 photo credit: Chris SmartUrban/Nature
After obtaining a Fine Arts degree in the early eighties, my understanding of paper and related media was further enhanced through two periods of long-term study in Japan in the mid to late eighties (supported by the Japan Foundation and the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust).
In 1991, I was given a joint award with South East Arts and the British Council to research art based organisations and community groups in Canada. I focused on those, which used re-cycled and found materials in their projects. Exchanges, talks and workshops remain an important part of my practice and more recently I have studied and worked in India and Australia.
I continue to develop my techniques, drawing and use of colour remain the foundation for all my work. The fragments of found materials are layered and mark the passing of time, the rituals of making (drawing, cutting, gathering materials, machining, sewing) acting as part of the narrative of the work.
My work relates to the natural and built world and the elements that make it up. I live in a house which edges on a park bringing the Urban and 'Nature' together. I like to make drawings, take photographs and gather found materials from within my footsteps as part of the regular journeys I make from my front door. The process of looking and recording helps to establish the environmental links between the built and 'natural' spaces as well as addressing issues of sustainable practice. I am interested in the open landscape, the shadows of marks made by man in the earth, the reflections in water and flooded fields, gardens and seasons changing.
I have a love-hate relationship with nature. I spend time outdoors as part of necessity as I do not drive. You experience the pull of the land in a very different way when walking on a cold winters day to a sunny afternoon. I like to think my work serves as a reminder of this connection to nature, the land and the urban spaces.
I am interested in recording the changes that might impact on the flora and landscape of South East of England and my adopted County, Kent. I am looking at political and social as well as climatic change. Recent flooding, as witnessed in the American South and the Tsunami in Japan, and its impressive physical changes to the landscape raises issues about our fragile relationship with the local and global environment. No one who has grown up in the flat Norfolk landscape as a child can fail to make connections between change and man's impact on the land through farming, building and use of world resources.
I am motivated by exchange with others as part of this process. I run workshops with schools and communities, using 'what is there', (natural and found materials) to create 'drawings' and 3d pieces with relevance to given situations, audiences and locations. I am open to looking at new approaches and encouraging others to investigate and develop their own ideas and their relationship to the land.
Link to interview with a student >>
Reviews
Cas Holmes has a down-to-earth approach to life and her art takes her on flights of fancy, which evoke folk cultures, traditions and mythology with an abandon which ignores all barriers. Sometimes figurative, sometimes wholly abstract she has an unerring faith in her feeling for her materials. Confidence pours from her work and with it a power and sophistication that brings to it an almost religious sensation of ancient wisdom revisited.
Her work is inevitably influenced by her visits to Japan but more as someone who would use that influence to reaffirm her own strengths. That is her originality.
Her materials are overwhelmingly organic and appear to have been given new life. Paper ages and crinkles with a will of its own and is made exquisitely into a Japanese style panels allowing light to pass through, or are incorporated into one of her unique quilted hangings. Behind it all there is a sense of grand design under the control of the artist. It is both decorative and rich in symbolism.
A sense of provocation displays her commitment to art as part of life and shows richly in her dedication to community projects into which she throws herself like an avenging demon.
Ralph Steadman
Cas Holmes is deeply moved by the stories of ordinary people's lives, the births, marriages and deaths; the diseases brought on by harsh working conditions and the way these hard facts are hidden from history, forgotten with the passing of time. Her work often contain snippets of text or discarded materials and objects that have associations or that conjure up memories. There is always a dialogue with the materials she uses. They bring their own history, which is woven into the work
Moira Vincentelli Review for Reflections exhibition
Cas Holmes is one of those artists who leaves you with a lot of questions. I was fortunate to spend a few days with her in several workshops that changed the way I look at textile art. There is no confusion over deciphering if her work is an art quilt. It isn't. It is textile art, stitched through layers of fabrics or paper, or cast off clothing or the discarded. There is no worrying over the oft regulated "stitched through three layers surrounded by a definitive binding."
Cas makes art. If it happens to reference the techniques of the quilter, it is coincidence- same brush, different painting. Her work has a primitive quality that wanders the earthly through the ethereal. Translucent layers of painted fabrics, collaged papers or stitched bits combine and then recombine across different series of her work. Cas sketches regularly. When we went to dinner, she sketched the restaurant interior. During a lunch break, she sketched the classroom venue and then later, on a group walk, she encouraged us all to do the same. She brings this quality to her thread painting- which is more thread sketching with frenetic stitch lines that capture movement and personality. The simplicity of her thread sketching brings a charm to her work and a sense of urgency; as if we need to look now to see a moment or thing before it is gone. This simplicity can also bring reassurance to any of us- to say that we need not worry about the perfection of every line of stitching. In this medium, we can cast off the yoke of perfectly spaced, even stitching and embrace the moment of "doing."
Deborah Bates Stitchstress 2010
For students who are researching textile artists and any one else
who may be interested ...
Frequently asked questions
How did you first become interested in textiles and start working
with them?
My textile training is all self-taught. I hit on a method of
destroying and reconstruction when painting over a previously
painted canvas as part of an art project at college. The original
image kept coming through, and in frustration I ripped up the canvas.
I looked at it and said, 'Oh, this is more exciting.' I thought the
substance of the canvas was more important than what was on it. As
resources and finances grew tight I started to experiment with waste
paper and fabric for surfaces to work on, the next logical stage to
make larger works was to piece them together somehow and stitch
seemed the most obvious way. I was also fortunate in having Janis
Jefferies, former head of textiles at Goldsmiths College London as a
personal tutor and she really got me started on the journey
questioning my media and its links with women, home, craft and the
broader art world.
What is your main source of inspiration - what gave you the idea to
work with textiles and paper combined?
My statement is pretty clear on that. I hated textiles and sewing at
home. Dreaded memories of cross-stitch aprons in primary school, so
was not a good student in my youth and had no one in the family who
worked with textiles. However, my father went to Norwich Art School
in the 1940s and whilst very much a working man all his life, his
training in sign writing and house decoration gave me insight to
marvellous wallpapers and other people's larger 'designed' houses
with wonderful paintings and objects when I went to help him decorate. This
must have had some influence early on. There were also a few odd
mementoes my dad had bought back with him from his National Service
days from leave in Hong Kong and Japan, paper wrapping, photo albums
which were quite different to anything else we had in our house.
This fired my enthusiasm to go to Japan in the early eighties where
a whole world of paper and textile art opened up before me.
How do you make your pieces?
To create my pieces I use mostly low-tech techniques and found
materials. These are dyed, printed with household emulsion paint and
at times to age fabrics, I bury them in the back yard. I use other
mediums of transferring such as sun-printing dyes, but refuse to
speed up the process with heat lamps, waiting patiently instead for
a hot, sunny day. I also use digital imagery, but alter the photo by
transferring them rather than editing them with computer software.
I'm not interested in the perfect print.
A big part of my work is the human connection. Many of the textiles
and papers I use are written accounts of family memories and cast-off sheets and clothing. I'm interested in the history of these
fabrics, what we do with them. Sheets, clothing - the familiarity we
have in our own life.
I gather all the elements together - paste, dyed tissue, altered
fibres, and so on - and build up layers as I would a painting. I then
cut up the layers to see what's underneath. This is then worked with
further paint and machine stitching and then did I mention? I may
take away some more.
How do you record things? Do you keep a sketchbook?. Are all
your quilts neatly planned or do you also work on intuition?
I mainly evolve ideas as response to environments, situations and
stories. None of my pieces are neatly planned, the sketch books are
like a diary, marking progress and change of things as I make things
and a work visual record of ideas. The visuals are not plans of
pieces I later make but an expression of thought process I am making
which can lead to developing pieces. They are not textile designs in
the formal sense. There is a lot of intuition, a response to
materials and the given environment in the pieces. Any student who
has attended my courses can vouch for that. It's a recording of the
'creative flow'.
A section in my book refers to this process as 'Magpie of the Mind'.
Much of your time is spent working in the community and producing
site-specific installations. That must be a challenge. How did you
get into that ?
During my last year in college, I did some voluntary work at the
local hospital and enjoyed getting others involved in creativity. To
say I drifted into community work would be misleading. You have to
believe in what you are doing and the right for people to be
creative to undertake the work. Working with different projects and
regular teaching form a major part of my creative professional life.
It keeps me firmly grounded and encourages a continual challenge of
ideas.
With any longer term project, I visit first and find out where the
interest lies. The first two/three sessions give participants a
chance to try things out and put their ideas into the circle. I
never design the piece in these situations but see what happens and,
if a group piece, gradually form a framework for putting things
together. It is more risky, but allows for real creative thinking.
This has been a very positive process. People I work with often have
disabilities but that has in no way limited their involvement. It is
just about finding a way through ... and being prepared to take a
step back and listen.
I also work on shorter term, one- or two-day projects in schools and
educational centres. The focus for these is on use of found
materials. This in turn, also develops an awareness of environmental
issues. Everything I do in my community work has another reference - to be more resourceful. Making artwork with perceived waste can be
fun, it also makes you think. I have global concerns about the
environment, but have to start locally.
Examples of community projects can be seen on my website.
What messages do you hope to convey through your works?
My works have a narrative quality to them and work on different levels, they are often described as 'decorative' with a history. Using recycled and vintage fabrics and found materials creates a sense of age or atmosphere conveying a past history. Those who view my work are open to interpret my pieces in their own way but they do seem to 'get' the essence of the pieces.
What are your plans for the future of your art practice?
I continue to collaborate and exhibit with others as well as work on site-specific commissions. I am particularly interested in working with performers and writers. I also enjoy the challenge of working on more personal commissions incorporating materials donated by the sponsor.
If you could sum up your work in just one sentence, what would you say?
Mixed media textiles, fragments and layers mark the passing of time, the rituals of making (cutting paper, gathering materials, machining, sewing) act as part of the narrative of the work.
See Exhibitions & Events for further details and
www.casholmestextiles.co.uk
www.axisartists.org/artist/casholmes |
