Teaching is never a one-way process. I often learn things from my students – as they do from each other. It’s one of the most rewarding parts of the job.
On one of my coiling courses last year we were exploring how the technique can be used to create alternative forms. One of the students started by creating a flat pouch – but she then closed it by bringing the two edges together to create a pyramid shape.
This got me thinking about whether it would be possible to repeat this process in a longer structure to create a chain of pyramids.
Sample 1
The student had used soft cotton cord as the exposed core, stitched with embroidery thread. I reverted to my favourite core of copper wire and hemp, wrapped with linen thread. This allows me extra scope to manipulate the form, both as I go along and once the piece is finished.
Rather than pyramids, this initially resulted in fairly regular alternating interlinked horizontal and vertical circles. You can see these in the part of the sample closest to the camera in the photo above. This felt a bit static, so I experimented with varying the width of the tube and only closing the central part.
The result, to my eyes, was much more satisfying – a more organic, irregular, crumpled effect (photo above). The wire in the core enabled me to manipulate this even further.
Sample 2
Then it was on to the second sample, to continue experimenting with form but also adding colour.
I started off using fairly wide bands of colour with gentle graduations between them. But I wasn’t really happy with the result – or maybe it was just the colour combinations I used. Finally I decided that it might be better to have one dominant colour with narrow flashes of other shades.
Ice scrunchie
I went for a wintry palette, probably because the house was so cold while the kitchen was being renovated!
As the piece got longer, I thought that it would be interesting to join the ends to form a ring, like a crumpled torus. This was a bit fiddly, but not as bad as I feared. You can see both sides below.
The piece is not very large – below I am holding it in my hand for scale.
I’ve given it a working title of “Ice Scrunchie”, because that’s what it resembles. But I may have to think of a more arty name at some point!
