Tag Archives: textile art

A Step into the Unknown - mixed media artwork — A Step into the Unknown 2021 – mixed media – Size 116 x 84cms (46 x 33ins)

Images below are details of A Step into the Unknown – photos by Pitcher Design

Which Way Now?

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Detail of ‘Which Way Now?’ 132 x 59 cms

‘Which Way Now?’ aka ‘A Self Portrait in Turmoil’ is perhaps an indication of my frame of mind during lockdown.

At first I couldn’t make any work at all and then I became a little obsessed with ideas that I had to get out of my system whatever the result.

I have worked in my studio most days on both large and smaller work and my larger work seems to have become more free and experimental.

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People • What are they like?

Self-Portrait Workshop in Cork

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Last week I gave a talk and taught a 2 Day self-portrait workshop in Cork for Cork Textiles network. They are a talented and diverse group spanning many different textile disciplines. Here you can see a selection of the work produced at the workshop. The finished portraits will be shown at the Knitting & Stitching shows next year (2018) on the Cork Textiles Network stand and I’m itching to see the final results. All portraits will be A3 in size.

Sue Stone 2 Day Self Portrait workshop at Cork Textiles Network. See the finished portraits at the Knitting & Stitching shows 2018

Work in progress by members of the Cork Textiles Network. See the finished portraits at the Knitting & Stitching shows 2018

Work in progress by member of the Cork Textiles Network. See the finished portraits at the Knitting & Stitching shows 2018

Work in progress by members of the Cork Textiles Network. See the finished portraits at the Knitting & Stitching shows 2018

Sue Stone 2 Day Self Portrait workshop at Cork Textiles Network. See the finished portraits at the Knitting & Stitching shows 2018

Work in progress by members of the Cork Textiles Network. See the finished portraits at the Knitting & Stitching shows 2018

Do You Remember Me?

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Do You Remember Me? Book for sale here

Book Cover

Inside Pages

I have just added a series of small studies for sale on my website.

Small Studies for sale here

More small studies for sale here

Small Mounted Studies for sale here

Study of 2 girls

Remember Me? Study 3

Study of a Girl with a Striped Bow

Study of 2 girls 2016

Study for family Gathering

Study of a Girl

Study for the Unknown Statistic

Remember Me? Study 1

Remember me? Study 2

Self Portrait with Fish on a washing line

Study for the Boys go to London Town

Self Portrait of a Girl with red necklace

Small mounted studies for sale here

Retrospective • an archive of work 2011/12

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Some Things Never Change 2012

Some Things Never Change 2012
Children of the First World War, the so-called ‘war to end war’ commemorate the plight of children worldwide.
Thousands of kisses on a concrete pillar will never be received.
Cut to 2012. A mother sobs. This is not her war.
Killed by mortar fire, her children were 12,10 and 5 years old.

Materials: Window cleaning linen, applied recycled shirting.
Technique: hand and machine stitch, acrylic paint, appliqué.

First shown at the Knitting & Stitching Shows 2012.

Homage to Nicholson 2012

Weekend in Barcelona 2011

From Grimsby to Gracia • right and David as Dali • left were inspired by a recent visit to Barcelona, they reference cardboard cutouts of Dali seen outside the Dali Museum , the Gaudi mosaics and tiles in Parc Guell , a colourful tiled floor from a neighbourhood bar and fish from the artist’s hometown of Grimsby.

62 Group of Textile Artists 50th Anniversary Year

A Lot can Happen in 50 Years 2011

A Lot can Happen in Fifty Years • 2011 84 cms x 117 cms • hand and machine stitch

Referencing several items from the Manchester Museum’s costume Collection, including a button shaped like a fish, and a dress and jacket from 1962, the year the 62 group was formed this is a portrait of my sister, Jean, first aged 17, then aged 67.
The clock on the wall shows 2.05 am whilst the wrist watch is set at a later time to indicate the passing of time.
The side panels are made up from labels showing more items from the Collection .
They also reference personal, national and global events from the past 50 years .

Family with Fish 2011

RIP Grimsby St E2

RIP Grimsby St E2
mixed media • hand and machine stitch with acrylic paint
size 70 x 100 cms

An analogy between two different eras and two different environments, which nonetheless share a name and a sense of loss. Three friends, one carrying a fish, explore one lost environment, Grimsby Street, London, E2 whilst hailing from another. 1930s Grimsby (Lincolnshire) girls meet London 2012.

Girl with a patterned Dress 2012

Study for Tea Party 2012

Girl with a Bow 2012

Study for Some Things 2012

Auntie Madge 2012

Study for East End Girls 2012

Study for Double Take 2012

Girl’s Day Out for Hilda, Nellie and Ida

Girl’s Day Out in the East End for Hilda, Nellie and Ida 2012
mixed media • hand and machine stitch with acrylic paint
size 128 x 102 cms
Exploring displacement using old family photographs, images of distant relatives I never knew, cut into to a modern day environs, Girls Day Out enquires into and questions, the sense of belonging/not belonging whilst referencing the passing of time and the transience of life itself.

East End Girls

East End Girls • aka Alice, Madge and Muriel 2012
mixed media • hand and machine stitch with acrylic paint
size 128 x 102 cms
Combining the then and now, evoking a sense of the journey in between produces an ‘at first glance’, homely domestic situation, three women with their dog. On closer inspection abandoned sofas, graffiti, the dilapidation in the slightly surreal composition create an allusion to the circumstance of the women portrayed.

Retrospective • an Archive of Work 2017

Retrospective • an Archive of work 2016

Retrospective • An Archive of work from 2015

Retrospective • An Archive of work from 2013/14

Retrospective • An Archive of work from 2011/12

Retrospective • An Archive of work from 2009/10

Retrospective • An Archive of work from 2007/8

Retrospective • An Archive of work from 2003 to 2006

63 – A Self-Portrait – Work in Progress

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63 is a self-portrait which, when complete, will be made up of 63 images, one for each year of my life so far. So why put myself through all this work, and, to be perfectly honest, the angst of self examination, a replaying of all the ups and downs of life?
Well, there were several reasons, but the main one was that I was asked by Alf Ludlam, the curator of Shifting Images an exhibition of self-portraits at the Muriel Barker Gallery at Grimsby’s Fishing Heritage Centre, to produce something other than a straight forward self-portrait and this was the idea I came up with. I also thought it would benefit me personally because I would be working to a deadline which, in itself, would force me to look at the way I work and help me find a simplification of my mark-making.

63 work in progress 2

63 work in progress – 4

Although I work in mixed media I consider myself primarily an embroiderer, more specifically a hand embroiderer and because I find hand stitching a therapeutic process, I have a tendency to overstitch. I’m hoping that, in this piece, the viewer will find that my stitching have been given more breathing space and as a result more status. My stitch vocabulary is considered and limited. I don’t use many different types of stitches and but I try to get the most out of those stitches by using them in an original way. I was once given some advice by Constance Howard, when I was studying at Goldsmith’s College in London who said that “you don’t need to know a vast array of stitches but you need to know how use the ones you do know well” so that’s what I try to do.

63 work in progress -7

63 a work in progress – 12

I don’t really look at the work of other embroiderers in an inquisitorial way. This is deliberate, an attempt to keep my own work fresh. One of the ways I do this is by mixing different colours and different weights of threads in the needle leaving the eye to mix the colour. You can read about my favourite stitches here.
I have deliberately tried to be sparing with my stitching of the faces in this piece to produce a more illustrative style. Mood, quality, expression, character can all be changed by the position of each stitch and a lot of drawing and re-drawing, stitching, unpicking and restitching has been done before moving on.

63 a work in progress -25

63 a work in progress – 27

I am a ‘glass half full’ sort of person but the process of making this piece has, so far, and I am only just over half way there, been an convergence of mixed emotion. The process has, at times, evoked difficult and even desperately unhappy emotions, the reliving of all that teenage angst, hurt, heartbreak, and loss, the business problems and burglaries, but alongside that the uplifting and happy memories of friends and family and an optimism for the future.

Overall it is proving to be a quite cathartic process.

63 a work in progress – 32

63 will be shown as a ‘work in progress’ in Shifting Images from 8 September 2015 to 6 March 2016. – contemporary self portraiture
Working in partnership with Abbey Walk Gallery the Muriel Barker Gallery at the Grimsby Fishing Heritage Centre will host an Exhibition of of self – portraiture by Lincolnshire Artists past and present.

Inspiration for Stitch – Part 4 – The Innocent Victims of War

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The inspiration for my work can come from anywhere and everywhere and it sometimes takes on a more serious note. I turned on the radio and heard her voice and the words I will never forget “This is not my War”. They were the words spoken by a Syrian mother whose children aged 5,10 and 12 had just been killed by mortar fire in a war she did not understand. The sound of her voice will stay with me forever.

Some Things Never Change commemorates those children and the many others like them that have lost their lives, or have been mentally or physically scarred by war. The lives of those who have survived war and atrocity are changed for all time.
My Dad and his siblings Harry and Madge were children of the First World War, born just before and during so called ‘war to end war’. I have used their images to represent the universal child. The concrete pillar in the background is inspired by the concrete architecture of the skate park on the South Bank of the Thames and the graffiti of street artist Stik and is covered with cross stitches representing the kisses those Syrian children will never receive.

Some Things Never Change 2012

I listen to the Radio and hear his Voice again recalls something I heard on Radio 4. A 10 year old boy was talking to the reporter “You can’t imagine what I’ve seen, what my country has seen”. The Universal Child uses an image of my Dad to represent children affected by war worldwide.

The Universal Child

I Listen to the Radio and Hear his Voice.

The Unknown Statistic comes from my research into the First World War during the run up to the centenary in 2014 of the start of the war. A photograph is of some children, unknown to me, but in my husband’s family album was my starting point. I have had this image waiting to be used for many years but it was only when I saw the graffiti in the East End of London I knew how I was going to use it. The children have a poignancy to them. They look as though they are watching someone walking away. I decided to use their images as a way of commemorating all the children left fatherless by the First World War. The exact number of children is unknown as it was not recorded accurately either locally or nationally. I imagined their father was one of the brave Grimsby fishermen whose trawlers went minesweeping the coast with very little protection and little recognition. He walked away and never looked back. It was bad luck for a fisherman to turn around and look back as they walked away to sea. They never saw him again. My own Great Grandfather, Harry Conder died during the first few weeks of World War One when the trawler Fittonia, of which he was skipper, was blown up by a mine in the River Humber. He was survived by a widow and several children. His eldest son Charles Conder died during the last weeks of the war of Spanish Flu, the virus that would be responsible for more than five times as many deaths as the war itself.

Kids from the Family album

east end graffiti

The Unknown Statistic

womanwithafish

sue stone textile artist

Tag Archives: textile art

Which Way Now?

Ctrl/Shift

People • What are they like?

Self-Portrait Workshop in Cork

Do You Remember Me?

Retrospective • an archive of work 2011/12

63 – A Self-Portrait – Work in Progress

Inspiration for Stitch – Part 4 – The Innocent Victims of War

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