A visit to the Antiques Emporium, Dorchester

Well what better way to spend a Sunday morning than having a look around the new Antiques Emporium in Dorchester......I found this lovely sewing box full of lovely bits and bobs that will keep me amused for hours.....

 No need to throw away holey tights

Finding these lovely bits has given me lots of inspiration for my Tyneham project, especially the Seamstresses House.....

Please do not pick the wild flowers

On my latest visit to Tyneham I noticed this little sign.  At the time there were no wild flowers directly beneath but I know there is wild garlic, wild primroses, cowslip and milkwort in the surrounding area.
I thought about making my own flowers to place in the ground during my exhibition and the poppy was the flower that came to mind from the wonderful display that was in the church.
Being November and a time for remembrance the poppy has great significance and I began to look at the poem 'On Flanders Fields', where the poppies bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders in World War 1.

http://www.inflandersfields.be/#gedicht

In Flanders Fields - by John McCrae 

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Sketching ideas

Hand-made organza poppies

Using photoshop to see what the poppies look like at Tyneham

Village School bookcase

I have been working on different printmaking techniques to produce atmospheric images based on photographs I have taken at Tyneham Village.  This work has been created on a collograph plate and printed using an Albion press.

Tyneham

Over the summer a friend told me about a village in Dorset which during December 1943 was evacuated to provide a training ground for American soldiers prior to the battle of Normandy.  The villagers never returned to Tyneham, a place some families had lived for generations.  When I visited a mist had formed in the valley as I headed towards the coast, through the firing range and twisting roads I finally caught a glimpse of a church and the derelict houses.
I have decided to base my creative project on the village of Tyneham, it's past inhabitants and the way they lived.  The history of the old and decaying buildings is a really interesting part of this story for me as well as the characters who lived in this unique place.  I am hoping to have an exhibition of work within each of the properties, a response to what I have seen there, recorded through sketches and photographs and a journey back in time....

 Disperse dye photograph

 aged lace

 trying new techniques to make old fabric

 Smocking

 photograph from inside the church disperse dye

 The bookcase in the village school

 Smocked fabric, cooked in lemon juice to look like bark

 Recreating plant life

 The village telephone box

 Stitching words

 Photoshop images to see what the pieces would look like in one of the cottages

Head dress inspired by the massacre at Wounded Knee - Textiles Exhibition

 A sad story

Collected and printed feathers

 Detail

At The American Museum, Bath