Inside Out – New Exhibition – Hanging Day.

Today is setting up day for INSIDE out, our new exhibition which opens tomorrow at the Sam Scorer Gallery in Lincoln.  We would love to see you there.

Members of the group will be at the gallery every day from tomorrow 14th May through to Sunday 26th May, and the gallery is open from 10am to 5pm every day including Sundays.  If you want to meet all of us, (well almost all of us), then come along on Saturday 18th May between 2pm and 4pm to Meet The Artists.

We have all been busy developing the ideas that were generated for our exhibition in the garden at Easton last summer, and we have a whole new body of work to present to you based on a garden theme.  Screen printing, felting, stitched textiles, mixed media, and more, feature in our colourful new work.

Here is a little preview to whet the appetite.

Joan Richardson’s Sentinel

Liz Welch’s Talking But Not Talking

Jean Copsey’s Roots and Seeds

Judith Burnett’s Alliums or Aliens?

Liz Welch’s It Takes All Sorts

Sally Malloy’s Leaf Litter

Once again we will have CDs of the exhibition (£5) available to buy along with hand made cards and postcards.

See you there!

Reaction to Nolitex at the NEC

Despite the awful weather, those that managed to get to the NEC for Fashion Embroidery and Stitch and see our Out There exhibition were delighted with what they saw.  here are just a few of the comments left in our book:

“Best in Show”  Hilary, Shropshire

“What wonderful fun, it made me smile”  Jenny G.

“An excellent display”  Mrs Hammond

“Inspirational display – like the idea of displaying pieces in a garden”  Anne S

“Beautiful and inspirational art that celebrates art in the open air” M Deering

“Brilliant – love the colour and scale and wit”  Sue T

“Love it all.  The glove plants – fantastic idea.  The clock, amazing.  Great use of upcycling – the Chinese lanterns,  I have often wondered what to do with fruit nets.  Fab”  Svena B

“This is absolutely fabulous and inspirational work.”  Sandra S

Janet Wain’s The Gardners.  Sadly, these would not fit into our stand at the NEC, but the vibrant colour and scale epitomise the exhibition.

If you would like a CD of the exhibition as it was at Easton Walled Gardens then please email Lizwelch@rarebird.ltd.uk.  The CDs cost £5 and contain more than 90 images of the work in situ as well as information on the artists an their thoughts behind their work.

We are following on from Out There with InsideOut, a new body of work which is a development from our work for Out There.  We open at the Sam Scorer Gallery in Lincoln on 14th May for two weeks.  Mark it in your diary!

Out There at the NEC

Find us at M10 in the Fashion Embroidery and Stitch section of the show, the bit with the yellow carpet.

Getting the outside stuff inside, proved to be a challenging task, but I think that we managed it pretty well.  Sadly the space would not allow for everything to go up, but we have a good representation of the exhibition on the stand.  This is as we left it on Wednesday, setting up day at Fashion Embroidery and Stitch.  Nolitex’s Out There exhibition, inside the hangar that is the NEC.

Mary Whittaker was very keen to get a low shot of Janet Wain’s “Walk The Garden” (aka “The Little People”) with the back drop of the outsize photos of the work as it was in situ at Easton Walled Gardens.

Judith Burnett thought it would be a great idea to take a shot of Mary taking a shot of Judith with another photographic backdrop depicting Judith’s “Woolyhocks” in the flower beds at Easton Walled Garden.  I was just amused by the pair of them.

Kate Pike, our chairman, Mary, Judith and I (Liz Welch) were the setting up team, ably assisted by the ladder and hammer wielding Graham and John (husbands of Mary and Kate).  As we had started really early (do you detect a degree of reluctance to get out of bed on a cold and windy morning?) we managed to finish in good time to get home in time for supper.  When we left in the late afternoon, some people had not even begun to set up their stands.

Judith, Kate and I were back at the NEC on Thursday for the opening day, and we saw a steady flow of people on the stand, all a little bit amazed by the idea of textiles and mixed media in the garden getting very wet and very blown about (August 2012 was a dreadful month for wind and rain).

If the snow has not deterred too many people from making the journey to Birmingham this weekend, I think we will be able to report  a large footfall, much interest and a lot of very pleased and inspired visitors.  I am back at the NEC tomorrow, Sunday, and will be on the stand most of the day, except for an hour at lunchtime when I will be demonstrating on the Jewellery Maker TV stand E28  in the Hobbycrafts section of the show.

See you there.

Liz Welch

Nolitex Exhibition in Virtual Print

A new on line magazine called My Creative Diva will be featuring Nolitex and our recent exhibition Out There in their upcoming issue available on the 10th March. Joan Gordon (past editor of Making Jewellery Magazine)  is the inspiration behind this title and it spans lots of different creative areas. You can check out this new and innovative magazine and see back issues for free if you are quick.

Don’t forget to come and see us at the NEC 21st – 24th March on ZM10

Textile and Mixed Media Exhibition by Nolitex Went Down a Storm

Seed Packets
Judith Burnett

OutThere, our latest textile and mixed media exhibition at Easton Walled Garden in August went down a storm.  I could mean this quite literally as the weather was so dreadful for much of the time, but everything survived and looked fantastic in the garden setting.

The Watchers
Liz Welch

Here are a few of the lovely things people had to say about OutThere:

“I am blown away!!! What an amazing idea to exhibit textiles outdoors – I loved the walk – searching for the works – inspirational throughout!!! Thank you”

“…Absolutely beautiful.  Imagination and skill rolled into one – glorious!!”

“What a wonderful exhibition inspired by these lovely gardens and inspiring others.  A great concept and realisation” 

“Fabulous experience, enjoying the connection between the gardens and the textiles….”

Walk The Garden
Janet Wain

We used every part of the garden and visitors needed to walk all around it to find all of the pieces.  Some were obvious, others needed you to look a little harder.

If you like this then when you go to Hobbycraft, Fashion Embroidery and Stitch and Sewing For Pleasure at the NEC from March 21st – 26th 2013 you will have a chance to see a few of these pieces up close and personal.

Grasses
Jean Copsey

Nolitex has a stand (ZM10, not too far from the Fashion Show stage).  We will be bringing a small selection of work from OutThere,  Sadly we can’t bring too much as the pieces are large and the stand is not!  But it will be a variety, and it will be worth seeing.

The White Wood
Mary Whittaker

There will be cards and portfolio pieces for sale as well as a CD of images of all the pieces in the exhibition in situ, as they were at Easton Walled Garden. Close up images and overall pictures, along with words from each artist about their work.  All for £5 – excellent value.  If you can’t go, but would still like a CD of OutThere, then please email lizwelch@rarebird.ltd.uk

Sulehay Wood
Sally Malloy

Do come and visit us on the stand, we would love to see you.We can also tell you about our new exhibition InsideOut which is a development from OutThere, with new work based upon the ideas and pieces that we exhibited at Easton Walled Garden. InsideOut will open at the Sam Scorer Gallery, 5 Drury Lane, Lincoln, LN1 3BN on 14th May for 2 weeks.  You would be most welcome to come and Meet The Artists on Saturday 18th May in the afternoon.

Digitalis Fanciflora
Liz Welch

Out There – Looking Good

 

Lady Cholmeley with the 9 members of Nolitex in the Stable Yard on Sunday 19th August, a swelteringly hot and still day for  Meet The Artists.

Despite the challenging weather since we set up the exhibition at Easton Walled Gardens 10 days ago, everything is pretty much still in place, and still looking good.  There are only  a few days left to see the exhibition now, Thursday, Friday, Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday, so get your skates on.

Above are Judith Burnett’s Seed Packets in the vegetable garden, vintage style packets painted and stitched and sited perfectly.

A young taker for Sally Malloy’s make and take felting table

Liz Welch’s Digitalis Fanciflora “Red Hot Embers”, just one of 19 new specimens of a very rare plant indeed. If you look carefully you will see that they are all made out of recycled gloves.

Janet Wain’s Walk The Garden is a glorious collection of little people swaying and moving in the wind, keeping an eye on everything in the garden.

Visitors to the Gardens considering Digitalis Fanciflora, perhaps they are enjoying some of the fanciful pseudo Latin names such as “Mittenensis” or  “Marigoldii”.

The Group Piece “Petals In The Wind” is being added to by members of the public, it drifts and floats gently in the breeze from branches and twigs, resembling Wisteria and Laburnum.

Fingers crossed for some kinder weather for the rest of the exhibition, it has certainly given us food for thought in designing for an outside space.

For those who can’t get to the exhibition, we have a CD catalogue of all the pieces in the exhibition in close up and with overall images, plus information from each artist about their work.  These are available for £5 from Liz Welch  rarelizzie@hotmail.co.uk.

Out There – 15th – 27th August 2012

Out There

15th 27th August

Easton Walled Gardens

Grantham, Lincs

Open Weds, Thurs, Fri, Sat, Sun & Bank Holidays.

Normal entrance fees apply

You are invited to Meet The Artists on Sunday 19th August  11am – 4pm

The June meeting of Nolitex was an exciting event – it was Selection Day for the work being entered into our latest exhibition Out There.  We expanded from our normal meeting room into the big hall and began to fill all the tables and walls with fantastic colour, texture and form.  Everyone carefully unwrapping their pieces and revealing the fruits of their creativity ready for the selection process to begin.

The variety of work is wonderful; the inspirations are drawn from Easton Walled Gardens, their history and the people who make up its past and present. The execution involves giant bamboo poles, larger than life human-shaped cut outs, bunting, oversized leaves, knitted paper, textile books, giant seed packets, screen printing, and all manner of things involving recycling acetate, fruit and veg bags, gloves and sticks etc.

Lady Ursula Cholmeley from Easton Walled Gardens came to see the work that she would be hosting, and was most interested in finding out about it all.  In the photo above she is looking at one of Mary Whitaker’s books with Mary.

The tables were groaning with all the work laid out for everyone to see.

The impact of colour, and a sense of joyfulness was what struck me most when I walked into the hall.  You can’t help but be excited at the prospect of seeing all this work in the outdoor setting that inspired it.  All the pieces will be displayed in the gardens, open to the elements; and affected by them too.  However, it would be really nice to have one or two sunny summer days instead of all the rain we have been having!