The modern world is heavily dependent on petrocarbons for fuel and energy, fertilisers and the production of over 6000 other uses including the huge variety of plastics on which we all depend for packaging, insulation and building materials, to name a few. You’d have to be living under a rock to not be aware that disposing of the world’s rubbish, of which plastics are a large portion, is the greatest environmental problem today. Large amounts of plastic waste are swirling around in rivers and streams that eventually make their way to the oceans. Everywhere along the way plastic bags, rings, lids, containers and other items endanger animals, birds and fish, and foul fishing nets. It is true that increasing amounts are being recycled, particularly in advanced countries where considerable advances have been made with salvaging and recycling projects resulting in road sealing materials, outdoor furniture and play equipment for civic parks and gardens, fencing, building cladding, new packaging materials, and many kinds of fabrics for both clothing and upholstery. But, as I say, that still leaves a lot of raw material for creative people to make things with.

A quick google brings up pages of links to many artists using salvaged plastic as their chief raw material, and one could spend many enjoyable days researching this topic. However, I don’t have to look far for such artists with whom I am very familiar.

The first is Jessica Grady, a UK embroiderer who uses packaging materials+stitch to create her richly coloured and embroidered surfaces. I was privileged to take a StitchClub workshop with her in 2021 that really inspired me – and looking back through my posts then, I re-discovered this photo, which I’d completely forgotten –

I found other pics of samples I did around that time, too, reminding me to re-visit the whole idea of trapping this lovely shiny mylar stuff and fabrics between layers of plastic for what Jessica Grady calls ‘sequins’.

While browsing around Instagram this week I discovered an inspiring artist, Imogen Williams who’s doing wonderful things with recycled plastic water bottles; and her work reminds me to seriously consider getting the heat gun that’s been on my mind a while.

Next is a Uruguayan artist here in Montevideo, Felipe Macqueira and this website page takes you to one of his fabulous works fashioned with modern technology and application of heat, and his materials list and statement give insight to his inspiration from that symbolic woodprint The Great Wave from the C19 Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai. For stitchy fibreart people like myself, the rest of his website with more examples, and his studio too, are tremendously inspiring.

Another artist is Margery Goodall of Perth Western Australia, a good friend since we met in Kalgoorle WA in the 1980s. Back then she was very involved in Kalgoorlie’s quilting group, the Patchwork Pollies, and eventually I took her suggestion and learned traditional patchwork and quilting, QED. Always one to push technical and materials boundaries, this interesting work is one of many recent works in which her traditional patchwork and quilting background provides clear grid design structure for works expressing her concerns for the impact of throwaway plastic items on the environment; and a visit to this post on WAFTA West Australian Fibre Textile Artist site contains further examples and statements.

On the SAQA members FB page each monday and thursday a question is posted for us to think about and respond to, and resulting discussions are usually interesting and stimulating.

Today’s Thursday Question was “Symbols can be found everywhere we look. From the golden arches to ripples in a puddle. Are there symbols you find you incorporate into your work? Do you find they create a reoccurring theme?”

My inital response was to ask whether the question was about symbols or patterns that become symbolic to us?  A morning walk later I went back in and edited my response to add “For example, I have always liked the grid as a layout for repeated units in a design – the repetition has a unifying function even if the units themelves are not exactly the same – think the typical traditional sampler quilt, for example. These days in my designs grids, and the units themselves on/in them are becoming less uniform as a response to the increasing chaos around the world today – grids have become far more important to me as a symbol than I ever thought they would.“

Here’s just a few (in chronological order) from down the years, 1988-2025, I’ve spent making quilted fibreart:

In the most recent works of the Out of Order series, the grids have become far more distorted; so here’s a detail of #7 – to go into a juried call, so I won’t show the whole thing – but you get the idea:

How pleasing that Spirogyra 3, In The Weeds has been accepted into the biennial, Quilt Visions26, which opens at the Visions Museum of Textile Art, VMOTA, on October 13th next.

In my recent solo exhibition, it was possibly the one that most people commented on, and is a particular favourite of mine, too, although they are all favourites while I’m making them!

Someone recently asked me “may I ask how you stitched the skinny pieces onto the surface? Are those running stitches that you did by hand?” Being a fibre artist myself, my first glance at something either tells me how it was made or has me wondering. This detail shot shows both machine and hand stitching, and I can’t remember exactly the order in which I did each step – sorry – but you’re welcome to play with the idea and have fun!”

Backs are intriguing to a stitcher like myself. My early learning in embroidery always included guidance on the importance of neatly finishing off as I came to the end of each thread and started a new one. It’s ingrained, automatic, my normal level of craftsmanship. After all, for household linens like tablecloths and mats, serviettes and the like, they need to hold up to plenty of repeated washing and use, and securely finishing off ensures some level of durability. But I also associate this hidden-but-still-important-detail ethic with the training we had in the Brownies and Girl Guides – that we had to polish the backs of the brass badges on our uniforms even though they would not be seen by others. The Brownies and Girl Guides movements paralled the Scouting movement for boys founded by Robert Baden-Powell, Our uniforms were subject to weekly inspection, and our patrol lost points if we failed inspection on some detail. OMG, it was so military, but good training in leading fairly orderly lives, I guess – attention to detail and finishing off a task properly, all that.

In my other blog, https://www.pickledgizzards.com, I recently posted about how the 1970’s Golden Hands Magazine had a huge influence on the keen stitcher I later became. I remember seeing some brighly coloured, richly embroidered head and shoulder portrait profiles by an artist who I think came from somewhere in the sunny Mediterranean, possibly Italy or Greece. They were unusual and therefore very interesting because, the reverse sides of these were framed and exhibited in an art gallery. In the magazine article the fronts and framed backs of each wer presented side by side for us to compare them. Despite the knots, hanging ends and travelling threads etc of the backs, we still saw the expression or personality of each subject- serene, happy, angry etc, and as if through some kind of filter. I did put AI onto trying to find the artist or the Golden Hands article, but though I learned a lot about the needle painting style of embroidery popular in that era, the pieces were not by a recognises textile artist, and that the way the GH magazine itself was documented it was not easily searchable by today’s methods. I’d really need to be able to physically go through the middle issues of Golden Hands, but if I do still own mine, they’re in storage in Australia; and it’s also possible I gave them away before one of our moves sometime; so that quest is over for the moment at least.

At times I have taken pics of some of my own backs too, because of their interesting patterns. Here’s Green Mosaic a 12″sq. work for the 2022 SAQA Benefit Auction – not too different from the front.

The next images are of “Out of Order 3” showing (1) the reverse of the surface design stitching before layering and quilting, and (2) the image resulting from my interaction with ChatGPT that I wrote about In an earlier post on this blog

“Out of Order 3” is currently showing with the SAQA Global Exhibition “AI: Artitistic Interpretations”, at the Louisiana State University Art Museum. It will tour to various venus until the end of 2029.

Yesterday I took a pic of the reverse side of what I’m currently working on, Out of Order 7, but though it seems interesting in my hands as I’m working it, the photo it isn’t really, and I won’t bother AI over it.