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-->Art & Craft Gallery --> Tapestry --> Artist's Work --> Meabh Warburton | | Search |
One of my greatest pleasures is the making and sharing of food and drink with friends and I use vessels as a symbol of this warmth and continuity of hospitality and ritual.
"While complicated tools and technologies are subject to rapid change, simple utensils obey a slow, almost geological rhythm. In stratum upon stratum the archaeology of Western sites unearths endless variations in the same basic ideas, of storage jar, oil lamp, beaker, vase. Such objects belong to the aevum, time which has a beginning but no end." (norman Bryson, Looking at the Overlooked: Four essays on Still Life painting, Reaktion, 1990)I start by making a collage, partly because this suits the way I use shape and form, but also because found colour often presents more exciting colour juxtapositions. The collage then acts as a cartoon for the weaving. I use fine cottons on a cotton warp set at 16 to the inch.
There is something in the 'low tech', gentle process of handweaving which echoes norman Bryson's statement. The technique which I employ is that which was used by the earliest weavers thousands of years ago. It is important to me to actually construct the cloth rather than add to or embellish existing material. There is a 'completeness' in this which I feel adds to the warmth and substance of the final piece.