Anita Bell - Stitched Paper Works

Info:  Hangings, framed and mounted pieces, books and vessels made using tissue paper which is either hand-dyed or painted with watercolour, embellished with free machine embroidery and layered using a papier mâché technique. Other work is composed of handmade paper, made from recycling waste paper and thread, which is then stitched. Limited edition prints, photographs, hand dyed and handmade papers and cards also available.

Based in Hampshire, I am a Member of the Society of Designer Craftsmen and PaperWEIGHT and can offer workshops, talks and demonstrations.

Art Not Oil

Info:  Aims to encourage artists -- and would-be artists -- to create work that explores the damage that companies like BP and Shell are doing to the planet, and the role art can play in counteracting that damage.

It is designed in part to paint a truer portrait of an oil company than the caring image manufactured by events such as the BP Portrait Award, Shell's sponsorship of classic drama at the National Theatre, and other 'cultural activities' of the oil multinationals which also happen to divert public attention away from their actual activities. Climate chaos is set to have a catastrophic effect on all of us, while hitting the poorest hardest. The companies most responsible are profiting handsomely, yet they're still welcome it seems in many of our most prestigious public galleries and museums.

Batik Art - Robin Paris

Info:  Batik was a wonderful personal adventure in 1990 in Malaysia, where I learned the technique from Malay contemporary batik artists. I have lived and worked in batik from my Bodmin Moor studio in North Cornwall since 1992, when I returned to Britain after nearly five years of travelling in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

What is it about batik that makes it addictive? It is a multitude of things -- brilliance or subtlety of colour; working with and manipulating two mediums, wax and dye, to produce layers and textures; the necessity to plan and occasionally to adapt. Perhaps it is as much to do with the need for infinite patience -- batik is certainly Slow Art!

It's obvious from my batiks that nature, the environment, and ecological and human relationships are important to me. Since first working in batik in the early 1990s I've attempted to consider my materials, tools, processes and their environmental and social implications. But my discoveries and actions tended to be disjointed -- picking snippets up here and there rather than looking at and / or researching the full picture.

Cas Holmes

Info:  After obtaining a Fine Arts degree in the early eighties, my understanding of paper and related media was further enhanced through two periods of long-term study in Japan in the mid to late eighties (supported by the Japan Foundation and the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust.) My work relates to the natural and built world around us and the elements that make it up.

I like to use found materials as part of this process and am always looking at the environmental links and sustainable practice. I like to use discarded items, waste material no longer considered useful. My work is informed by personal experience, places visited, stories of my Romany grandmother, old and forgotten textiles. Recycled materials and waste have a history'. These I break down, tear, and cut, until they are re-assembled to create something more meaningful. Fragments and layers mark the passing of time, the rituals of making (cutting paper, gathering materials, machining, sewing) acting as part of the narrative of the work.

Green Art

Info:  Barbara uses recyclable materials to include any ‘leftovers’ – paint, papers and general ‘rubbish’ (bubble wrap, broken wax crayons, scrap card, leggo pieces, rollers, sponges, etc.) to experiment with in applying paint to paper. She uses mostly watercolours and printing inks, but also experiment with other media.

Barbara and her husband, Rod have also been involved in organising and exhibiting in art exhibitions to raise money for charities that they are interested in (a HOPE HIV / AIDS orphanage in south Africa, a Romanian charity who work with the destitute and poor in Cluj and other towns and cities in Romania and Operation Christmas Child, delivering gifts to deprived children around the world). Children’s art has also been part of these exhibitions, as Barbara still believes that their visual interpretations are unique and exciting and continue to stimulate her.

Rod, following a long career in the Water Industry, now devotes much of his time to his watercolour, acrylic and mixed media painting. Much of his inspiration comes from the changing moods of nature, which he attempts to catch in his landscapes and seascapes, and from the texture and ‘hidden’ shapes found in natural forms such as tree bark and rocks. He enjoys experimenting with a variety of techniques and bases to add texture and interest to finished paintings.

Green Earth Graphics

Info:  Kasia Morris was born a long time ago in Poland. Her art career was nearly terminated at the age of nine, when she got thrown out of her art class at school. The teacher asked the children to draw a milk bottle and Kasia added a three legged purple cow being milked and eating buttercups at the same time. This did not meet with the teacher's approval. In spite of such unfortunate beginnings Kasia continued painting and drawing, developing her own naive magic realism, adding elephants to suburban gardens, or creating cities for fishes.

Kasia has participated in a number of exhibitions in the Bristol area over the years and in 2006 formed Green Earth Graphics, which offer prints and greeting cards of original art works at accessible prices. In order to be as environmentally friendly as possible all Green Earth Graphics products are printed on 100% recycled paper and packaged in 100% recycled envelopes.

Hannah Thurman - Textile Artist

Info:  I find the inspiration for my work deeply rooted in the shape and colour of our landscapes, the texture and shapes of natural organic objects, the human form, architecture of the past, the effects of natural decay and the transition from new to old.

In my work I try to create a sense of time focusing on the impact people have on their surroundings and the remnants of the past left behind. I try to capture the way the earth responds to new things by reclaiming them to the eventual extent of looking like they have always been there, from the effects of weather bending and shaping our landscapes to moss and plant life reclaiming stones and urban objects.

By collecting fragments of the past such as second hand cutlery, stones and pieces of broken pottery, I find it gives me an insight into past lives and feeds my imagination with ideas and mystery.

I use a variety of fabrics and fibres in my work such as wool, silk, cotton and paper and explore the bounderies of surface embellishment using machine and hand embroidery, weaving and knitting techniques.

Heather Belcher

Info:  Heather’s area of specialism is hand made felting techniques, incorporating painterly processes depicting domestic objects, 3-dimensional constructions of garments, print, stitch, knit and weave. Drawing on felt’s ancient associations with early body coverings, the work explores issues of identity, the absence / presence of the body, protection and insulation.