Our last Kick‑About orbited the legacy of Sputnik. This week, our muse is textile pioneer Lenore Tawney, who defied craft conventions with gauzy, floating threads blending textile, drawing and collage in ethereal, contemplative forms. Enjoy this latest collection of new works made in a short time and for all previous editions of The Kick-About go here.
Gary Thorne
“The Ditchling Museum, East Sussex hosted a Tadek Beutlich’s exhibition in May, and an exceptional workshop run by artist weaver Tim Johnson offered up insight to techniques and attitudes. Further inspired by L Tawney, this new work of free-warp weaving using sisal, esparto grass, yarn and beads is now complete. Feels great being back with KA.”
Charly Skilling
“This prompt left me wondering about the structural requirements for a large free-standing piece. How to support yarn and bamboo rings, so that the tensions in the various yarn ‘streams’ created shapes that held their form without losing the appearance of virtual weightlessness? It took much trial and error–quite a few expletives–and nearly as much unwinding of yarn as there was winding, but I eventually produced this.”
Vanessa Clegg
“I really admire the work of Lenore Tawney and am ashamed to say that I had never heard of her so thank you as always KA for broadening my knowledge of extraordinary artists. Obviously my attempt at weaving is very school-girly but I had fun with the development of blue sky to dark ish cloud (could this be wishful thinking as we melt in another heat wave?). In the end it became my response to a very very hot day… done behind closed curtains!”
vanessaclegg.co.uk / vanillaclegg
James Randall
“I hadn’t heard of Lenore Tawney. After a web search and viewing a video about her I still didn’t really get a good feeling for what she was about. So I felt that it was fine to let fly as long as I was using lots of wovenish line work. I was partway through a Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner scribble that seemed relevant and this is where I reached.”
Phil Gomm
“I loved the gossamer. ‘barely-there’ quality of some of Tawney’s pieces—and not being in anyway a master weaver—I looked for an existing material that could give me some of that delicacy. I found that ready-made in the form of this very fine copper mesh that came in the form of a long cylindrical ‘sausage skin’. It was a lovely material with which to work, infinitely mouldable and holding its shape. I suspended a length of the mesh tube from my kitchen ceiling and photographed it under different lighting conditions. I’ve served the resulting images a few ways, principally converting them into black and white images to draw out the forms. The final image is a photograph of the shadow cast by the tubular mesh.”
philgomm.com / behance.net/Phil_Gomm
Phill Hosking
“I created a framework of threads with geometric lines of nails to work between, nothing fancy, just a way of creating something woven with which to attempt some 2d images. I used the strings over some watercolour paper and sprayed through with black paint. This gave mixed results and I ended up liking the frame and threads more than the images I created. All valuable experimentation though.”
Graeme Daly
“I loved the intricate weaving of Tawney’s designs and I particularly loved seeing herself in portraits with the weaving obstructing the view. I decided upon using some previous 3D renders drawn using a rope brush, on top of 3D objects, which I then brought into Photoshop and warped them into shapes similar to some of Tawney’s designs.”
@graemedalyart / vimeo.com/graemedaly / linkedin.com/in/graeme-daly / twitter.com/Graeme_Daly / gentlegiant.ie
Jan Blake
“I find it more difficult to respond to an artist rather than a subject so my response had several sides to it. The structure related to weaving was based on the loom itself and expanding from the up and downs of the thread in a linear way. I recognise this in my own work and how I am now liberating myself into a more natural observation of nature itself. The cardboard box liberated back to the tree perhaps? So the two images I have enclosed are one a photograph from a cobweb in my bathroom that reminded me of the artist’s work released from the loom, to the beginnings of a new piece based on circular forms.”
Kerfe Roig
“I had been looking at my Lenore Tawney book recently so I knew just where it was. I bought it at a thrift shop or a library book sale years ago–not because of the weaving but because of the collage. The majority of Tawney’s work in this exhibition catalog from the American Craft Museum is either collage or Joseph Cornell-type sculpture. Tawney’s collages are largely geometric (although she sent many postcards to friends similar to some of the ones I make), often using circles and thin strips of paper cut from antique books. Sometimes she drew lines over them or painted or stitched on them as well, and she often used handmade paper as a base. I had a small book of handmade paper and a very old French history book (where that came from I also don’t remember). Using those base materials I made a few of my own variations–more than I intended to but I really enjoyed working with the little strips of book paper. And as always I’m left with many more ideas to explore on the pages left in the handmade book.”
kblog.blog / methodtwomadness.wordpress.com
Next up: foraminifera—tiny, single‑celled marine organisms known for their intricate shells…
Red's Kingdom 
Leave a comment