The inspiration for my current range of textiles was a painting I had seen in the recent centenary exhibition of Terry Frost, held at the Newlyn Art Gallery and the Exchange.
The exhibition celebrated his career as a leading modern British painter (1915-2003); it brought together paintings, collages and sculptural forms from public and private collections across the UK. It displayed work from his arrival in St Ives in the early 1950s, to then moving to Leeds, followed by teaching in Coventry and California as well as the Universities of Newcastle and Reading and finally his return to Cornwall in the 1970s, setting up a home and studio in Newlyn till his death in 2003.
One painting in particular, Blue Winter, left an impression on me because of its scale, texture and colours. This became the starting point for my Focus Textile Collection. Terry Frost said that the painting Blue Winter was based on an evening drive home,
??? It was white with a beautiful blue moon: it had been snowing. Luckily it was very late and there was no other traffic. Here is my blue moon at different stages, and the landscape.???
Although not living in Cornwall at the time, I feel that this painting has a Cornish atmosphere to it.
I love using colour in my textiles and I wanted to use the inspiration of the moonlight over the sea and the different tones of the seascape in different weather conditions of the Cornish coastline and represent them in my own work.
I have reinterpreted the atmosphere of the painting and the coast using textiles, playing with the scale, and using the lines to block colours while using traditional patterns and weaving techniques to create texture, exposing both the warp and the weft, much as a paintbrush would on a canvas.
I feel that the resulting collection is beautifully fresh with the essence of a timeless maritime look.
Debbie’s Focus runs from 30th June – 11th August 2016