invitation to an exhibition

 

Have been sending mass emails today inviting everyone I can think of to my show which opens on Thursday 1st May – come and join us for a glass of wine.

official invite below…

By the banks of the River Lea

2nd May – 11th May

private view 1st May 6pm – 8.30pm

11am – 4pm every day
(closed Monday May 5th and Tuesday May 6th)

The House Mill Gallery
Three Mill Lane
Bromley-by-Bow
London E3 3DU

(nearest tube Bromley-by-Bow)
http://www.housemill.org.uk

An exhibition of woven textiles

Over the Autumn of 2013 weaver Ali Holloway walked the length of the River Lea from its source in Bedfordshire to where it eventually joins the River Thames at Limehouse. Documenting her experience with photographs, drawings and a blog she has used the medium of woven cloth to recall the colours, textures, moods and rhythm of the walk.

A journey lends itself to the process of weaving, in this mechanical act the progress of a thread can be followed as it traverses the warp on the loom, back and forth, under and over, slowly revealing a bigger picture.

This river walk is a discovery of forgotten corners and an attempt to find mystery in the terrain of the familiar.

 

back by the river

Hello Dandy – my favourite name for a boat – ever.

A swan’s nest – so big.

Boobs.

Sunshine seen from under the dark bridge.

sheds and huts

for boats, tools and general stuff…

todays weaving…

untamed margins

As the River Lea travels down through suburbia to the city it forms a kind of green corridor and provides some breathing space,  a pause for thought, in the dense urban sprawl of North East London. Looking at the map one can see very clearly how the river forms a kind of clearing in the city, a ribbon of relatively undeveloped land, which is either protected as open space or is reserved for industrial use. This has created areas of ‘unofficial countryside’, sheep graze on the grassy banks of the reservoirs in Enfield, marshes and meadows flourish as do patches of rough grassland, scrubland and woodland. The Lea valley Park, as this long stretch of land is called, connects the rural to the urban.

This river has always acted as a boundary, in the distant past between pre-Roman tribal territories and then later its valley formed the frontier between Alfred the Greats land and the Danelaw and it still performs its ancient role as a boundary between Essex and Hertfordshire. As the river travels down into London this length of water with its green borders marks a boundary between North and East London, between Enfield and Epping, Edmonton and Chingford, Tottenham and Walthamstow.

Here a different kind of world is allowed to flourish, the river margins are a kind of desultory space, a thin sliver of untamed land which exists along the rivers edge.