Final piece

| Sue Hare

What was I going to do? I decided to make more paintings and tear them up and reassemble them to represent another period in mum’s life, 1936 – 46. I would do this though colour and sewing and words. It was a tempestuous period in world history and her experiences, direct and indirect must have led her to make what seemed to me, since my teenage years, to be odd choices, marriage and children instead of following her already successful career. She won three top medals as a nurse. She was a great loss to nursing. Nursing was a great loss to her throughout her life even though she enjoyed being a mother. We had a group crit after which I decided against paper, instead to use fabrics and construct a piece in the style influenced by Matthew Harris’s work. Rather than dyed fabric though I’d paint calico and other fabric initially with gesso then with acrylic paints. The colours I chose were inspired by Sean Scully’s paintings and sculptures and wartime paintings. I chose a blue palette, Prussian blue worked well  as it seemed to convey the period, dark and moody with some brightness for those not in the thick of chaos. 

Once I got going I could see that sewing the fabrics I had created was not going to be possible in the way I had planned because it was very tough to hand stitch through calico, gesso and acrylic paint. My plan had been to distress the fabric in a similar way as Maxine Bristow and then stitch small pieces together, repeating the pattern.  Distressing it was only possible using sand paper and scrunching the  fabric under foot! I’d chosen the wrong fabric and the paint was too hard and thick.

Experimenting with stitching, I created a patch with a view to making more and stitching them together. Just an experiment. It took me no where in particular but I am learning to enjoy the process. I liked the surface and how stitches and slashes and holes might be further used to draw with at some other time. Not to be defeated I decided on a wall hanging starting when my mum was 10 years old.

  • What a time to grow up
  • How cruel men can be abusing their power, driven by hate, anger and  greed. There are parallels today here and all over the world. Have we really moved on?
  • A major contribution through nursing – the other end of the continuum. Healing the injured
Here I used crepe bandage with thin layer of gesso to make a direct link to nursing and the red cross. I liked working on bandage and will see how I can use it in the future. It has such texture to sew into. Here I drew on Hannah Lamb’s wonderfully expressive embroidery work.

I constructed this piece whilst thinking about the chaos of war, the mess humans can make, the pain we bring on others. We become entangled. Entrenched. Unable to break out and redirect. As relevant then as now with BREXIT. Mum’s father made sure she suceeded at school, ambitious for her to go to Grammar School. Then on to become a very successful nurse.

  • The final piece

I’d need ten of these to cover each decade of mum’s life. It is not successful on its own without explanation but could work if fully completed. It would take a very long time to complete. I am pleased with it as a very first submission at the end of the first term.  

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