History of Printing on Fabric.

 

I’ve always loved modern history. At school we had a wonderful history teacher. who taught us to embrace controversy - probably the most useful life skill in all my schooling.

I also loved my term of modern art history. And when I studied architecture, Le Corbusier became my idol.

 

Bottisham Hanging, 

Cary and Ricki Outis with young people 

from Bottisham Village College.

 

For the past many years (not saying how many) I have been a screen printer, so I was delighted to find that there was a talk on 20th century textiles, put on by Marketplace Arts in Chatteris today. Just up my street - both the topic and the location, being just the literal street from one of my great friends' house!

The talk was by Mary Schoeser, a respected fashion and textiles curator. The topic was ‘English Artist-Designed Textiles, c.1905-1945’.  In this period, many fine artists turned their hands to textile design. The dynamic marks they made created a new textile idiom that was informal, lively and experimental. And connects to all the other histories of 20th century modernism.

Interestingly, this is an aesthetic that has had a resurgence in popularity today.  Perhaps, as Mary says, as we face an increasingly dangerous future world, the hand made mark can provide the human touch and with it a sense of deep comfort.  

 

Screen printed cloth - Ricki Outis

Which, of course, brings me to screen printing: 

Screen printing is a skill developed in the 20th century. To me, it is very much about the dynamic hand of a human being, leaving direct evidence of our complex existence on the cloth. In an age of digital and industrial printing methods, we can still be artists creating new textiles, describing our own lives and reflecting the times we live in....with all it's contradictictions and flaws.

 

Ricki Outis - screen printed cloth using paper masks and screen filler.

And so, if you’re like to participate in making your own flawed and dynamic patterns on fabric, we have Screenprint Sunday, once a month at Prickwillow ArtSpace.  And in the last week of July, we will be doing our own summer school - 4 whole days of screen printing.

Contact us at prickwillowartspace@gmail.com to find out more.
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Xmas Phonebox Gallery, Prickwillow

 

And another winter comes around!

If you're driving anywhere near Prickwillow, come past the phone box gallery.

It seems like Andy Warhol has paid us a visit! 

 At least in terms of inspiration.  

 

All artwork by Cary Outis from Prickwillow ArtSpace.

 

 

 

 

 

Screen Print Studio

We are finally in our new studio!  Over the next few months, St Peter's will become Prickwillow ArtSpace.

There's lots of building work to do, but to initiate the space, I just had to do some printing there.

It's a great space and we can't wait to start having workshops, studio sessions and all round creative art making there!!!!

 

Bottisham Village College Banners

Over the year Cary and I work on many different small scale community projects - workshops that take a couple of hours or a single day.  I love these projects because they have the excitement of an instant 'hit'.   You start with a blank sheet and in a very short while you have helped someone produce a banner or a T-shirt....etc.

Often these small scale interventions are part of a bigger project that goes beyond the print  - so it might be a small corner of a  bigger event like the re-opening weekend of the Cambridge Zoology Museum, working in a school as part of a series of activities to build up young people's confidence, or perhaps just generally contributing to an isolated community's access to the arts.

Every now and again, though, a  bigger and more challenging project comes along and that is really exciting.

Cary and I have been working on a banner project at Bottisham Village College which has been both a big project in itself as well as part of an even bigger project and event.  'Project 80' was a celebration of the college's 80th anniversary and it explored the history, heritage and architecture of the school.

We were asked by Lesley Morgan, Arts Development Officer, to create a series of banners with the pupils at the school which could hang one of the fabulous spaces in the new school building.

We chose a corner where the new building connects with the old - a sort of hub where the main entrance leads to the staircase and  turns the corner into the older building.  



Our inspiration was the school's architecture, new and old.  We used photos taken on site as a starting point for prints that were sometimes literal, sometimes more abstract. 

 We also used photos taken by the construction manager at Morgan Sindall showing the construction process. 

And we included a few images from the school's archive, as well as pictures of Henry Morris, the visionary educationalist who founded the school.

Colour inspiration was from  the 1930's when the school was first built. Blacks, greys and spot colours.
 

Forty amazing year 7 pupils worked on this project, wielding craft knives to cut incredibly complex stencils and screen printing these onto the banners themselves.

Cary went up with Ian in the scissor lift (did you know it was called that?) to hang the banners.

And here we have it......

A big thanks to Lesley Morgan,  Arts Development Officer for organising this project and to the site team from the College and from Morgan Sindall who gave up their own time to help with the hanging.  And a special thanks to The Arts Society, Newmarket who funded the project, with additional support from the Patricia Fay Memorial Fund.

Angel

 An angel has landed on the Prickwillow phone box!

A collaboration by Cary Outis  (the steel part) and Magenta Kang (the wings)

As you can see it's well tethered and it's staying for Christmas.

Arbury Carnival

This year was very special because it's 40 years since the very first Arbury Carnival.  The  first Arbury  Carnival was a celebration of the Queen's Silver Jubilee.

This year we did a float as well as the usual costumes and puppets.

On the front of the flatbed, the young people from the  Nunn's Way Pavilion made a commemorative 'coin' with a collage of photographs from carnivals past.

Riding on the back of the truck, were some of the lovely  Carnival Queens from previous years.   See Cambridge Evening News for some pictures.



The Queen and Phillip were keen not to be left out, so they were in attendance, riding on the float!

Ellie and Lilly volunteered their Dad to be the Queen and a very elegant job he did of it too! Cary, who made the puppet heads, was a very energetic Phillip.

And we had to have some princesses and princes.

Yes, some boys made skirts too. But mostly they made princely (is that a word?) tabards.

 

Then, there was the screen printing, and what better person to emulate than Andy Warhol?

Andy Warhol did his famous portrtait of the Queen in 1977 and she, in fact, bought one of the prints.

Our work on this project is on behalf of the Kettle's Yard Gallery, so we like to make links with modern art in the work we do with them.  

By 'we' I mean Cary, Sandra and myself, although I was away for part of the time, so it was mainly Cary and Sandra this year.

The best thing, for me, about this year's workshops was that some of the young people who first came to make costumes with us 4 years ago, are now helping the little ones to make theirs. It's so lovely to see them growing up and taking resposibility.  

Looking forward to seeing what Carnival 2018 will bring!

Lode Star Festival 2015

This year Cary and I ran a workshop at the Lode Star Festival to create Moon and Star lanterns. It was fun even though the wind made it a challenging day. Luckily the wind completely disappeared, just in time for the Lantern Parade across the site.  Accompanied by the Arco Iris Samba band   from Cambridge it was a magical event.  

And we met so many lovely  people who came to make lanterns!

 

And Phoebe Monk   who organised the parade as well as various other things at the festival had this idea to hang the lanterns up around the site so that the audience would see them as they left the main arena at the end of the evening.  Wish I'd had the energy to stay that late myself!

T-shirt print - Norris Museum

We had a brilliant T-shirt printing day yesterday at the Norris Museum.

We printed about 110 T-shirts with children- each one different.  The weather was perfect and as you can see we worked outside in the lovely gardens.  The children drew things in the museum or in the garden and Cary and I helped them to print these onto there T-shirts.  Thanks to Gilly and the team of museum volunteers for making this such a successful day.

It looks like I was doing all the printing in this picture- but the children all participated in the printing process - even the very tiny ones.

And there's always that moment of magic when they see their designs transformed into colour!

More from Arbury Carnival

This is how Aliens make more Aliens.

Arbury Carnival 2015

Despite the rain, Arbury Carnival was wonderful this year.  Sandra Scott, Cary  and myself, the wonderful volunteers from the Arbury Carnival Committee and from Kettles Yard worked with young people at Nunn's Way Pavilion and in local schools and community groups to do costumes, banners and giant puppets.   The theme this year.......well you can probably tell.

The final frontier!

Spot the flying saucer

Alien robot strikes!

Not only aliens - the whole solar system....

Alien selfie - yes that's me and Cary testing that the masks are wearable!

Giant robot - made by Cary and the glue gun posse.

Will have to find some better pictures of this - watch this space....