The Oslo in my head

 

Oslo Towers
Oslo Towers

I first moved to Oslo, Norway in October 2012.   It was six weeks before I was due to exhibit as part of a collaboration with Scottish Artist Louise McVey and at that point I had no idea what I was going to make for the show.  I’d brought suitcases full of scraps of fabrics and threads with me and decided to collage them into little towers, just like the ones outside the window of my little studio.

Glasgow, my home town, is known for it’s rows and rows of almost identical sandstone tenements, and the pastel coloured buildings of Oslo were so different.  Each one seemed to have it’s own particular windows, gates and doors and it’s own colour scheme.  Instead of the huge curved bay windows of Glasgow’s tenements, they had rows of tiny little squares and rectangles.

These towers ended up being the first art works I made in Norway.  They were made from fabrics I’d collected, salvaged and hoarded since my college years in London, and it seemed to make sense to use them up to make my first art work of my first impressions of my new life in Norway.  I don’t usually use a sewing machine to make my sculptures but I like how scruffy and scratchy the stitching looks on these, it’s a good reflection of my state of mind at the time.  I was surrounded by boxes, threads, fabrics and yarns in a tiny wee room looking out at all the blue and yellow and white buildings with their tiny windows, trying to take it all in and and get my head straight, desperately missing home but hoping that my new life was going to be as lovely as I hoped it would be.

I try to keep my posts on here for new work as and when it happens, but I’m working on some new little houses and these came to mind.  If you’d like to keep up with the work as it’s in progress you can find me on Facebook here.

The Pale Rook - Oslo Towers             The Pale Rook - Oslo Towers            The Pale Rook - Oslo Towers

Ruby

photo 4

I really wasn’t sure about this doll until she was completely finished.  Every so often I’ll make something that feels too close to a self portrait and it’s always a bit unsettling.  I’ve been making variations on this doll for years now.  She’s been in drawings, paintings, she’s been collaged, crocheted, knitted and sewn, and every time she says something about where and who I am at the time.   This is never intentional.  Maybe that’s why it’s uncomfortable to work on her.  I never intend to make portraits of anyone but once in a while portraits happen.

photo 3

In this incarnation, she’s been made with coffee, boiled acorns and indigo dyed calico, linen threads, black silk, and her hair is made of felted Icelandic wool.

The Pale Rook - Dolls, art and oddities

photo 3

Birthday Blue Rabbit…

Birthday Blue Rabbit

 

This is the second of my rabbit dolls and the first one to wear clothing!  Her skirt is made from a tiny piece of silk organza that was left over from a ballerina’s tutu I made for a show at Glastonbury ages ago.  It’s so fine and stiff that it creases like paper.   When I first dyed her with a nettle infusion, she was so green that she looked like a little frog, but the colour faded to a much softer shade once she’d dried.

The Pale Rook - Dolls, art and oddities

The Pale Rook - Dolls, art and oddities

The Pale Rook - Dolls, art and oddities

Just like the original Blue Rabbit doll, the ears were a bit of a last minute addition, she was going to stay bald, her little face is so delicate that I didn’t think she’d need anything else on her head, but on a whim, I’d decided to cut the legs off of a pair of jeans to make them into shorts and the left over denim was so pretty that it made sense to make her some little ears with it.

Oh, and the “Birthday” bit.  Something about the pale blue stripes and the layers of silk reminded me of something, somewhere in the back of my mind that I can only identify as a very distant memory of a birthday party.

Rosehip

 

Rosehip

I’d gathered a basket of rose hips last autumn to make syrup, left them in the fridge and forgot about them.  After a while I decided to make them into dye instead.  Like the nettles,  you just boil up the rose hips for an hour or so, leave them to steep and then use the dye directly on the fabric.  The colour is a warm, soft peachy pink, I love how it looks with the nettle dye on this doll.

The Pale Rook                                   The Pale Rook - Rosehip art doll                                  The Pale Rook - Art doll

Brennesle

IMG_2197

This was my first nettle dyed doll.  The green wasn’t supposed to be so intense but it turned out to be a bit of a happy accident.  I prefer working with plant dyes, firstly because there isn’t the same toxic stench, or need for rubber gloves that you have with synthetic dye, and the colour is so much softer and it seems to reflect light differently.  These nettles were picked from my garden, dried then left to steep in boiling water for a few hours before dipping the doll into the dye bath.

 

Nettle calico sketchbook

Cloth doll partsNettle dyed cloth doll

 

 

 

 

Blue Rabbit

 

Blue rabbit
Blue rabbit

I finished this girl last night.  I’ve been carrying her around with me for a few days and now I think she’s finally done.  I’m designing my dolls as I make them, rather than drawing or planning them out first.  The dyes and the threads and the unexpected shapes made by the grain and the folds of the fabric make most of the design decisions for me.  I’m not sure where her rabbit ears came from, they just seemed to make sense.   She’s been dyed with indigo and acorns then sewn up with linen.  Her ears are made from a tiny scrap of 1940s fabric that I found in an antique suitcase in Ayr in the south west of Scotland.  She doesn’t have a name yet, but I’m sure she’ll tell me at some point.

Blue Bunny's feet