On alternate Thursday mornings throughout the year six of the seven members of Beyond Stitch meet together, taking it in turns to act as host. Our seventh member, Sarah, is an army wife and must therefore go where her husband’s duty calls. She is currently a little too far away to attend our meetings regularly but comes whenever she can and keeps in touch via email.
These meetings and email contacts are of great importance to all of us, not just as pleasant social events but as a means of developing our work.
The meetings always follow the same routine. After an initial gossip and catch up over coffee the group gets down to business.
We each show our current work in progress and discuss ideas for its development. If any one of us is struggling with a particular technique or element in their design you can guarantee that someone will have a helpful suggestion or just the right material or technique to solve the problem.
We have also developed the idea of selecting two or three themes which every member of the group will interpret in her own very individual style. This time round we have decided that each of us will produce one piece of work inspired by a poem of our choice, one by a piece of music and one by a favourite artist. So far this has produced amongst others work based on opera, folk music and paintings by Franz Marc and Paul Klee.
Our meetings and sharing of ideas provide the motivation which keeps us working towards our next group exhibition. In the eight years since Beyond Stitch was formed we have held four group exhibitions, two in Ipswich and the last two in the Edmund Gallery in Bury St. Edmunds. We had planned to return to the Edmund for our next exhibition in 2018 but our plans were thwarted by the unexpected closure of this lovely little gallery which had been so perfect for us.
This led to a period of uncertainty for the group and the hunt for an alternative venue began. Finally we were fortunate enough to find the Apex Gallery in Bury and to meet with its Events Officer Tom Ogden who could not have been more helpful. Now this gallery has been booked for a month from June 11th 2018.
Now this may seem a long way ahead but our work is not quick to produce and the Gallery is HUGE!
It is, however a beautiful, elegant space, full of light and positioned in the busy heart of Bury.
We are looking forward to exhibiting our new work there and hope many of you will put the date in your diaries and pay us a visit next year.
Meanwhile it’s back to the sewing machine. Must have something to show the group on Thursday.