KA Hitchins

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A God’s-Eye View

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I’m delighted to welcome to my blog today textile artist Elisabeth Rutt. Elisabeth’s piece entitled ‘I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the fields is mine: Psalm 50:11’ was one of the winners of the Bezalel Award, sponsored by the Bible Society as part of the Chaiya Art Awards 2018.

After attending the Chaiya Art Exhibition at the Oxo Tower on the South Bank, London in March this year, and buying the beautiful accompanying book ‘Where is God in the 21st-Century World’, I was delighted to catch up with Elisabeth to find out more about her life and work.

 

I understand you have a background in fine art. How did you get into textiles?

My father was a professional artist and illustrator, so I grew up surrounded by art activity and materials. I was painting alongside him in his studio before I was of school age and was convinced, that like him, I would be an artist!

At school I took every creative opportunity and exam that the curriculum would allow and went on to complete my Honours degree in fine art and dance at Goldsmiths College. Since University I have worked in Commercial retail management, as an interior designer, and managed an Arts Council funded gallery.

I have always stitched. During the years at home with my young sons I completed my City & Guilds Embroidery with distinction, and have become increasingly immersed in the fascinating world of textiles and embroidery.

My sons are now men and I work from my home studio in Suffolk. I make work for exhibitions and to commission, and alongside my own artistic practice I am a tutor and mentor to design and textile students. Work now falls somewhere between fine art and craft as I combine techniques and materials.

What inspires you?

I live in rural Suffolk and walk often across fields, through woods and alongside coast and estuary with my family. In my recent work I have tried to bring together patterns remembered as I have walked, particularly through chalk landscapes. I grew up in Kent, moved to Hertfordshire as an adult and now live in Suffolk, and so have been surrounded by chalk most of my life. I have many memories of walking the South Downs and the Seven Sisters cliffs that are scoured by footpaths: some signposted and others the desire lines of explorations taken away from the mapped route.

My walks through landscape bring to mind a recurrent analogy of thread and sewing as a process of making marks and patterns upon cloth. Wherever I look in the countryside I see ridges and furrows – ploughed fields, rock strata, paths, tree bark, tractor tracks – and this has led me to identify, record and explore through stitching the patterns that I found within my experience of landscape.

 

 

Tell me a little about your winning exhibit.

The ‘land’ for my stitching is a ground fabric of my handmade dry felt and screen printed fabric. My stitches move through my fictional landscape making motifs of hidden geology, ancient people and buildings, agriculture and paths, as if seen via aerial photography. It’s also a ‘God’s-eye’ view, which is why I entitled the piece ‘I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the fields is mine: Psalm 50:11’

Our world and landscape speak strongly to me of God and His creation. We have a real responsibility to respect and look after it as we live within it. This piece is about the experience of our landscape and my love of it. We must live within the natural geology with care and so this piece integrates signs of our buildings and agriculture while birds soar free in silhouette over fields, buildings, river, pebbles and open country.

 

 

I found Elisabeth’s creative process particularly fascinating, as I too gain great inspiration from walking in the countryside. She uses her stitching as I use my words, shining a new light on our world so that we see it with different eyes. Her artwork takes the chaos of our environment and our lives and invests them with a shape – a sense of order and meaning – that can be shared with others, making the invisible brilliantly, beautifully visible. Perhaps its not a surprise that there are similarities in the way we work. We are, after all, sisters!

 

 

Artist Bio

Elisabeth Rutt is a freelance textile artist and tutor. She graduated from the University of London, Goldsmiths College, with a BHum, Fine Art and Dance in 1982. She has worked in interior design and been both Artist in Residence and Associate Artist for Dance East. She was Gallery Manager for Bury St Edmunds Art Gallery from 2006 to 2012. Elisabeth now divides  her time between making work for exhibition or commission, as tutor/mentor for a  textile masterclass in Hertfordshire and other teaching by invitation, particularly enjoying artist in residence opportunities in Suffolk schools. She is a member of the Suffolk Craft society with whom she exhibits twice annually.

Website:  elisabethrutt.co.uk

Where is God in the 21st Century?

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On a grey Saturday in March this year, I boarded a train to London Blackfriars to view a free exhibition at London’s prestigious gallery@oxo, located on the busy South Bank Riverside, on the intriguing theme of ‘Where is God in our 21st century world?’ The exhibition was the result of the newest theme-based biennial art award, The Chaiya Art Award, which had a top prize of £10,000.

 

 

Arriving at Blackfriars, the view of London was so cold and bleak that I really wondered why I’d bothered to forsake my weekend lie-in for all the hassle of station car parks and train connections. Without quite knowing where I was going, I wandered along the banks of the Thames, circling the Oxo Tower in search of what had been promised as an exciting and thought-provoking experience. The pavements were packed with shivering tourists and blue-lipped buskers and I found myself following a stream of people making their way through a glass door. Anything to get out of the cold!

Accidentally I’d arrived! I was greeted by warm air, white space, and walls displaying vivid pictures which hung like windows into another world. Along with those who had stumbled in out of the cold, I wandered through the gallery, drinking in the eclectic collection of paintings, sculptures, ceramics, textiles, photography and videos. It was not at all what I expected. Some of the exhibits were beautiful, others disturbing or puzzling. But there were one or two which caused a visceral emotional reaction. In particular ‘Genes’ by Mandy Smith, ‘The Real Thing’ by Simon Shepherd and ‘Left Out’ by Maxwell Rushton, which went on to win the public vote.

 

 

‘Genes’ by Mandy Smith

“Using old jeans collected from friends and family, the artist modelled this figure on her body, while marking it with wounds experienced by her mother through episodes of illness and grief.  The hand, a plea looking for God.” (Where is God in Our 21st-Century World)

 

The Real Thing’ by Simon Shepherd

“Two global icons – the cross and the Coca-Cola brand, both claiming to be The Real Thing. What do we worship in the 21st-century? Has the focus shifted from worship of the spiritual to worship of the material? Can we see what is ‘real’? The piece poses radical questions.” (Where is God in Our 21st-Century World)

 

‘Left Out’ by Maxwell Rushton

“It’s a shock to see the human form presented uncompromisingly as a bag of rubbish. Yet it is worryingly easy to lose sight of the humanity of rough sleepers and the homeless. This inert and vulnerable figure makes us ask, ‘What must I do?’” (Where is God in Our 21st-Century World)

The winner of the £10,000 award was Deborah Tompsett for her installation ‘A Thousand Bottles of Tears’, a display of hand-thrown clay vessels using a variety of materials and techniques, each pot formed from a heart-sized lump of clay from baby to adult – each filled with a handwritten message and then re-fired. The artist explained that “since the Davidic era, 1055 BC, tear bottles have spoken of the sacredness of tears as messengers of grief, contrition and love.” (Where is God in Our 21st-Century World)

I was delighted to be able to buy an advance copy of the accompanying book, Where is God in Our 21st-Century World, which contains photos of all the exhibits plus other longlisted entrants. This beautiful limited edition book, officially released on 21 September, also contains a collection of meditations by author, Ann Clifford, on the themes which resonated through the exhibition. It’s the kind of book to dip into, finding new insights and connections. I loved the way it took me out of the box of words alone and into a visual world with a different way of expressing questions, hopes, pain, faith and purpose. I haven’t seen a book quite like this before which combines words and art in such an interesting way. Turning the pages is a revelatory experience. You cannot help but be challenged and inspired. Beautiful!

You can buy a copy from online retailers and bookshops, or through the Chaiya Art Award website here https://www.chaiyaartawards.co.uk/book

 

 

 

‘‘In the Detail’ by Kate Green

“In each act of kindness, each spark of inspiration, every expression of forgiveness, in creativity, in nature, in our fingerprint, in the universe – all reveal a God of detail. He is all around, in each moment, waiting for us to see Him in the detail.” (Where is God in Our 21st-Century World)

‘The Suspense of Living on the Edge’ by ashar

“The artist explores their emotional feelings about a world which seems poised dangerously close to falling into an abyss. Uncertain, we step into the unknown, asking where is God in all our 21st-century chaos?” (Where is God in Our 21st-Century World)

 

 

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