I didn’t realise how coming back home from my art residency only a few weeks before Christmas would impact on my work flow. At the time there was a real lag in my energy levels, not surprising given that day to day life and concerns were back in my face again.
With the new year comes the need to get moving on making new work. I aim to pick up some of those ideas that came, as always, in the final days of my residency. In particular I am working on having a more direct interaction between the photographs I have taken, or have found in old books and my stitching.
Stitch experiments on old photographs
This process has been assisted by another activity I am currently participating in, the 365 day handstitch challenge (on Facebook and Instagram), where participants undertake to stitch one thread every day of 2017. I’ve chosen to work with fabric and thread that I took to Japan, but didn’t use. To make sure that my work stays loose I’m working with a favourite technique ‘stitching with my eyes closed‘. As you can see the challenge is having an impact on my other work.
leonieandrews 
If I stitched with my eyes closed I would simply end up with blood stains all over the fabric!
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That happens sometimes! 😁
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Leonie, I liked your textile stitches, a form of minimalism; I was in Sushi Train in Bondi Junction, Sydney this week; I thought Japan has become what India was for the hippy generation.
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Anton I hadn’t thought of it like that. Although I suspect that it’s Tokyo and the ski fields that attract most attention. As an artist there is so much of interest in Japan. I just have to keep going back.
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I’m going to have to try this!
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Definitely, it’s very liberating.
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this is very exciting, I love sketching without looking at the paper, stitching blindfolded speaks straight to my year of working with the haptic sense of touch in stitch, Braille for the Soul!
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Absolutely. I love blind drawing and this is right up the same alley. Look forward to seeing what you do.
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The stitching over a photo opens up all sorts of imagery, it takes into quite another realm, seems to add a new dimension. Hope you do more of these!
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Thank you Anna. It’s always encouraging to hear from others that you may not be ‘barking up the wrong tree’ after all. I have two underway at present and several lined up. I’m working on the principle espoused by Jasper Johns that you should take an object and do something to it and do something to it again.
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[…] of the pencil without looking at the paper also tried one strand of blind stitching inspired by Leonie Andrews’s Stitching in the Dark but there was too much blood letting involved, Old Man Crow suggested wearing Teflon […]
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I love the combination of stitch and photo, fab idea.
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