Collage appears to be a common technique

The Embroiderers' Guild NSW which Filament is a part of has a monthly publication called the "Record".  As we take samples of the Record to the exhibition to give away to viewers we make sure there are one or two articles about our exhibition. Here is the article that we hope to get in the November edition as there was not enough space in the October one.

In the previous Record the inspiration for the works was discussed - this time lets look at one of the technique that most of us have used and that is collage. Merriam Webster dictionary defines collage as: “French, literally, gluing, from coller to glue. Wikipedia states that a collage should be made up of several different pieces. Although the term collage was not coined till the early 20^th century the technique has been around for millennia as evidenced by cavemen adding grasses to cave painting and when paper was invented in China, around 200 BCE adding it to scroll paintings, in Victorian times collage methods were popular for adding memorabilia to photo albums.

In the early 20^th century Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque pasted photographs, newspaper cuttings and string onto their painted works. Affiliated with the Dada art movement Kurt Schwitters omitted the paint and relied on found papers and objects often from the street to create his abstractions. Hannah Hoch, also a Dadaist, referenced dress patterns and textiles in her art.

Later artists like Mirium Shapiro and Tracey Emin use fabric in their works. Shapiro pastes her fabrics and interestingly Emin stitches her confessional works. Shapiro coined the term femmages when referring to her works. The essay “waste not want not” with Melissa Meyer is on line: http://faculty.winthrop.edu/stockk/Contemporary%20Art/Schapiro%20sourcebook.pdf (Both Shapiro and Emin have a work on view at the Art Gallery of NSW). Cas Holmes, Alice Kettle, Mandy Patullo currently work in this medium and their books and blogs make very interesting reading. casholmes.blogspot.com threadandthrift.blogspot.com http://www.alicekettle.co.uk/

A fusible web of glue such as Vliesofix or Bond-a-web can be employed in textile collage. In one case, thanks to a workshop with Cas Holmes, glue in the form of wall paper paste has been used. Alternatively stitching by hand or machine has been used with the stitches being hidden or forming part of the design. The addition of embroidered figurative, narrative or abstract elements adds interest. When it comes to the felted works it is the manipulation of the properties of the wool fibre that holds the different pieces together.