One of our members, Judy Tadman, is an internationally acclaimed artist who works with rope and rope-type materials, sculpting them into organic shapes and forms with the use of crochet-type techniques. On Friday she gave a talk to the group about her work, telling how she developed the technique herself whilst studying art at what is now the Batley School of Art and Design at Kirklees College, following a career in nursing. Her pieces range from the small and intricate, to huge and robust outdoor sculptures. This was followed up on Saturday by a workshop for enthusiastic members armed only with a crochet hook! Judy supplied a wonderful array of differently textured base materials (rope, string, twigs, hose; anything tubular and linear) and different wools, twines, cords and threads which act as both an anchor and a decoration for the base material. Here are the partly completed pieces from our workshop - it will be followed up with the finished "objects" after our next meeting! Davina raced ahead (she does lots of crochet so had an advantage but those of us who couldn't crochet at all soon picked it up), completing a bowl and continuing with a free-form sculpture. Margaret H's work Sue T's work A close-up of the same piece Sue later embellished her sculpture with stitching and beads Polly at work, and her piece along with her super scissors! Anita's chic black number Margaret W's lovely neat work, with added double crochet Janice's piece which she is embellishing as she goes along Irene's red piece. Judy explained that when you use natural fibres, they always revert to natural forms. Wyn's closely stitched piece Jane had an idea for a loopy piece and is working towards it Paper twine stitched round a twig, showing the basic technique Mandy's piece with floral embellishment kindly and unintentionally donated by Wyn It will be interesting to see how they all turn out! Judy has a brilliant DVD in which she very clearly demonstrates the techniques she showed us yesterday, a shortened version of it is also on YouTube at this location : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pSsLdfud3I You can contact her at [email protected] or via Facebook
