Touch Me

It was so obvious. Touch. The one thing artists don't usually let people do. Even artists that work with textiles because of their tactile qualities. We hang our art on walls along with a 'do not touch' signs. At best invigilators' wearing white gloves will carefully lift the bottom of an art quilt to show the stitching on the back.

So I decided to make work that not only was going to be touchable but would be interesting to touch. I had so many ideas for making a series of pieces each with a different feel. Fluffy, bumpy, smooth, spikey, hard, soft. But life got in the way and I only had time to complete one piece.

I took some of my printed fabrics and applied a coat of Liquitex Gloss Medium & Varnish in order to stiffen them. I then cut them up and stitched row after row of pieces to both sides of a quilt made from two layers of black cloth and an acrylic wadding. The pieces were flat at this stage but soon curled up of their own accord. The finished double sided piece is 10 x 15inches. It is very robust. It is designed to be hung a few inches away from a wall so that people can scrunch it up!