Seren Stacey artist

Monday, 20 February 2012

Flotsam...tatting takes on oceanic form

Tatting, vintage mercerised cotton.Seren Stacey.Nanternis beach, 2012.

Thursday, 2 February 2012

One year on....

The least of all things, Seren Stacey,Melin Medi Exhibition, September 2010

Photograph by Roger Lougher.

One year on, having been lodged in the wall and exposed to the elements, this bright, white Pennywort which I made from wool and wire has become alive. At the roots the wire has become oxidised, leeching out like red-brown soil, crumbly white lime has become fused to the fibers where the little weed clung to the wall, its stem and leaves, and all the tiny stitches have soaked up a green hue from the life surrounding.

Thursday, 26 January 2012

Two generations tatting...

This week I asked my granny to teach me Tatting. This video shows my first tatting lesson, learning how to tension the working thread and make a knot that slips. Tatting seems to be a much less popular process than knitting, crochet and lace making, yet she learned it as a girl from a friend and remembers the stitches despite not picking up the shuttle and thread for some 60 years! It is a time consuming, decorative technique, not a craft of necessity, though it shares similarities with sailor's netting techniques and may have originated from here.Visually it also shares similarities with the studies of oceanic organisms which I recently re-discovered in my research collection. I have always been fascinated by the way that organic forms are mirrored throughout the natural world- a reminder that that life's blueprint originated from the deep blue sea.