Mary Spence

This is the invitation to my friend Mary's solo exhibition 'Travel 'n' Bags' at Denbigh Library in North Wales. I was unable to go to the opening, but yesterday I made up for it by visiting the exhibition with plenty of time to enjoy browsing. I knew before-hand that it was going to be good as I have seen a lot of the work in progress and even own one of them! But I must tell you that I was not prepared for what I saw and it really took my breath away and brought tears to my eyes with it's beauty. Congratulations Mary! The work will be up until January 9th 2010 and I would highly recommend a visit if you can manage it.


The theme of the exhibition is based on the travelling Mary loves, particularly India and Asia and is the culmination of a whole year's work. She has used a lot of fabrics she’s collected in these places, plus her own dyed fabrics. The inspiration and starting point is the small collection of bags she bought as keepsakes from these countries and you will see them hanging to the left of this image.
The 4 pieces grouped together are a development of my own piece by Mary, a bag from Amsterdam and one of these is already sold. I was truly tempted to buy the other 3 to group with my own. By the way, there are already 11 pieces of work sold and another has a reserve sticker on it.


I love the way Mary works by creating detailed sketches of her subject, which she then simplifies by various means such as watercolours, collages or mono printing which she then converts to textile letting them develop without any preconceived idea of what the finished work will be like.

Mary is a member of SerenTex, the textile group I belong to and if you visit SerenTex (which I have neglected recently as I have missed 3 meetings) you will see more of her work here and there.

You will also find more of her work on each one of these below.
Textile Art
SerenTex AGM
Mary's Art
Lucky me!
Plas Tan y Bwlch 2

Hallo

It's taken me a little while to recover from my holiday flu and I haven't been in the mood to post anything on my blog. But suddenly today I have felt like posting some of my holiday photos.


These circles were on top of a hotel and I could not resist taking a photo.


This is a picture hanging in our hotel room and I only just noticed the circles!



The images above show circles on the promenade where once a tree stood.

I'm back!

I have just returned from a short holiday in Tenerife.

This was not the best of holidays for me and we faced problems from the beginning. It had to be cancelled and the alternative we were given meant I was missing the Embroiderers' Guild Biennial Exhibition of all things. This did not put me in the best of moods as you can imagine.

The flight was very disappointing, the seats uncomfortable with no leg room. My tray sloped and I spilt my orange juice into my food and my roll popped out of the bag and disappeared under someone's seat. I'm sure you are beginning to get the picture?

We duly arrived safely and the weather was perfect for the whole 2 weeks if a little too hot. The hotel was perfect and the food wonderful, but... I had picked up a heavy cold on the way over, it was so bad it could even have been the flu and lasted a week. Then, in the meantime I was eaten alive by mosquitoes which doesn't usually happen to me in Tenerife.

After that little moan there were parts of the holiday I thoroughly enjoyed and I still took loads of photos and read quite a few books and relaxed. The flight home was much better, but this holiday ended as it began by having a frightening landing. We were almost touching the ground when the engines revved up and up we climbed back into the clouds. I understand this was another plane that was too close for comfort.


After all this I have been suffering from post-holiday blues and was even sorry I had booked an Embroiderers' Guild course making book covers with Miriam Forder and almost cancelled it. I warned my husband that I might be home after lunch. But it would have been a mistake to cancel and after half an hour, the 'blues' had gone and I am now back to my usual cheery self you will be pleased to hear and shall moan no more.

Please visit Croesew for details and photos of the course which was wonderful as we have come to expect from Miriam.