Stitch class with Tilleke Schwartz

This weekend Jim and I have been in Manchester, where I attended a class with Tilleke Schwartz.

Last night she did a talk, showing how far textiles can be pushed in feminist art.  There were a lot of images of feminist work.  She made the pertinent observation that textile materials do not have the same male dominated history as other media, e.g. painting and sculpture.  Although, when men do textiles or stitch, it is deemed 'special' more so than anything women produce!  She also commented we have yet to reach a fair price for art created of textiles by women!

Tilleke said that her own work often does not make sense - it does not contain a narrative.  It often has a lot of words and images, but illogically selected and juxtaposed, with words going round corners.  And her work is symptomatic of what is happening in her life and things she sees around her.  Eg Purr Chase (playing on the western world's obsession with 'purchase') - anything that comes along gets put in.  She does not plan her work, but works direct onto the cloth - if you plan exactly, you might as well get someone else to stitch it!  Exactly how I feel about this!

Tilleke Schwartz, Purr Chase 

 She seeks out things that amaze, amuse, inspire her.  Loves samplers but interprets them in a contemporary way.  Sometimes copies motifs (complex) but is not worried when they (inevitably) go wrong.  Also when a motif has been carefully stitched in two different colours, she may interpret in a random dyed thread in similar colours. she distorts motifs deliberately - this makes them contemporary and not an exact facsimile.   Interestingly she had an idea for a sampler for an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, which was rejected.  (I had my idea for sampler to be displayed there, via a competition rejected too.  Maybe the organisers knew the Fitzwilliam did not accept contemporary samplers for display!)

Tilleke advised people to stitch like they draw.  If you work in the hand (I don't, I like a frame) she advised to keep putting it up on a wall and viewing from a distance.  She said she did not work large - she likes small textiles.  Yet when she showed us her latest work in progress, it was about a metre square.  Wide borders for mounting and framing. Tacked line to define edge of working area, to which she often works.  Uses a lot of couching, cross stitch, satin stitch; occasional French knot.

She advised to mount work for exhibiting in a frame with perspex.  Otherwise people keep touching the stitching to see whether it is real.  If she then sells the piece, the perspex can be removed, so the textile can be appreciated.

In her class we spent the first hour creating collage about ourselves - mine had plants, border patterns,  fruits and my name.  We also had to include things we disliked - so I had a man gobbling a sandwich and grasping hands with painted nails - for greed and avarice.

Then after lunch we started stitching.  I noted her use of thicker threads for couching, distinctive lettering and precise drawn imagery.  Tilleke said she cut out images from thin papered magazines, stitched the outline and tore off the paper.  So I did this with an image of half an orange.  She also said if her outline was too pale, she would restitch an outline or do a satin stitch adjacent to it.  Tilleke demonstrated how she couched her lettering - I had never thought of doing it this way.  She described the couching of curved letters (C, G, S) as an open chain stitch, secured at key points of the curve with a couching stitch.  I practiced on my name, and it gave a very different effect to how I have signed my work before.