Helen Thomas - January 2015

For our first meeting of 2015 Helen Thomas’ talk was entitled “Papers are textiles too”.   She studied art and sewing at school and quilting and patchwork in her spare time but in retirement she enrolled on a drawing class and then a two year part time Foundation Course at the Bristol School of Art.   

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One project on the course involved making a dress from paper where she had to fold and pleat paper to create the structure.  Another was inspired by a visit to Bristol Zoo where she used paper folding and mark marking to record her dislike for the encaged animals she had seen.

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Playing with paper and creating books of varying shapes, structures and sizes has played an important part in Helen’s work.  For another project she used an art gallery’s exhibitions brochures for one year and folded them into a long caterpillar like book with coptic binding which was then coiled round into a hand-made box. 

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Eco printing was another technique which Helen has explored creating a sandwich of paper, leaves and tissue which is then tied up and steamed.  Coins or screws can be added to make the result even more interesting.

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Helen is now part way through a MA multi disciplinary print making course at the University of the West of England.   For one project she rolled all of the pages of one day’s copy of the Guardian newspaper. The result was 488 thin sticks which were displayed in a pot.

The next meeting of the Guild will be on Monday 2 February when Susi Bancroft’s talk will be entitled “Brunel Broderers”.  The doors will open at 13.30 and the meeting will start at 14.00.  All are welcome and if you require further details please contact 01249 750865 or visit our website: https://www.marlboroughembroiderers.org

Reported by Ros