Samantha Cotterill

Handmade pages by American artist Samantha Cotterill aka mummysam

Old Photos

 

Some old photos of my mums. I really like the above two images, they look like the sea and the bottom one looks as if the person is standing in front of a huge wave, but on closer inspection you realize that it is a hill covered in snow.

The photo of the rabbit is al ot like the pictures I take with my Diana camera.

I lovely the dreamy, other worldly quality of these images.

Yellow Dress

'Wearing a Yellow dress, I slept in a Gravel Nest.'

A recently sewed piece on an old place mat. I hope to make it into a round pillow.

Tiny Furniture

 

'Sometimes I feel like I am

 trying to sit on tiny furniture

 at the bottom of a swimming pool.'

 

Two individually hand sewn pieces, in very small found frames.

Be-lated birthday Card

This is a screen print giving to me by my friend and fellow classmate Jodie. Her work is about the female body, and the negative image the world has on it, such as anorexia, est..
The scanner dident really do a good job with the image, but I like it, it will be going up on my wall.

Deborah Mcdonagh

There is a really neat exhibition by  MA Student, Deborah Mcdonagh showing in Raggle Taggle this month.
 I had a look at her web-site and she has produced some lovely images. Her artists statement for the show is below.

'Almost Nothing is a solo exhibition as part of Deborah Mcdonaghs’s M.A. Degree in Contemporary Visual Arts and Media by Research at Limerick School of Art & Design.
Almost Nothing brings together ideas inspired by the work of French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty using photography and film. The art works communicate a contemporary perspective on depression and mental illness. This exhibition incorporates the still and moving image, which captures different psychological states through visual art focusing on the loss of identity in men.'

Adare exhibition, After..

 

 

The Poetry In-between series hung and ready to go with a box of 24 unframed originals, mounted and wrapped.

All framed, hung and ready to go.

Business cards

 

 

Agnus from the Driocht gallery in Adare very kindly opened it for us.

My favorite piece in the show, priced at 50 euro, by Kieth Hurley, who is in 3rd year visual communications (graphics).

This piece was done using photoshop and illustrator on the computer. If I had made a bit of money at the show I would have definitely bought it. Maybe I can do a deal with him....

 

 

There was alot more than this....

 

 

Unfortunately the show was not as successful as last year. I believe there were only four pieces sold by two artists.

So unfortunately not a lot of money was raised.

There was a decent turn out, but not as many as expected. Very few people were really looking at the art mostly they were there for the chat and the drink.

So what are you going to do, it was disappointing for everyone, alot of work and effort was put into this how, but It is an experience that we will take with us.

 

The group shot

Exhibition Tonight



'Why Don't Boy's Flirt with Us?'



'Sing me the Blues'

 So it's the Annual Young Artist's exhibition in Adare tonight. Cant say I am not nervous. Everyone's work is very different, the show is hardly lacking variety, and individuality. The show will be opening as soon as the Christmas tree lights have been turned on, a lot of people are expected to be there. It is a great opportunity to get your work out into the world. I am still doing some last minute bits, cutting business cards and such. Thankfully I got everything hung yesterday. I happy with the layout, everything seems to flow nicely.
The above to drawings will be for sale at the exhibition. hey are pen drawings, the word bubbles have been done using tapestry. The are small about 5x7 priced at 55 euro each. I will also have five framed pieces of the In-between poetry pieces I have been working on, a well as 24 unframed ones. I mounted them all myself with black mount board. That is a task I will not be doing again in a hurry! There is an example of one of the pieces below. I'm not going to post them all here but if you go to the blog I set up specially for them you can read them all for yourself. www.emilyrobards.tumblr.com
I hope you can make it, there will be Plenty of wine to go around, we have basically supplied our own winery, so make sure you bring a designated driver!
Wish me luck! And the best of luck to all the other artists in the exhibition. I will post more photos from the event next week.


'Poetry In-Between' Series

Young Artists Exhibition Adare

 

This Saturday I will be showing in a group exhibition in Adare, Co Limerick, with seven other fellow students from college. All work will be sold and 25% of everything sold will go to the Adare Alzheimer's Association.

The exhibition will open at 8:00 Pm, all are welcome, we would love to see you there.

I will be showing some combined media drawings and some of the In between poetry, framed and unframed, which you can see samples of on the tumblr blog. www.emilyrobards.tumblr.com

I wont put up any of my work until after or closer to the exhibition as I would like it to be a surprise, plus I will probably change pieces around..

 

Macro Co

Macro Co is a Chilean artist who now lives in Buenos Aires amd created this series of surreal black and white illustrations. While trying to create a circular, undefined story , Co takes to a universe of a somber ceremony, where we seem to be watching rituals of a non-world.

Rebecca Green

Found a new artist/illustrator called Rebecca Green. Lovely work that celebrates the every day and the small moments in life.

Work

 

Process

 

 

 

Video

 

 

Cellegratonia from NEWWORDS on Vimeo.

New Blog

 

 

I have created a new blog using a tumblr account. This blog will only feature found poetry Like the

ones below.  They are made by crossing out words in newspapers to create something new. Its something I have always liked to do and thought it would be a nice distraction from what I currently do, also it gets me to read the paper more.

A lot of these will be sold in the upcoming group exhibition in Adare.

I'd appreciate any feedback you can leave a comment below.

http://emilyrobards.tumblr.com

 

 

Present for a friend

 

A birthday present I did for a friend of mine, based around one of the previous cushions I made. It was the first time I added a picture with the text using stitch. I was happy with the result, and am conteplating just doing stitched pictures on there own...

'Line Drawing' of a Dog

'Line Drawing of a Dog'

'Line drawing of a dog', is actually a sewn piece. I still consider it a drawing, it is just drawn with thread rather than lead. I wanted it to look like a pen drawing. But becuase it is scanned in you can tell its sewn, but in real life it does give the effect of a pen drawing when you step back.
This is based on an earlier drawing I did last year. I tried to do an etching of it which failed, and recently did a dry-point (below), but it was also a failure, as the lines are not neat enough and it looks a smudgy mess.
I am hoping to put this piece in a group exhibition which is happing the 8th of December. I will post more about that and details of the work later on, when I am more organised....

Failed dry point.
The scanner makes it look even worse!

Collaborating with Dawn

Above is a print that my friend Dawn did awhile back. I liked it so much she gave it to me. After awhile I realized I had to sew on it, so I did.

If you click on the image you can in large it to show the detail, I was very happy with how it came out.

A gift of a tea bag in a neat little parcel that Dawn made me and I dont have the heart to use.

My birthday card from Dawn.

Izziyana Suhaimi

As you can see I am back looking at embroidery again. I manged to come across this artist who uses embroidery over her pencil drawings. I can see she uses watercolour paper, but from doing this myself, I still cant tell how she prevents the paper from tearing or holes from the needle appearing.

I will have to experiment. I need to get some small needles as mine have snapped!

 

Artists Statment:

 

Endlessly curious. My work primarily involves the use of embroidery. I am interested in collapsing the boundaries between traditional and popular cultures and exploring the links that exist between these two. My work examines how this particular mishmash manifests itself in modern times, especially concerning modern youths. Preferring to work with craft-based techniques, I am attracted to the evidence of the hand and its time-consuming aspect, which runs counter to the instant gratification and mass-production centred age of today. My works have been exhibited in Singapore, the Philippines, Taiwan and Japan.

http://my-bones.tumblr.com/

 

 

 

........

 

“Let’s talk about everything” (below images) is a collection of memories carefully collected from four individuals, springing from four different phrases that hold strong emotional connections to these individuals. These phrases were taken from songs, quotes, poetry, etc. Each memory is explored, studied, laboured over and embroidered on found materials.
Gold thread was used in varying degrees on each piece to recreate gold dust. The preciousness and value of gold reflect a similar preciousness and value attached to individual memories. However, memories extremely treasured by one, may be meaningless to another. In a similar manner, gold dust, though still having value, is useless until it is turned into something useful such as a bar or a button.