20th February 2025

Julia Wright Landscape surfaces 

Julia is based in Manchester and works in mixed media and jewellery, which has led her to create detailed small scale pieces. 

She has a family background which includes art, textiles and creative work.She initially undertook an Art foundation course where she discovered she was a maker rather than a painter which led her to a degree working with all materials and techniques. After this Julia worked in an Art gallery where she learned what was required to exhibit work and how to work with galleries. She also gained a teaching qualification, initially teaching adults, then high school art and 6th form A level textilesand Art foundation where she encourages students to explore ideas, experiment and play to see what works.

Julia draws a lot, she collects natural objects eg fir cones, stones, fossils, observes cracks in pavements, tree roots, fungi, rock strata, landscapes, sea shore, barnacles, waves etc, where ever she goes she takes with her small concertina sketchbooks to fill with her observational drawing. She gathers shapes, patterns, textures, structural shapes and then combines these with imagination to create loosely themed work.

Julia uses fabric manipulation, crochet, knitting, macrame, embroidery, working with natural fibres, recycled items,plastic, metal eg rings,wire, dying fabrics and threads herself to obtain the neutral/earthy/rust/natural colour palette required.

When knitting Julia uses needles of different size and will knit creatively to distort the surfaces. She will then crochet or weave into this also adding 'wraps' (fabric wrapped round with threads)and stitched'blobs' . 

 

Embroidery is used as a mark making tool to add colour/detail/texture, Julia has been inspired by the Japanese 'Boro' mending techniques comprising dots, dashes and linear marks.

Roots 2017 explored ideas of growth and decay

Coastal inspiration 2020 - coral structures, using multiple layers, worked in white and hand stitched.

 

 

 

 

 

Circles indicate continuity, use hand dyed muslin, threads, yarns, wrapped pieces and holes. Holes are created by pulling fabric to separate strands, she then stitches these, using small firm stitches, to form and hold the circles and holes.

 

 

Orange bark was inspired by Australia with its red earth/landscapes, Julia hand dyed cotton, linen, muslin, silk, including copper wire, paper and rubber.

Yorkshire dales landscapes

 

 

 

 

 

 

St Ives Cornwall series - undertook one per day during holiday, used neutral colour to focus on texture, pieces feature barnacles, bubbles left by waves etc.

 

 16th January 2025

Leah gave an interesting and informative presentation entitled 'My road to ruins and beyond' which took us through her journey in textiles, printing, stitch and quilt making.

 

 

Leah learned to stitch, knit,crochet early as mother and gran sewed, she went on to make her own clothes including wedding dress, but her sewing was all practical rather than decorative.

In 1986 she was asked to make a quilt - something she had not done before. Leah cut out 12" squares of fabric, sewed them together, backed , filled with wadding, stitched in places. From this Leah set out to learn more about quilts, she made more but then decided she wanted to design her own.

 She took a City and Guilds in patchwork and quilting, although she enjoyed the practical she did not like the sketch book element.Leah learned to dye fabrics,made quilts and to achieve the sketch book she put all the pictures she had taken during the creation of the quilt together.

Leah studied the making of art quilts, learned screen printing techniques and went in a new direction screen printing a piece of fabric and then adding some applique and stitching.(arrows)

The next technique was building layers - Sin city based on Las Vagas and gambling. The background for the piece was 'sin city'printed repeatedlyin different colours and font sizes to build up the layers and then had detail stitched in.

Leah's next was colour studies taking inspiration from Shanghai, she used procein dyes to print layers, then chopped up the fabric, arranged to give desired effect, then pieced/sewn together into a quilt/s.

The ruins series was based on abandoned/ruined buildings, featuring rust/moss/ industrial remains. For this Leah used breakdown printing- a process which gives organic marks/texture to create the fabric, which she then cut up , sewed back together and applied stitch to enhance - brick kilns were her inspiration.

 

Dinure featured colours based on lichens, stones etc and Leah used two different screens, one with calm/restful words, where she used lighter colours, the other with angry/worried/anxious words, where darker colours were used.

The Print series was inspired by the 'red top'papers and the typeface Frankin Gothic heavy.

Democracy - was inspired by the Brexit debates and who speaks for me. The pandemic and lockdown interupted this but did lead Leah to a 2nd book - Colour your Palette as well as online workshops.

  

 

 

 

 

 

Cadence series - blue-white-blue with an orange strip and stitch featuring in the middle, the theme being randomness.