1sg Settlement, Susie Gillespie antique handspun linen & Nepalese nettle yarn, modern linen, cotton, natural pigments from caves. gesso, hand-made paper, 45.5" x 48" x 1", 2010 $9,300

Detail of 2sg CROFT by Susie Gillespie

Selected collections and exhibition venues: Craft in the Bay, Cardiff, UK; Coombe Gallery, Dartmouth, UK; Somerset House, London, UK (Origin) Open Studio, Devon, UK; Torre Abbey, Torquay, UK; The Devon Guild of Craftsmen, UK; Bovey Tracey, UK (Contemporary Craft Fair); Rattery VIllage Hall, Devon, UK (Crux Fair); Brewery Arts Centre. Recipient: Theo Moorman weaving award

STATEMENT:
My weavings contain many influences besides those of ancient textiles that have survived the millennia: I find beauty in the ruins of what once must have been new: the patterns in damp and crumbling plaster; the remains of paint on decayed wood; rotting bark; broken carvings; fallen monoliths.

Some of these I express in broken borders, insets and slits; twining and wrapping; weaves of herringbone and twill; mends, darns, fraying; drawn threads and slits. Disintegration and destruction. My work is unplanned. I weave as I reflect: some pieces are coarse and wide as my loom allows, others are fine and small, to be sewn together later into larger form.

If all creativity stems from dissatisfaction, maybe for me it is a dissatisfaction with the ugliness of much of that is modern, and the ruin of what I imagine once to have been beautiful. Despite my weaving having roots in the past, I look forward to a future where we do not discard things because they are worn out or outmoded. Out of decay and disintegration I wish to express a sense of renewal.

Catalog #36 STIMULUS: art and its inception click for more info

To purchase the artwork of Susie Gillespie
or to obtain information about other available works, contact:

Tom Grotta
browngrotta arts



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tel: 203-834-0623 or fax: 203-762-5981
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