Bucks Art Weeks Competition

Bucks Art Weeks run for two weeks every June throughout the county, with many artists of different disciplines taking part. I have been a member of the Bucks Art Weeks Group for many years, but I took a year out from the event this year in order to concentrate on getting both my blog and my Etsy shop up and running. After a tough year last year, I have also been assessing the direction I would like to take my work in and experimenting with some new approaches to my embroidery.

This year, Bucks Art Weeks have introduced a new competition to their yearly schedule. Run in conjunction with the National Trust at Stowe and Waddesdon, it aims to promote the main open studios event of the summer. Over 60 pieces of members work, covering 16 different art disciplines, will go on show at Stowe over the weekend of 17th and 18th September and at Waddesdon the following weekend of 24th and 25th September.

When the call for entries was announced in July I decided that I would make an embroidered piece, using my eco printed fabric, for the competition. I took inspiration from the blind contour drawings of leaves that I had been doing since May, working out how to reproduce them in stitch using couching. I worked on my piece in the garden for a week, over the hot spell at the beginning of August. I patched my dyed and eco printed fabrics together using an intuitive compositional approach. After securing them all to a backing fabric, I moved on to the embroidery. First, I used seeding stitches in a fine cotton thread to create circles, inspired by the sun and the moon, and then I worked the couched leaf ‘drawings’ using a cotton Perle no. 8. The piece is suspended from a vintage bobbin and hung from a combination of twisted fabric and thread strips. I have named the piece ‘Summer Leaves 1’ and I am pleased with the way it has turned out.

Summer Leaves 1

I entered the piece into the competition in mid-August and, on Monday, I had an email from the chairperson to inform me that it has been selected as one of the five textile pieces for the exhibition! I did an actual little happy dance! If only all Mondays began with such good news. I think it feels particularly special because this piece came from my heart. It is a homage to the plants that helped me through last year and the nature, and craft, that constantly heals and uplifts me. I had no thought that my embroidery would be picked for the exhibition, the competition was merely the catalyst to get me stitching again. It was something to focus on and work towards as I found my way back into artmaking. I am thrilled that it will now be shown as one of the examples of textile artwork in my county.

Working the seed stitches

So, I will be going up to Stowe on Sunday 18th September to see my piece, and all the other selected artworks, in the Bucks Art Weeks exhibition. I used to work for the National Trust at Stowe so the property also has a special place in my heart. It is uncanny the way that everything comes full circle.