Louise Baldwin and colour in textiles

Louise Baldwin page of 62 group website

Looking at these examples of pieces by Louise Baldwin, my immediate impression is of bright pretty colours in blocks of prints next to each other, both on fabric and on paper or card. It makes me want to try blocks of colour next to each other, but for me they would be different colours, I think with a bit more obvious drama between them.

The second impression is of unfinishedness, and that the stitched parts are not clear all at once. A bit messy even. You can only see parts of faces until you look harder for the rest, and the differentiation between the background print and the background stitched pattern is at first glance difficult to disentangle. If I try some of this stitching on patterned fabrics, how would I do it differently? I suspect I would start with some sort of extension or distortion of the pattern that is already there, and see where it took me.

I can see that she did it differently from this. I'm not sure how. There seem to have been layers built up which have different emphasis of texture, pattern and colour.

I have a large collection of patterned and textured fabrics rescued from disdain and neglect which I would like to use one day. My husband would like me to use them one day, so they don't just keep taking up more and more storage space in the house. In general the idea of reusing materials and yarns appeals greatly, and can of course add to the meaning of made objects, while reducing the cost of making them. It can make them less robust though, and in some cases they have been moth-eaten, torn or frayed in the past. Embroidering on them could improve their robustness. And could perhaps emphasis the fragility, history, or meaning.

I think part of my sketchbook work should be about looking through my collection and seeing whether I can enhance the meaning in some way by what I do with the fabric.

After writing these ideas I have had a look at this:
Crafts council maker CV for Louise Baldwin

It says that she is interested in the way people live on different levels at the same time. I guess from this I can say that she has expressed this well in the pieces I've seen, as that was very similar to the message I got from them!