Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
Bath Spa University
Lost and Found: a solo exhibition
Howard is a textile artist who creates narrative pieces using an applique printing technique that she devised approximately twenty years ago, and which has been much emulated since. Lost and Found is a series of work (54 framed pieces) that explores Howard’s continuing interest in spontaneous sketching, handwriting and mark making developed into stories that are told through embroidery. The exhibited works exemplified the response to her research problem, namely how to lend the traditional, painstaking and time-consuming technique of embroidery the freshness and vitality needed to attract new audiences. In her search for answers to this she has examined and been inspired by eighteenth century story quilts and samplers both in terms of their approach and their meaning to their consumers. The outcome is an embroidered mark that is deployed to render doodles, words and drawings she has collected (including shopping lists, discarded drawings, hastily written notes or scribbled patterns) into stories that reflect upon modern life.
Lost and Found was a solo exhibition held at the National Trust Quarry Bank Mill, Cheshire 1 April – 24 June 2012. Internationally renowned textile artist Michael Brennand-Wood opened the exhibition. Footfall reached over 5000.
Further related outcomes include:
A series of prints from the exhibition published by EastEndPrints http://www.eastendprints.co.uk/artist/24534/Rachael_Howard;
Howard’s involvement as Lead artist on outreach workshops for Making an Impact with the Bluecoat Display Centre, Liverpool: http://www.bluecoatdisplaycentre.com/project/making-an-impact/http://rachaelhoward.wordpress.com/2013/02/23/making-an-impact-bluecoat-display-centre-outreach-workshops-programme/
Exhibit “Foxes on a Wall” (2012) included in the book - Textiles: The Art of Mankind, by Mary Schoeser for Thames and Hudson 2012.
A selection of works have since shown in these group exhibitions:
Package Tour, Knitting and Stitching Show, London, Harrogate and Dublin 2012.
Small Talk, Constance Howard Gallery, Goldsmiths University, London 2013.
British Textile Art 62@50, Koyo Gallery, Japan 2013.
