All of the artists’ works are now complete and isn’t it interesting to see how differently each participant has interpreted their three words – a female artist, a technique and a colour. If you scroll through the gallery of images you can read some of artists’ thoughts on their work.
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Kiki Smith, knots, kobai-iro by Marilyn Williams
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Kiki Smith, knots, kobai-iro by Ruth Darby
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Fukukio Shimura, feather-stitch-forest green by Anna White
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Fukukio Shimura, feather-stitch-forest green by Sarah McAlister
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Mali Morris, macrame, madder by Frances Arnold
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Mali Morris, macrame, madder by Sanae Saragai
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Nicki St Phalle, picot, pink by Francis Arnold
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Nicki St Phalle, picot, pink by Alex Mayer
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Mary Cassat, modume-shibori,magenta by Julietta Gimpel
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Mary Cassatt, couching, charcoal grey by Judith Gubbay
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Suzanne Valedon, stumpwork, silver by Julietta Gimpel
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Suzanne Valedon, stumpwork, silver by Marilyn Williams
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Bridget Riley, binding, blue by Rosaline Darby
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Bridget Riley, binding, blue by Fiona Espenhalm
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Remedios Varo, repouse, rust red by Karen Morton
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Remedios Varo, repouse, rust red by Ruth Darby
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Leonora Carrington, couching, carmine by Ruth Darby
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Leonora Carrington, couching, carmine by Fiona Espenhalm
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Eva Hesse, hapazome, heliotrope by Sue Kibby
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Eva Hesse, hapazome, heliotrope by Karen Morton
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Patricia Belli, batik, blue by Brenda Parsons
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Patricia Belli, batik, blue by Judith Gubbay
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Nancy Konta, kantha, kingfisher blue by Sanae Saraai
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Barbara Rae, buttonhole stitch, blue by Anna White
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Barbara Rae, buttonhole stitch, blue by Anna White
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Lee Krasner, knit, khaki by Alex Mayer
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Lee Krasner, knit, khaki by Sue Kibby
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Elizabeth Fritsch, felt, fuschia by Sarah McAlister
Carousel artists’ thoughts on their work
Kiki Smith, knotting, kobai-iro
Ruth Darby: Stars, moons and eyes are frequent motifs in Kiki Smith’s work and my designated technique of knotting suggested ideas of starry constellations with the eye of the divine being looking out from the Sun and Moon.
Fukumi Shimura, feather stitch, forest green
Anna White: I have a collection of used kimono pieces, including one in forest green. I have appliquéd fragments of other kimono fabric before couching a tree skeleton and using feather stitch to create the rest of the branching structure. I tried to create the minimal calm found in much of the Japanese aesthetic.
Mali Morris, macrame, maddder
Frances Arnold: Mali Morris – she likes the ways colours influence one another. The idea of the transparent circle was to show how the colour behind changes the colour in the front.
Nicki De Saint Phalle, pink, picot
Alex Mayer: I was interested in the artist herself and her previous fashion icon status. Her later sculptures are so joyous, leaping larger than life people. Also animal based creatures . She loved cobalt blue so I painted the background that colour and included the pink and picot in the creature.
Frances Arnold: St Phalle – based on her early period exhibitions in France and New York, where she allowed visitors to fire guns at bags of paints attached to the top of a blank canvas. The colour pink contrasts with the violence associated with firearms.
Mary Cassat, modume-shibori, magenta
Judith Gubbay: l enjoy the sensitive, impressionistic brushwork in her paintings of children and flowers. I chose the fan as hint of opera-house atmosphere she captured so brilliantly.
Julietta Gimpel: Her unique perspective as a woman artist was based on the intimate domestic lives of women. She took a far freer approach when painting gardens, flowers and backgrounds which is where my inspiration was drawn from.
Suzanne Valedon, stumpwork, silver
Julieta Gimpel: Suzanne Valadon became the first female painter to be admitted to the Societe National de Beaux Arts. I love her still lifes, forms and colours. It was difficult to create an interpretation in a single colour as I love colours and flowers and then dealing with a technique completely new to me: stump.
Remedios Varo, repouse, rust red
Karen Morton: Remedios Varo was a Spanish Surrealist artist; her dream-like work with natural and architectural elements, inspired me to imagine a dream in which stars fall through a sky window and lodge in the rusty red floorboards – their enigmatic expressions on pearly white faces are inspired by Varo’s 1956 work The Juggler (The Magician).
Ruth Darby: The Surrealist work of Remedios Varo often depicts dreamlike creatures sometimes in flight. I used brass rubbings of mythical beasts that I had done on fabric and quilted and padded these to represent a relief textile technique.
Leonora Carrington, couching, carmine
Rosaline Darby: My Leonora Carrington – I looked at a lot of her paintings and was taken by her enigmatic, self-sufficient women, often surrounded by weird animals and a surreal landscape. I enjoyed giving my imagination free rein to make this tribute piece.
Lee Krasner, knit, khaki
Alex Mayer: I was most interested in the artist herself and thought her face showed such strength. I decided to draw her face using stitch and also draw some knit stitches. I later found a knitted sample that could pass for khaki so added that too. Background is acrylic. Pattern on her shirt is based on a painting by Lee Kramer herself.
Sue Kibby: My Lee Krasner piece is inspired by her work and her relationship with her artist husband Jackson Pollack and the respect she showed him after his death. Having knitted my Eva Hesse, instead I worked with knitted fabric and took one line for a walk then filled in the gaps with hand sewn English Paper Piecing. The red is a tribute to Picasso’s Guernica which some believe Hesse inspired.
Eva Hesse, hapazone, heliotrope
Karen Morton: Eva Hesse said ‘Life doesn’t last, art doesn’t last’; this fits well with the technique of hapazome which utilises the leaf and petal pigment for a glimpse of nature, which will fade, while the heliotrope coloured thread will leave a stitched image. The box-like structure is intended to suggest a protective receptacle for the nature within and is inspired by Hesse’s 1968 wall hung sculpture Sans II.
Sue Kibby: My Eva Hesse piece is inspired by her use of unusual materials. She worked with latex and was a sculptor. I simulated the fact that hazepone can be unpredictable like preused plastic, colours bleed and do their own thing, but you can still recognise the original.
Patricia Belli, batik, blue
Judith Gubbay: A feminist Latin American artist who challenges the male art world for recognition, using images of strong physical gestures. I linked her in my mind with a photo I had seen of sari-clad women in India raising their arms in protest at oppression.
Barbara Rae, buttonhole stitch, blue
Anna White: I became quite immersed in Barbara Rae’s semi-abstract landscapes, that capture the essence of a place often with a limited colour palette, creating surfaces with depth and texture, and often featuring arranged foreground shapes and sharp dynamic lines. I have tried to reproduce her style on a miniature scale, applying inks and pastels to linen before thread painting with machine embroidery on top. Spot the buttonhole stitch!
Brenda Parsons: This was based on my own drawings on Dartmoor and what I would say was the feel of Rae’s work.