A Sense of Place with Judith Burns

Judith Burns is a City and Guilds-trained textile designer and embroiderer, who makes textile art on Anaiwan and Gumbaynggir country in northern NSW. Her recent work focuses on ways to interpret and communicate geographical ideas through stitched textiles. An academic geographer, she has worked with First Nations communities around the Baaka/Darling River in western NSW for over thirty years, and the people-place connections she has been privileged to observe are a strong influence on her work.

Her studio practice is varied; current work involves interpreting place through dyeing, printing, layering and stitching translucent fabrics. She uses free motion machine embroidery to re-create landscapes, finding it liberating to use her machine “like a pencil or a paintbrush”, freely interpreting large scale features and surface textures.

Workshop Overview

This workshop will highlight some of Judith’s techniques. Students will learn how to interpret a landscape to evoke a sense of connection using layered dyed organza and stitch. You will use photographs that you have brought of your special place (a natural environment is good but we can work with an urban landscape if you prefer) to design a work that interprets your sense of place.

Guided exercises in brainstorming the things that make the place special, laying out the work as a whole and selecting colours from a range of supplied dyed organza to a colour scheme you design (with the opportunity to dye a few additional colours yourself) will give you the concepts and materials you need to move to the next step. You will cut, layer and fuse your dyed fabrics to form a ‘sandwich’ background.

Mark making in your sketchbook will lead to stitch sampling (free motion, hand stitching or a combination of both) to explore and represent surface textures at different scales, and then to working into the background with stitch to interpret the marks.

The end result will be a wall piece which communicates the meaning of a place you love.

Inspiration from Judith

What to bring:

• A full list of requirements will be sent to each participant prior to the workshop
• Note that some materials are included as part of the cost of the workshop

Please note:

• Workshop bookings are subject to our refund policy

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