The group show that I am part of opens at the Japanese Embassy, Piccadilly, London (Green Park station) today. It includes responses from 10 artists to a shared trip & residency to Tokyo for the month of March this year. My work is pictured below responds to a fireman's helmet and gloves I saw at the Folk Craft Museum in Tokyo, and also to the use of double stitches which I encountered a lot. The uniform was actually quilted cloth, hence the marks on the helmet I have made referencing the stitching on the original. I was very interested by the knotting and other thread/rope/textile based ideas I saw there, both in a historic context and everyday. Also in the use of dyes, colour and pattern. The smaller blue arm piece references a pattern used in the wood work of a window, the larger arm piece looks at the bamboo fencing I saw in a lot of places.
