Art in Action

A tent full of Mexican crafts, decorated with these wonderful paper garlands.

Had a wonderful day yesterday at Art in Action. Its an arts and crafts festival that takes place outside Oxford. There are different tents each fro a different art/craft. there is a ceramics tent, a textile ten, a painting tent etc. In each one are invited exhibitors who come to show their work and talk to people. You can also do classes, drink Pimms and generally enjoy the company of people who make. I really enjoy a trip there and this is the 3rd time I have been. It was a child free day with Jon and was just lovely. Its great to meet people so passionate about what they do. There is lots to tell you about but these are some of the people who I spoke to and whose work I found most interesting.

Roanna Wells has only recently graduated form Manchester School of Art and was using picture of clouds as inspiration for large embroidered pictures. She used a fine crepeline and dark threads to create pictures that were a series of marks. She was using the thread showing through on the back as well as the front to create depth. being able to see the threads on the back is something I have been thinking about a lot recently. Its like the bones of the work. Roanna was using it to great effect and made beautifully shaded pictures.

Serena Partridge was there making tiny little shoes and gloves. I have seen her work before and its about the eccentricities of fashion and she makes amazing little things and displays them in old boxes like they have always been there. She has the most incredible patience to make them.

Rosalind Wyatt was stitching text from old letters onto cloth as part of an ancestral project. She comes form a background of calligraphy and uses this to recreate the text onto clot Her stitching is minute and exquisite in its recreation from the original. I stitch text quite often but she reproduced it so accurately that it was incredible.

There were lots of other amazing artist and crafters but these are the ones who really stuck with me. I had been mildy concerned that as I have been feeling quite off that meeting and talking to very talented people would make me just weep in a corner but actually I found it very refreshing and i came home full of ideas and itching to get started on something...... great timing as the school term ends in about and hours time and for the next 6 weeks my time will be limited!

These are a couple of picture I took of the roof of one of the tents as it looked amazing with the foliage on it, almost like a Japanese screen.

I will bore you with things I bought on another day!