Imaginary Invertebrates Galore!


Originally uploaded by MadeleineS.

RM Art gallery, at 51 St Stephen's Street, Edinburgh, is about to exhibit eleven of my twelve Imaginary Invertebrates. They'll be on display from Thursday 4 June. The twelfth one is purple so didn't look right in the set. It's on show on its own in the Coburg House Gallery and will get some pink and purple friends to join it in time for the Open Studios weekend on 7,8 & 9 August.

Calling these things invertebrates gives a pretty wide range to work in but they're really inspired by marine invertebrates like corals, sponges, starfish, sea urchins and nudibranchs among other things. No crabs or shellfish yet, never mind any land-based invertbrates. No two will ever be quite the same. I mix and match the yarns and improvise the shapes as I knit. The felting process is a mixture of machine and hand felting that also introduces scope for variation, deliberate or otherwise!

One of the pieces in this set incorporates some shibori techniques that have given me some very good texture effects. I will certainly be returning to that for the second set of these exuberant critters.

However I'm currently cleansing my palette by finishing off my festival photography show (all will be revealed eventually) and by making a set of classic, plain pots and bowls in undyed British fleeces and yarns - Black Welsh, Blue Faced Leicester, North Ronaldsay and Jacob sheep, possibly some Wensleydale too.

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