Learn techniques for using fine metal shim, metal fabrics, paints, fibres, fabrics and papers combined with machine and hand stitch as honed by Alysn over many years in her international art practice and books. These techniques will be used in conjunction with the inspiring patterns and layers in geological formations as your pattern source. 

You will experiment with needle felting, hand and machine stitching, scrunching, pleating, painting, burning and more with metal and other materials such as chiffon, silk and Lutradur to create surfaces based on the rocks and geology around us. This gives the opportunity to get to grips with metal, metal mesh and some straightforward design and practical techniques used by contemporary textile artists. From these practice pieces you will create a textured hanging or a sculpture.

Don’t panic if you are not familiar with any of the materials and techniques, Alysn will skilfully lead you through the learning process to a special, individual work of art to take away at the end of the week.

Alysn Midgelow-Marsden is an Auckland based artist with a northern European heritage.

Wall-based and sculptural forms are based on metals, fibres, textiles and stitch. She follows no specific traditions but rather is driven by curiosity about the human psyche, about science and about the social stereotypes of textiles and stitch.

It is a practice with an invitation to create pleasurably intimate connections to personal experiences through subconscious and viscerally emotive interactions and is marked visually by a complex, lyrical fluidity.

Her current works are generated from her proximity to the coast and the marine environment. They explore this through fabric, wire, wood and plastics.

Recent awards for selected exhibitions include: Mandurah Wearable Art (Australia) for ‘What Lies Beneath’; ‘Wall Brooches II’, (Australia) for ‘Taniwha’; ‘Changing Threads’ Nelson Arts ‘Bernina Award’ for ‘The Space Between VII’.