Marja-Leena Rathje

This little news item in Stone Pages caught my eye and really piqued my interest:

Exhibition: Spirits of the Stones
“A touring exhibition by Annabel Carey of batiks featuring stone circles in England, Scotland and Wales, which began at the Marischal Museum, Aberdeen in November 2003 reaches the Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro (England) for an exhibition running until May 13.

     The work shown here is the result of a 20-year project, Spirit of the Stones. This has resulted in more than 50 batiks celebrating prehistoric stone circles and tombs of the British Isles, many of which are here in Cornwall. Annabel said of her work: “I used the medium of batik as it seemed to offer me a wide range of expression to capture the essence of each monument. By exhibiting batiks from all regions together I hope to inspire and encourage other people to visit these monuments, some more than 5000 years old, and reflect on our ancient spiritual heritage.”

In the hopes of finding some images of Carey’s batiks, I did some searching and found the website for Royal Cornwall Museum but I’m disappointed that there’s only one small image shown. A couple of media statements at U of Aberdeen and in This is Cornwall give just a bit more information about the artist. Maybe some of my readers in the UK might have seen or will see this exhibition. If so, let me know what you think of it and if you find some images to share!

Now why did this pique my interest, you ask? Well, because of my interest in prehistoric stone circles, as most regular readers know, but also because I used to make batiks too.

Long ago when I was a high school art teacher and had just moved to a new job in northern British Columbia I learned that batiking was one of the optional art mediums in the program. I was unfamiliar with this but I was very lucky that my new friend and colleague, the textiles-home economics teacher in the classroom next to mine, knew the process and gave me a few lessons. I really enjoyed working together with the students, learning right along with them.

After my teaching years I continued to explore many media, especially batiking, trying to develop this craft into a serious art form. I stopped when I came back to printmaking. I still have some batik supplies stored away; now and then, like when reading about this exhibition, I get a little urge to do some again.

The image below is a detail of a lovely batik that our eldest daughter bought for us during a trip in Indonesia, where the technique originated. For information on batiking, visit Wikipedia for lots of good links to explore.

UPDATE March 7th: Following up on a suggestion in the comments below, I emailed Valeri of dyeing 2 sew, because she lives in Cornwall. I told her about this show and expressed a hope that she might visit it and perhaps post some pictures on her blog. Valeri kindly did go see it, even took photos and blogged about her impressions along with several photos here plus more here. Go have a look! A big thank you, Valeri!!