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Inspirational 20 is now released for instant download and instant access. Pick up a copy at:  https://payhip.com/b/OX4M Over 100 pages in interviews and imagery from contemporary artists around the globe - from textiles to collage, from painting to photography. All previous issues of Inspirational are available from:  https://payhip.com/johnhopper or why not take out a subscription to Inspirational, delivered monthly to your email. It's as easy as following the link:  https://payhip.com/b/MNp6 Inspirational...celebrating creativity # inspirational   # inspiration   # creativity   # artmagazine   # artpublication   # textileart # fiberart   # painting   # photography   # collage   # digital   # conceptual

Sue Stone: Faith , 2017 (mixed media, hand/machine stitch, acrylic paint) Sue Stone: Displaced April 28 - May 28, 2017 Owen James Gallery, Brooklyn, NY Time, memory and family are at the heart of Sue Stone’s mixed-media works. She merges the past and the present to connect personal histories and local identities through dream-like narratives. Starting with old family photographs, she interprets and transforms them through techniques that include hand & machine stitched embroidery, fabric collage, writing and painting. Stone is also deeply influenced by the history of her native Grimsby, England. For many years, Grimsby supported a major seaport and fishing industry, and where Stone’s father was fish merchant. The industry declined over time, but allusions to it remain in her work.  Stone started sewing early on, learning from and working with her mother who was a tailoress until her early death. This sense of loss, and of displacement, in both emotional and economic terms, is a...

Trapped, constricted, tied down by societies rules of norm. It is a shared history for many, and depressingly a largely female one. Whilst many men had at least some room for manoeuvre within their lot, some could work their way into different fields, different positions, some could emigrate, start afresh, anew, women could only really change their circumstances under the shadow of another.  The men in their life, whether father, brother, husband, son, often set the parameters of a womans life, and the opportunities, or lack of them. Women had few if any outlets for growth, and were expected to support and compliment the world of the men in their life, that role was rarely reciprocal. I know from the stories in my own family history, as well as that of others, the staggering amount of women, generation after generation after generation, who lived in frustration, angry at the tiny world they were deemed to need. Many of them more sharply aware that they were more talented, more ener...

Illustration: Roxanne Lasky. Migration. Hireath So many creative individuals come to work with textiles, some briefly integrating the discipline within their larger mixed media work, others looking for some significance that they feel that textiles can bring them. Artists can drift into textiles through seeming coincidence, others with a more defined purpose.  Fine artists in particular often seem drawn to textiles as a medium in which they feel comfortable. It seems to give them a means in which to express themselves more clearly, more empathically, it gives them a subtlety of colour and texture, and perhaps more importantly, it gives them a means to express themselves emotionally. Illustration: Roxanne Lasky. Tidal 1 Illustration: Roxanne Lasky. Tidal 1  (detail) The artist Roxanne Lasky came to textile art through fine art painting, she originally expressed herself through watercolour and oils. It is not hard to see elements of that fine art discipline in Roxanne's work, sh...

Illustration: Martin Ebrey. Moby Dick . Running along on the general theme of the Inspirational magazine, inspiring and aspiring others, I thought that it might be nice to feature one of the many artists that have recently come into the creative arts.  Many of these individuals come into the creative arts for a range of reasons, running from redundancy and retirement, restlessness and disillusionment with the norm, to seeking new and better horizons, a way of becoming the authentic individual that they always knew they were meant to be. Illustration: Martin Ebrey. Archangel Orifiel . Many come from strictly non-creative backgrounds, though to be fair there is little in our lives that cannot be counted as creative in some form or another. Many have no formal training, many in fact have never been near an art college before. However, that is not necessarily a good or bad thing, it often depends on the projection and perspective of the individual. Many creative individuals thrive in a...

Illustration: Andrea Vail. Gained (LOST) Opportunity , 2010. The work of artist Andrea Vail is dedicated to, and uses a number of formats, disciplines and traditional crafts. Common themes run through her varied work which are as significant and fundamental as the history of our species. Memory, the layers of time and the significance of objects imbued with personality and a fundamental symbolism are an integral part of her work and guide us through a variety of everyday and abstract ideas, which in turn give us perhaps a sense of our belonging within the timeframe of the environment and that of our species.   Although Vail's work covers a number of themes and ideas, it is perhaps as well to pick out one of those themes, to follow a strand of thought in some ways. A good example would be that of the simple key. A key in its own right is merely a tool made of metal in order to lock and unlock a mechanism. However, this simple but iconic tool has gradually become imbued with our...

Illustration: Karen Stiehl Osborn. Midpoint . The mixed media artist Karen Stiehl Osborn works in a range of mediums with a large selection of raw materials that can include canvas, cheesecloth, string, paper, paint, ink, dyes and threads, many of which can and are included within the same composition. This broad use of mediums, materials and working practice is at the heart of mixed media itself. By its very nature a mixed media artist is one that can take a fairly wide-spectrumed view of both the world around them and the creative aspect in particular. Layering and juxtapositioning of complementary and often conflicting materials and subjects become familiar and creatively inspiring. This is the case with the work of Stiehl Osborn who has taken the natural tendencies of mixed media to a level that she has made her own. Illustration: Karen Stiehl Osborn. Delmar #5 to 15 . In a series of compositional explorations, the artist has investigated, through her wide-ranging materials base, t...

Illustration: Judith Plotner. Adirondack Journal I. Many creative journeys are supremely private; others less so, many are degrees in between. The work of textile and mixed media artist Judith Plotner, although largely falling into the former category, can still be considered purely as an example of the rich world that can be composed from the elements that go to make up a mixed media base. Illustration: Judith Plotner. Slate Valley. Plotner uses the broad spectrum of the creative arts, bringing into her compositions the sensibilities of a fine art painting background, as well as that of printmaking, collage and textiles. The great strength of mixed media is the fact that layering and juxtapositioning can be achieved not only with the raw materials available within the different mediums, but also with that of mediums themselves. It is always fascinating to observe how sometimes a medium can complement another, while at other times the opposite can be both the aim and result. This can c...

Illustration: Jette Clover. White Wall 1 , 2009. The work of the textile and mixed media artist Jette Clover deals with the graffiti of life. She has chosen to represent the visual language of the human species through the use of the written, rather than that of the spoken language. This is an important point to make, particularly as the written word becomes evermore increasingly vital to the everyday running of our contemporary world. However, although written language itself is relatively new in comparison to the age of the human species as a whole, representational markers of our presence have long been seen as a necessary part of our lives. Whether writing with recognised lettering, pictograms or other symbols, all are representations of both the individual and the culture they inhabited. It is this recognition of the potential of the individual through mark-making in whatever fashion, which seems to be at the heart of these particular pieces of textile work. Illustration: Jette Cl...

Illustration: Rayna Gillman. Kaddish. In this particular series of artwork pieces textile and mixed media artist Rayna Gillman appears to deal in fragments of generational memories. These are often physically overlaid in her work and can sometimes resemble a collaged and annotated journey. However, there is always more than one way to tell a story, even a fragmented one and Gillman's work gives us a creative glimpse of the magnitude of what has been lost and the fragile nature of what little has been saved. All the examples shown here of Gillman's work seem connected to the idea of the transitory nature of human life. They give an indication of how tantalising are the memories of past generations and how, in time, they become little more than so much scattered detritus with very few, if any connections to the contemporary world that they helped to produce and in which we inhabit. Illustration: Rayna Gillman. Cacophony. It is the casualness of recent generations, twinned with th...