Fissure & Fragment
Liz Ramsay
Branston, England
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Hand Woven Fine Silk Wall Hanging - The mountains blend into cloud. Through a faint haze, an uncertain sun casts its shimmering light on the wetlands. Landmasses rise to greet the arid Badlands. The earth is strange and obscured. The route is winding, the land is boggy now, and the journey is long…
Hand woven fine silk wall hanging - Approx. 60 x 193cms - The white clay earth of Basilicata, Italy, worn and wrinkled with the marks of time. The Sauro river, low in the valley, forming deep grooves. Hot sun, burning fissures crazily in the baking mud. Sharp and barren ridges which inexorably draw the eye. These are re-imagined here in weave. Here is a landscape of ancient stories where long-forgotten footsteps trod, icons hide in caves and podolic cattle graze among seed heads in the spiky fields. There are stepping stones here too, exposed. And feet dusty in the summer heat. Basilicata – that precious misshapen, rocky, mountainous land stretching between two coasts - the awkward instep of Italy’s boot. Here, everything takes time. No flights, no trains, no major routes or cities, just peace. Rushing here is futile as the way is narrow and winding, zig-zagging between villages, curling along the cliffedge. The work is slow too - carefully crafted to depict abstract but interpretable and deliberate forms. Here is my tribute to this wild yet quiet land. The silk, almost exclusively remaindered yarn, is fine - and the patterning is slow – so the weaving creeps along the loom day by day. It is a labour of patience and love. The hanging is woven on my Louet Loom and ‘finished’ by hand
Hand woven fine silk wall hanging - Approx. 60 x 134cms - Bringing together notions of the Sea, and of the Journey, this work interprets the unearthing of ancient artefacts and in doing so, marks a trail of important places in my life. The white clay earth of Basilicata, Italy, worn and wrinkled with the march of time. The beautiful Isle of Anglesey, with its now rugged, now gentle coastline, hidden coves and dramatic cliffs. The rock pools where shrimps, crabs and tiny fishes hide. Here is the soft rain, of Southern Ireland, blurring the edges of forest and lake. Here the boggy wilderness of Galway, at once soft and bouncy underfoot. Quietly these places work their magic. Be patient and you will find fragments of long forgotten frescoes, a button, a broken pot. These are the fissure through which one age reaches out to another. The not-quite-real spaces in our minds. The work references earlier times. Notions of patience, quietly revealing thoughts and feelings - both universal and dear to my heart. The weaving is slow - carefully crafted to depict abstract but interpretable and deliberate forms. The silks, almost exclusively remaindered, are layered with noils, slubs and the finest hosiery silk. The patterns are interpretations of the traditional. Here lies the pattern I wove the day I fell in love with this art. The hanging is hand woven on my Louet loom and ‘finished’ by hand.
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