WORK | rippengale

Living in the city, longing for the sea...

Artist's statement:

"Cornwall is home to my fondest memories and strongest associations. My Grandmother taught me to crochet when I was young and I’ve done it on and off all my life. I whittle crochet hooks from driftwood and crochet colour-scapes of the beaches from which they came. I work with the idea that the driftwood reveals its ‘memory’ of the beach through its unique properties; Sticks from the same beach vary in size and wood type and this affects the way the hooks work and what yarn / thread works well with them. The same beach will look different across the seasons, across the days; I could spend a year on my favourite beach and not exhaust its potential.

Through the generosity of friends and strangers, I am gathering a collection of driftwood and photographs of beaches from around the coast of Britain.

I am using crochet as a medium for exploring our coast, which I have been separated from, but which has sculpted me. I will see the coast through the eyes of others, those people who collaborate will accidentally (or purposefully) provide me with their own private view of their coast, through the photos they choose to provide, and the driftwood they choose to send."

Portwrinkle 2

This piece uses three strands of embroidery thread and the Tunisian style of crochet to create a seascape. Using three threads simultaneously allows for careful colour shifts and different stitches create texture and differentiate between shingle and sea.

Portwrinkle 1

This piece uses mohair and silver thread crocheted to create a seascape. The individual fibres of the yarn fill the gaps between the stitches, creating a series of unique shadings in what is otherwise a fairly regular pattern.

Portwrinkle 3

This piece uses a number of different yarns and the Tunisian style of crochet to create a seascape. It is as much about the weather as it is the sea; visiting the beach in a storm, trying to see the sea through mist and rain, picking out the rocks and the outcrop of land along the next bay. Stubbornly finding moments of colour through the clouds.

Rhossilli, Wales

Sparkling sun making the sea shine, sleek wet sand at the shoreline gradually becoming dry and soft.

Bradwell-on-Sea 2

This piece uses a gradient yarn and the slip stitch style of crochet to create a seascape. This small scrap of driftwood - merely two inches long, was one of only two pieces I found on a visit to Bradwell-on-Sea. As the day faded the sun turned the sea a peachy silver, a sliver of which this hook was able to describe.

Whitsand Bay

Runnels of water in the sand, three dimensional white horses.

Dungeness 1

Night walk to the shore, torchlight casting its glow on the moment where sea meets land.

Lyme Regis

Early evening, pearlescent sky casting pink reflections onto the sea.

Ramsgate

Mechanical white horse decribed by a driftwood pencil.