the article also highlights the work of Amerjeet Nandhra, Sue Hotchkis, Bobbi Baugh and Ross Belton. We all use print in very different ways to create very different styles of art but we all exploit the serendipity of the hand printing process. If you haven’t heard of textileartist.org I really recommend that you take a look at their website and sign up to their newsletter. The breadth and quality of work they feature is amazing and they are a great resource for all textile fans.

On Monday evening I gave a talk ‘Understanding Colour’ to Seaside Stitchers in Blackpool. As always it is an honour to be invited to talk to a group although I could have waffled on about colour for far longer than my allotted hour! They are a lovely group of embroiderers, quilters and textile lovers and I really enjoyed chatting with them after the talk. You can follow the link above to their Facebook page.

Life is challenging for everybody right now and I am grateful to the 172 people who brought my new book Simply Screen Printing in February and March. As a result I have just donated £172 on your behalf to The Trussell Trust. Making a living as an artist is tough and I only get to pay my bills because of your continued support - thank you!

The frustrating bit …. the cost of posting books internationally. Unfortunately, when I started shipping the new book, I discovered that there are no longer any ‘cheap’ options for posting parcels weighing over 2kg outside of the UK. I kept my postage rates the same until the end of March but have now had to increase them. There is still a significant difference between International Economy and International Standard for parcels weighing up to 2kg but once you get above 2kg the difference is much smaller and pricing can vary from day to day. I shop around every time I’m sending out a parcel that weighs over 2kg and, typically, the standard rate will get you delivery via courier within a few days and the economy rate will get you delivery via a courier in 2 - 3 weeks. If I happen to get a rate that is cheaper than you have paid I will refund the difference.

What also made this week a good one was a few days away from home with hubby staying in Morecambe. I’m going to be on a plane to Melbourne on our 40th wedding anniversary so this was an early anniversary present to ourselves. The weather was a bit rubbish but the AirBnB was amazing and had great views across the estuary (when the rain stopped). I took some ‘moody’ grey photos of the horizon line, sand and rocks - inspiration for a project?? Maybe when I get a free moment!

Terry drawing with needle nosed bottles and thickened dyes

The Creative Textile Studio (previously known as the Virtual Studio) has been an integral part of each summers Festival of Quilts from the very first show. It is a space where visitors can watch and interact with a bunch of talented people demonstrating a wide range of textile techniques. Up until now it has been organised by Leslie Morgan and the students of her Committed to Cloth studio. Leslie has now decided that it is time to retire and focus on making her own art.

And I am very proud to tell you that I am part of a new studio collective taking over the reins. The collective is Christine Chester (Studio Eleven), Hazel Ryder and Terry Donaldson (InStitches) and myself here at Urban Studio North. This is a new venture for us and we have big plans! We want to stretch the boundaries of textile art and share with you the widest range of textile and mixed media based techniques. We want to inspire you!

We will all be demonstrating at various times in studio and will be joined by some wonderful artists and textile tutors including Clare Bullock, Elisabeth Viguie Culshaw, Jennifer Collier, Kate Findlay, Ruth Brown and more. As we get closer to the show I will share the studio rota so you can plan a visit. And our logo. Yes we are going to have a logo! But for now you might want to look at our Instagram page foqcreativetextiles

And maybe start following us? Or spreading the word to your friends? Any support is very much appreciated. We’re barely an acorn right now but we want to grow to be a great big creative, colourful, inclusive and inspiring tree!

In my last post I told you about the things that I’m doing to raise some money for The Trussell Trust, a charity that supports food banks in the UK and campaigns to end food poverty. Having recovered from The Creative Craft Show at ExCel last weekend I’ve spent some time updating my online shop. So …..

• I have now added the Charity Inspiration Packs that I have left to my online shop. Each pack contains a mix of silk, linen, cotton and viscose fabrics and threads. Each pack costs £12.50 and I will donate £5 from each sale to The Trussell Trust. You can find them here. I’ve also added some more Wonky Print Inspiration Packs.

• I have added new dates for a Breakdown Your Palette workshop (12th to 16th September) and a Simply Screen Printing workshop (16th and 17th July) as the other workshops had sold out. You can find out more about all my workshops here. And, as a reminder, I am donating £10 from every workshop place I sell between now and the end of April to The Trussell Trust.

• I have reduced the cost of my online Breakdown Your Palette workshop by 25% from £240 to £180 until the end of April in recognition of the fact that not everyone is free to travel yet. And in recognition that attending a workshop in my studio is not cheap and not accessible to all.

I’d like to thank everyone who stopped by my stand at the show last weekend, it was a real pleasure to be able to exhibit Ruins 7 and I’m humbled by the response it received. Ruins 7 was made in response to the Russian devastation of Aleppo in Syria. Let’s hope the world learns some lessons this time round.

Thank you for your continued support, Leah x

Ruins 7

I am delighted that textile artist Helen Parrott will be teaching in my studio this spring but wanted to know a little bit more about her work and the course she will be teaching ‘Northern Landscapes and Hand Stitch’. So I asked Helen a few questions and hope that you enjoy reading her answers. She also sent some lovely images of her recent work and inspirations - eye candy on a somewhat bleak, cold winters day here in Northern England.

Q. What is it about the landscape surrounding your home in northern England that inspires your work?

Helen: There is great beauty and interest in so much of what is around me on several levels:

I moved north over 40 years ago and still find the landscape fascinating and so different to where I grew up in Cambridge. Initially it was the urban landscapes of mills, factories, terraced houses and grand Victorian buildings in places like Leeds and Manchester that excited my curiosity. I spent years walking the cities of the north seeking to understand what I was seeing and how it came to be and look that way. I moved uphill to the edge of Sheffield in the 2000s and that is when more rural landscapes became part of my daily life. I still love to walk to town along the Porter Valley will its long unused millponds and traces of previous industry.

At this altitude the landscape is constantly changing, sometimes from moment to moment, sometimes boldly, at other times the changes are very subtle. The light is often unstable, fleeting and beautiful. (Taking daylight photos of my work can be a real challenge at some times of year because the light is so unstable.)

The landscape around here has a deep history of human occupation over millennia. The traces of these peoples and their lives are still visible in the landscape in the present day. I find that sense of continuity and connection with people over time a powerful one. These feelings of connection and continuity have been helpful to me as we live through the pandemic and the changes it has brought to our lives.

I love the wide valley vistas, the stone walls and the tiny details of the plants and trees. They all feed into my visual and creative life and work.

Q. How might running the course in a more urban setting influence the students experience?

Helen: I hope that the urban location will be thought provoking for all of us and that we can explore the idea of ’north’ as part of the course. We will each have our own experiences and ideas to share so I look forward to a lively conversation. I’d like students to go home with a clearer sense of what ‘north’ or ’northern landscape' means to them personally and why. For those that wish to take an exploration of north further my aim is to support that direction, including by recommending artists, images and writings to research.

Q. How will you combine the creative work that forms part of the course with providing one-to-one coaching/mentoring for the participants?

Helen: The way this usually works is that we spend the first day or so getting to grips with the theme, doing some collages and then working through some key hand stitch techniques. People love to get to the hand stitching! I then begin one to one conversations with students. Usually it works out that one or two people are very keen to talk early on, others prefer to wait a bit. I’d expect to have at least one coaching conversation of 20-30 minutes with each student on each of the two weekends. The actual length of each conversation varies, it depends a bit on the people, the size of the group and how the teaching and group discussion goes.

These are confidential conversations so we may sit in a quiet space or walk round the block, it depends on what people prefer (and the weather). I aim 'to meet people where they are' so conversations can be very broad, or very focussed, it depends. This is about supporting the student and their creative journey. Previous topics have included developing a portfolio of work to apply for a course, planning an exhibition or body of work, how to ‘make better work,' how to manage time, getting a studio and so on. I’ve been an artist, coach/mentor and arts manager/leader for over 20 years so have a wealth of experience to draw on.

Q. You have combined creative development with individual coaching time in workshops in the past, in your experience who might benefit most from this approach?

Helen: This is a good question - in my experience coaching can be really helpful when people can’t see the creative wood for the trees. It can help bring clarity and focus to art and creativity, support individuals to develop a plan and create ways forward for their creativity that suit their lives and circumstances.

Northern Landscape with Hand Stitch runs over two weekends to enable students to have time to work on their own and to reflect in between the two sessions. At the end of the first weekend students will go home with ideas to explore before the second weekend. The first session is Friday 8th to Sunday 10th April and the second session is Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th May. There are still places available on this course; you can find more information here.

Helen has a wealth of experience supporting artists. If you are worried about whether the course is right for you please contact me here and I’ll put you in touch with Helen. Spending time with like minded people, working and making art in a lovely space, can be a real boost to morale and confidence. I hope you’ll join myself and Helen in April and May.

My studio is a ‘bit of a tip’. Unlike our inglorious prime minister I won’t be asking somebody to pay for eye-wateringly expensive wallpaper to make it look pretty. Because my tip is a glorious tip! Everything has been moved about so that I can photograph some new pieces. Which is a sign that not only have I been creating new pieces but that I love them!

Because I work intuitively with my fabrics the early pieces in a new series are often not quite right or are, frankly, rubbish, and they don’t always get photographed. That was certainly the case with the Cadence series but then I was starting from a low point in terms of my artistic confidence. My new series has been fermenting inside my head for quite some time but I only unleashed it onto fabric once I had regained confidence in my creative process. There have been a few false starts, and yes I have printed (and thrown away) some butt ugly fabric, but I am actually rather pleased with the first two finished pieces. I’m not quite ready to share images of the full quilts but I am ready to talk about my inspirations and to tease you with a couple of images.

My new series is called Artefact. It is inspired by our relationship with man-made objects, especially those made with material taken straight from the earth and shaped into tools and decorative objects. Those objects which are collected and proudly displayed; those which are passed down within families; those that tell us about our past; and those that are lost to us. As a source of inspiration this has the potential to go in many different directions but I’m starting by referencing the vases and pots made by Pilkington Tile & Pottery Company. Their manufacturing site, which is now derelict, is only a few miles from where I live and I remember when their factory shop selling cheap tiles was still open. As with my Ruins series and my series on coal mining I like to work on subjects to which I feel some connection. And, as always I am inspired by our industrial heritage. In the detail shot below I used a breakdown printing technique to print the vase. I used a variety of printing techniques to create the fabrics used to make the background. I hope you like the result as much as I do!

Artefact 1 (detail)

Self Portrait by Pippa Wardman

I love seeing the fabrics that my students print and dye during workshops - their work is so varied and inspirational. But I don’t often get to see what happens next - how they use their fabrics. I suspect that many pieces are put away in cupboards, but I hope that, at the very least, they get pulled out every so often and stroked lovingly. However earlier this autumn I asked my students to send me photos of work made using fabrics created here at Urban Studio North. And wow! The variety of work is amazing and I’m grateful for their help. I have put together a gallery of their work which can be accessed via the workshop page on my website. Have a look!

(And, whilst I’m here, a quick reminder that the last date you can place orders for delivery in the UK before Christmas is this Wednesday, the 15th.)

Stitched sample by Hilary Kimber using the selvedges from breakdown printed fabrics.

Although the last posting date is later I’m setting Wednesday 15th December as a cut off for pre-Christmas orders as I plan on taking a long break over Christmas and the New Year. Orders placed later than this will be posted at the start of January. (Unless I get a bit bored and fancy a trip to the Post Office!). I thought you might also like to know that I’ve added a few more new Wonky Print Inspiration Packs to my online shop.

I have now finished teaching for this year. The bad weather this week meant postponing the last two days teaching but other than that I’m happy, and relieved, to have been able to teach so many workshops this year. Despite the worries about the new variant we are much better place compared to this time last year. The rollout of vaccines has been amazing but I’m very grateful for the great attitude of all my students this year. We’ve worn masks, washed and sanitised hands, taken lateral flow tests and made sure that the studio has been a safe environment for all of us. Thank you to each and every one of year!

With no teaching scheduled until the end of January I can now turn all of my attention to making art. I’ve removed the plastic screens and re-arranged the benches to make the studio feel more ‘mine’. I’ve pinned all my ‘work in progress’ up on the design wall. And hidden the stock of chocolate biscuits so my beloved family can’t help themselves. Chocolate, and lots of strong coffee are an essential part of my creative process! The next quilt in the Cadence series is ready to quilt and I’ve got a completely new series in the development stage. So plenty to keep me busy!

Leah x