April 2022

 'Communication Through Textiles '  by Melanie Kay

This was an interesting and thought provoking presentation with a fascinating collection of examples of her work.

Melanie has a Textiles degree/masters and now teaches D and T in a school where she focuses on work with metal, electronics and stitch.

She has always been interested in words,lettering,bright colours and 'found' items which she patchworks together. At university she gravitated to working on metals like copper, peweter etc and decided for her degree project to focus on Gender, with the Metals traditionally being considered 'male' and the Textiles/stitch traditionally being regarded as 'female'.

Lettering,colour and images

Stitch on copper/metals

Metals, flowers and lace effect

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Melanie used found metal in the form of beer cans stitching them together and decorating them with flowers created using free machine embroidery. She then produced holes in the metal to achieve a lacy look to match with the flowers and added a 3D butterfly to complete the piece.

 

Social issues, patchwork,lettering

Flowers,lace,butterfly on metal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ideas and experimentation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In her work she draws images which she copies and sticks onto the cans, then applies stitch and finally 'sands off' print from selected areas to achieve finished result. Many of these link to health and social issues for example drink.

Melanie patchworks pieces of cans together and makes large 3 D items like lampshades. She has also made a selection of boxes - matches, cigarettes, chocolates,soap powder, jigsaws etc.

Jigsaw picture

Chocolate box

 

 

Match box - front

Match box - back