Slough Strata

First (and second) thoughts and feelings:

• Childhood memories of reluctant shopping trips
• Getting lost among the out-of-town trading estates on the way home from visiting friends
• Museum displays of ancient archaeological finds showing the original rural inhabitants of the area
• 19th/20th century industrial expansion including brick making
• Constant change, re-invention
• Nothing -> something -> lots
• Simple -> complex
• Layers of history

Leading to a few ideas:

Layers of building materials – stone of original houses, churches, castle -> brick built houses and offices -> grey tiles of trading estates. Tried it on computer and on paper but too heavy and not enough colour/tonal changes. Described what I was doing with some textile friends (friends interested in textiles not friends made out of textiles!) and they suggested a sheer layer with the ‘stones’ appliqued on. That got me thinking about what to put behind the sheers.

Set into a sea of green countryside – maybe a layer of green at under the sheers to suggest the countryside around Slough.!
When we are gone the fields and trees will still be there.

Current plan (subject to change and/or a complete re-think):

Background: Hand dyed green and brown fabrics in traditional log cabin piecing but with some of the seams on the right side.

Middle: patchwork of cream and grey sheers, possibly fused together rather than stitched.

Top: fabric stones, bricks and tiles appliqued to the sheer layer. Weighted by real flint stones sewn into pockets at the bottom of the sheers.

Shape and size: long and thin approx. 1.5m by 45cm