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Hawthorne & Heaney for Asceno London

February 20, 2019 by Natasha Searls-Punter

Embroidered monograms are a lovely touch to add to a luxuirious item and London based sleepwear brand ‘Asceno’ are for sure the experts in this.

For some time now, we have been working with Asceno to add that personal touch to your garments. Here are a few examples of some of the pieces that we have produced

Fancy getting your initials on some beautiful silk pyjamas? Head over to their website to peruse all their lovely items and options that you can have or check out their instagram for sleepwear inspiration.

All Images courtesy of @ascenolondon

Hawthorne & Heaney visits the Sunbury Embroidery Gallery

February 7, 2019 by Natasha Searls-Punter

It is safe to say that there are not that many places around that can say that they are a gallery dedicated to embroidery, but The Sunbury Embroidery Gallery is one of those few. Located in the very quaint Lower Sunbury in Middlesex, this collection of traditional embroidery makes for a highlight in an already lovely bit of the world. Only 3 miles down the river from Hampton Court (where the Royal School of Needle Work is) makes this area a bit of the stitching hotspot.

The gallery is situtated within a historic walled Garden, displaying a collection of work celebrating the local area and commemorating the Millennium. All the work was completed in the year 2000 by 140 local embroiderers taking around 100,000 hours, all overseen by Pam Judd.

In the body of the village panel, a great variety of thread and stitches have been used to build up the effect. Silk shading and french knots are widely used, with some parts stitched separately and applied on later in a stumpwork style giving the piece more depth.

On either side of the village panel are 120 tent stitched community logos showing the supporting organisations such as Spelthorne council. Along side the permenant embroidery exhibit, they have temporary exhibits from other artists such as the current exhibit Jason Hart: A Passion for Wood and Carol Naylor: A Stitched Timeline which goes on display from 26th Feb 2019.Though the gallery may be small, it is a lovely example of community spirit in the form of traditional embroidery.Open Tuesday- Sunday 10am-4pm, admission is free though donations are welcome as it is run by volunteers.The Sunbury Gallery, Walled Garden, Thames Street, Sunbury on Thames, Middx, TW16 6AB

Hawthorne & Heaney for Miss World

January 25, 2019 by Natasha Searls-Punter

Once in a while, a job comes along that doesn’t really feel like it was real. One such recent job was making the Miss World sash for 2018’s contest.

It’s fair to say that it has got to be the most prestigious of beauty pagents, so we were very pleased to see 2018’s winner Vanessa Ponce de Leon from Mexico wearing the sash.

Up close, the sash is made of silk dupion with a scattering of swarovski crystals across it and a delicate silver chain. The lettering is in a metallic blue with a silver finish that adds to the shine when it is on stage.

We look forward to seeing what wonderful things this worthy winner gets up to in the coming year.

Hawthorne & Heaney visits Anni Albers at Tate Modern

January 21, 2019 by Intern

Six Prayers (1966-7)

Anni Albers (1899- 1994) was a leading innovator of 20th Century modernist abstraction. Her work combined the ancient craft of weaving with the ideas and styles of modern art. She was a lady of many trades: an artist; a designer; teacher and a writer. The exhibition explores different aspects of her life: how her work transitions and evolved as she experienced new things as well as the processes she used to develop her ideas about textiles.

Anni Albers’s eight-harness Sructo-Artcraft 750 loom (Date unknown, wood and metal)

Her career and passion for weaving started when she began her studies at the Bauhaus (Weimar, Germany). It was her that she met her husband Josef Albers. They emigrated to the US (after the rise of Nazism in Germany resulted in the closer of the Bauhaus) where they both became teachers at the Black Mountain College in North Carolina.

Development in Rose II (1952- Linen)

This piece has a subtle colour palette with black used to creates accents within the weave. Lots of texture is created with small twists and knots throughout. These are achieved using a technique known as leno or gauze weave; the vertical warp threads twist over each other around the horizontal weft threads.

Top left to bottom right: Anni Albers and Alexander Reed: Necklace (c.1940- plastic rings on black grosgrain ribbon), Necklace (c.1940- Bobby pins on metal-plated chain), Necklace (c1940/88 reconstruction of the original made by Mary Emma Harris, Eye hooks and pearls on thread), Necklace (c.1940s- Aluminium washers and red grosgrain ribbon).

An interesting section of the exhibit was a glass box filled with wonderful jewellery creations by Anni and a colleague, Alexander Reed. The necklaces shown at the exhibition feature everyday objects such as bobby pins or metal washers. These pieces take items that are mundane and turn them into something unique and sophisticated. Anni Albers was definitely ahead of the times with her inventive ideas, clearly demonstrated here!

Open Letter (1958, cotton)

Featuring a wide range a weaving techniques, Open Letter is a striking monochrome piece. Accents of red are dispersed throughout, breaking up the linework that is similar to zentangling that is seen throughout illustration work popular today. Each column of the piece is constructed from little bars, each with their own personality and style.

Dotted (1959, wool)

This piece was among many ‘pictorial weavings’, created as artwork to be hung as opposed to fabric for everyday use. Utilising an ancient technique, Anni was able to create bobbles on the weave surface. The gradient of colour and the scattered placement of the dots results in a highly textured, playful piece of work.

Intersecting (1962, Cotton and rayon)

Using only four colours for the plain weave ground, a floating thread has been used to create a raised brocade effect. The unplanned nature of these threads was very pleasing to view; the organised base with the random thread creates a visual oxymoron. Work similar to this one stemmed from drawings of knots, tangled lines and mark making that Anni Albers created.

Overall, the exhibition was an excellent glimpse into the creative-mind and thought process of a lady who was an innovator, ahead of her time. This is not a display to be missed, if you get the chance to see it as it closes soon!

By Amy Pickard. All photos by Amy Pickard.

Exhibition Details:

Anni Albers Exhibition

11th Oct 2018- 27th Jan 2019

Tate Modern

53 Bankside, London SE1 9TG

Open:

Sundays to Thursdays: 10:00- 18:00

Fridays to Saturdays: 10:00- 22:00

Ticket Pricing:

Adults £18 / Concessions & Student £17

See the Tate Modern website for further discounted tickets and details.

Hawthorne & Heaney on Crests

January 16, 2019 by Natasha Searls-Punter

Looking through our portfolio, there are lots of lovely examples of family crests in both hand and machine. These are usually in quite a traditional style with the sort of imagery you would expect from this sort of historical imagery; lions andleaves, scrolls and mantels. Every now and then, we get a customer that comes to us because they want to bend the ‘rules’ a little, and with the nature of bespoke ordering, you can do just that.

We had a lovely chap come into us with his design for a crest that he wanted to have embroidered onto a bathrobe for his father. The gift was to be presented to him on his 80th Birthday and so our customer wanted it to be extra special. Therefore he produced a design of his father’s favourite things and worked them into the crest.

Such a nice idea right?! What would you include?

Hawthorne & Heaney for Hasan Hejazi

January 11, 2019 by Natasha Searls-Punter

We are delving back into the archives to revisit this really fun project we worked on for designer Hasan Hejazi in 2012. We were asked to create baroque inspired tonal cut work for three bespoke luxury evening dresses for pop goddess Marina from Marina and the diamonds. The project included some exciting names including Tim Bret Day (Photography), Thomas Knights (Film) and a suit for the designer by London tailor Gresham Blake.

Our designs and drawings were based on victorian florid ornament something that is very good to translate to cut work. The initial designs and refining took a long time and the annotations and notes for the embroiderers even longer as there was so much detail involved.

The embroideries were executed in cutwork in colours to match the dresses with a fade to either lighter or darker. There were also a few crystals scattered about to add a bit of light.

The dresses were then put together over four days ready for the photo shoot.

Before the event we hadn’t seen any of the dresses, so we were very excited for the launch. The first we saw was the full length red piece which marina wore for her performance at the beginning of the night.

She then changed into the blue knee length dress which is our personal favourite !

The final pink dress was saved solely for the photo shoot, which you can see in the photos below. It was lovely to get a chance to flex our cutwork drafting muscles this thoroughly, so we are very grateful to Hasan for getting us involved ! A wonderful project all round.

Happy Christmas from Hawthorne & Heaney

December 21, 2018 by Natasha Searls-Punter

Just a note from all of us at Hawthorne & Heaney, wishing you a Happy Christmas and a great New Year.

We look forward to seeing you in 2019!

The studio is now closed until 4th Jan 2019, when we will be back as usual.

Hawthorne & Heaney Visits the Yayoi Kusama Exhibition

December 13, 2018 by Intern

The exhibition features new paintings, including works from the iconic My Eternal Soul series, painted bronze pumpkin and flower sculptures, and a large-scale Infinity Mirrored Room, created for this presentation, Kusama’s twelfth exhibition at the gallery.

Yayoi Kusama exhibition Victoria Miro: Infinity Mirrored Room, 2018

Upon arrival, we were ushered up a vertigo inducingly narrow staircase into a dark upstairs, after a brief queue, we were told that we will have 60 seconds in the Infinity Mirrored Room. Infinity Mirror Rooms are an iconic staple of Kusama’s repertoire of work; once these rooms open their doors to a new city, social media swiftly becomes inundated with these tiny universes of cosmic infinity. 60 seconds is nowhere near long enough to fully appreciate this all encompassing experience, however one cannot complain as the queue was but a fraction of the size of a theme park’s.

In the following room, we were greeted with the vision of three immense spotted pumpkin sculptures, another recurring theme in Kusama’s work. Accompanying the sculpture are paintings from the series ‘Dots Obsession’ and other polka dot dominated paintings, this is almost a real-time amalgamation of the whole body experience from the Infinity Room and the everyday life as we see it; fusing both installation and painting together to create a quasi-reality.

Once through this room, we were guided outside to step amongst three larger-than-life sculptures of childlike fantasy polka dotted flowers. Walking through this sculpture terrace feels like entering a scene from The Day of the Triffids, only on a sugar high. Kusama’s poignant hallucinations, for which her art is therapy, are clearly an inspiration for these gigantuan florals. Almost in correlation with Kusama’s rise to fame in recent years, has been the explosion of discussion around mental health and destigmatisation of mental illness.

The final room in the exhibition consisted of a wall of 20 square canvases presented edge to edge; each canvas shows a completely unique composition, we could gather no running theme in these paintings bar Kusama’s distinctive painting style. The sensation of feeling overwhelmed returns; each canvas portrays a keyhole insight into Kusama’s mind, thousands of tiny staring eyes wriggling around in the negative space upon the canvas surface. The shapes appear to move around your peripheral vision; as if they are slothing about when their guardian is not watching.

Our intern stood next to the paintings for some size reference!

We left the exhibition feeling satisfied that our pattern cravings have been satiated – for the meantime at least! Although small, the exhibition packed a mighty, colour filled punch. We’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for the next Kusama exhibition in London anytime soon and will be sure to let you know in advance!

Yayoi Kusama – The Moving Moment When I Went To The Universe Exhibition Visit

3 October – 21 December 2018

Free Timed Tickets, Currently Sold Out

Victoria Miro Gallery, 16 Wharf Road, N1 7RW

By Jessica Strain