In 2019 a group of professional textile artists spent the month of May at the Icelandic Textile centre in Blönduós on the northern coast of Iceland.
They were there to explore the the landscape, the culture, its textile heritage, local materials and the current production and use of textiles. In using the facilities available at the centre they were able to make a wide-ranging, extraordinary body of work in response to their findings.
This exhibition is about that trip. It includes work made whilst in Iceland and pieces that have been constructed since. The work includes felting, weaving, knitting, stitching and basketry techniques, much of it using found and local materials.
The group are;
Delia Salter who explored the possibilities of local materials (wool and horsehair) in felting and knitting, and dyed wool with local plant dyes. Her work references the landscape as well as the Norse myths concerning ravens.
Tara Kennedy who was inspired by her emotional response to the space, as the immense and diverse landscape became increasingly overwhelming. With these thoughts she used the textures and colours of the land to translate into wrapped, stitched and felted pieces, all using solely Icelandic materials
Annette Mills who works with basket making techniques to explore process, place and transitional space. Using basketry as a form of journaling she explores how her personal tactile language reveals her own creative process. Her experimental studies act as markers which indicate when changes occur in her creative process.
Jennifer Jones a woven textile artist and designer whose focus during the trip was on the marks and impressions made by geological events, the natural world, the atmosphere, weather and the wildlife.
