A bit of work-in-progress, embellishing a piece of nuno-felt made long ago onto a slightly quilted white base with strips of variously coloured fabrics sandwiched in between, some stitch next. I suppose I could just as easily call it tornado or cyclone.
Cold Fusion 3 work in progress, embellished nuno-felt, stitching still to come.
I rarely use more than two needles in the embellisher, if all five are used they seem to interact with each other and quickly break, perhaps I am impatient. These needles are currently £2 each or more and they do break easily, practice does help.
Glow in the Dark, work in progress
This piece is also using a piece of old nuno-felt work, overlayed with scraps and lots of stitch, embellished, cut away – repeatedly.
“A newspaper clipping glimpsed in a new documentary is headlined “New Mexico’s Infant Mortality Highest in U.S., Report Says.” Lois Lipman’s film explains why that rate is so high for babies, as well as for others, especially Indigenous and Hispanic inhabitants, in her gripping First We Bombed in New Mexico. Onscreen Tina Cordova, born and raised at Tularosa, only 30 miles from the Trinity Site, declares: “We are the first victims of the atomic bomb.””
The above is from Counterpunch+ behind a paywall, but the film First We Bombed in New Mexico is now released, to rave reviews, I hope it gets to the UK very soon. ’Thousands of New Mexicans – mostly Hispanic and Native American – were exposed to catastrophic levels of radioactive fallout, never warned, never acknowledged and never helped afterwards. Generations of cancers followed.‘
I’ve been working on several pieces in the series I’ve called Meltdown, this is the latest work very much in progress.
Work in progress – Core Melt, about 30cm sq. Embellished, quilted and stitched mixed textiles
I’ve been having a little fun finding names for the pieces instead of just Meltdown 1, 2, 3 &c. and I found, ‘No Risk to the Public’, mildly amusing. The International Atomic Energy ‘Authority’ – the trade body for the nuke industry – likes to claim that far more people have died from the evacuation and it’s subsequent effects at Fukushima than have been irradiated to death, almost as though this is proof that meltdowns are survivable. The fact that a mass evacuation might be necessary at all doesn’t seem to be an issue for them. No one ever needs to be evacuated from a solar or wind farm, biomass converter or a conventional fossil fuel power station. The corium – the many, many tons of melted fuel and containment structure are unlikely to be removed from the site before 2050, if then, because they are too ‘hot’ to handle, even for robots. Of course all that stuff will remain dangerous for thousands of years, there is no safe disposal at this time.
The number of deaths and serious illnesses from radiation released and still being released at Fukushima is disputed and could be many thousands. China, Korea and other states have banned fish from Japan.
The cleanup cost is now estimated at least $200 billion, likely far higher since every estimate so far has proven low – from one incident!
Perhaps it’s time to take up painting with paint, I feel the need to get the paint on thick and then flourish the pallet knife! But in the meantime scraps of shiny fabric, threads, the embellishing machine and my recently serviced sewing machine will have to do.
Cold Fusion 2/10 in progress, mixed textiles
The piece had quite a lot of metallic thread and shining cloth but this doesn’t show in the photo, also I have further embellished it which makes the surface matt, even fluffy. Quite a lot of the work here is cutting away, to create depth and reveals but this is contradicted by the action of machine stitching which pulls the layers of fabric tightly together. Some hand stitching now.
The Oil quilt consists of four panels made up of about 80 squares of 20 x 20 cm, printed, painted, drawn, embellished, stitched and embroidered in various ways. I’m finding it hard to finish, the desire to add more detail is strong but almost certainly misguided. Better to work on another piece I think.
Oil quilt, detail, approx 70 x 35 cm
This detail is from the upper left of the second panel, it feels topical. The quilt as a whole seems to be a polemic.
Oil quilt detail, approx 70 x 35 cm
This second detail is from same panel, lower right.
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