Creative Development - Vessels
For almost as long as I’ve made hats, I have also made my own cotton buckram hat blocks, although less so in recent years. Now, with my continued explorations into sculpture, I find my attention has turned back to block-making as a technique. I am fascinated by the challenge of bringing a solidity, some heft, to a piece of sculpture, using relatively soft and light materials, whilst keeping a lightness of touch. As I work, I am also finding parallels with other mediums and disciplines.
I like the familarity I feel between the new work and my earlier millinery, and the realisation that I had always approached millinery more as an artist or maker, rather than from a fashion perspective. I like the circularity of this. And I’m enjoying making things that sit in the world on their own terms and don’t perform a function.
‘Contour Vessel’
‘Contour Vessel’ is part of the Contour series, which takes as a starting point the idea of a certain beauty in scrunched-up or folded and discarded paper or fabric. In this piece, I wanted to exaggerate and stylise some of the crevices and indentations, building the shape through layers of buckram and abaca, and using stitch to help create strength and solidity. Cotton tarlatan forms a smooth top layer, and for the surface decoration I was interested in seeing whether a similar effect to mark-making and colour glazes in ceramics could apply to textiles through dyes, ironing and varnish. Inside, there are layers of felt pieces which add to the thickness at the base, creating a contrast with the thinness and sense of erosion at the top edge.
‘Transition Vessel’
‘Transition Vessel’ continues my thoughts around the transition from millinery to sculpture. Like my colourful Transition series wall pieces, stitch is used to re-inforce and solidify, as well as for mark-making, and to inform colour. Here, the process is taken much further, with the addition of painting with dyes, and ironing and varnish applied to achieve a smooth surface. This vessel is made purely from cotton buckram and cotton tarlatan, and is thinner than the Contour vessel, but equally strong, with a similar idea of erosion at the top edge.
below: some of my collection of buckram handmade hat blocks, alongside some wooden blocks and a few vintage handmade blocks made from sparterie, also known as willow, now very rare.
Post-script
Since concentrating on soft hats and cut-and-sew techniques, the block-making took a break, however I did recently make a block for the popular ‘Selby’ flat cap, which enabled me to offer this style in straw and felt, as sculpted, seamless caps.
