It's Raining Men.com - Mary-Clare Buckle

Textile art by Mary-Clare Buckle


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About Me and My Work

I was born in the Phillipines and grew up in Hampshire, southern England. I come from a creative family of artists, jewellers and woodcarvers. My Art Foundation was at the Surrey Institute of Art & Design (Farnham, Surrey), where my brother Chris taught me. Told that I had to specialise for my Degree course, I chose Jewellery Design, which I studied at the University of Central England (then Birmingham Polytechnic).

I designed and made jewellery for many years and exhibited in the UK and abroad, but always felt artistically constrained by that discipline and was really always a frustrated textile artist.

On discovering feltmaking, my initial art work was extremely colourful, but only semi abstract, freed from the constraints of making jewellery, where it is difficult to use colour easily.

Felt making is the perfect medium for me, since I can either be very imprecise - letting the medium control the design - or can immerse myself in a particular design and exercise as much control as if I were almost 'painting' with the fibres.

Over the last few years, I've become interested in creating 'Floating' felts, trying to make the pieces as thin as possible - almost transparent. When framed by sandwiching between sheets of clear acrylic the light can penetrate the piece, giving it an ethereal, almost-not-there quality. If hung slightly away from the wall, they appear to be floating in space - and the eye of the viewer isn't constrained by the traditional rectangular frame.

I've been inspired by many of the treasures found at the Victoria & Albert Museum, especially the mediæval enamel and gold caskets, tapestries, coloured Roman glass inset with gold, damascening work (inlay of gold and silver into iron and set with semi-precious stones) and 18thC brocade costumes. I like contrasting gold or silver with the matt wool and, in some cases, I like the designs to be slightly hidden, or sandwiched between fine layers of wool.

I also incorporate other fibres - in particular silk, but also mohair wool, flax, viscose, cotton, and trilobal nylon. The designs often come about by ‘playing’ with the fibres, or starting off with an idea and seeing where the fibres take me.

I also light these abstract floating felt pieces from behind, to turn them into wall lights (producing an almost 'stained glass' effect). Several examples of these 'Art Lights' are available for sale on 1-art-1.com. My most recent art lights involve using slim uv tubes hidden in the frame, to highlight uv-reactive fibres in the piece. The resultant effect is really stunning. See Burning His Roses

Alongside this, I am working on an extensive range of pop-culture and BritArt-inspired 'conceptual' work - some of which is shown on this site. Some pieces are floating felts and some are more ‘solid’ pieces, which are framed conventionally. My creative process often starts with an idea from a song title, or just playing around with a cultural icon, or some ideas in my head - such as Me and its companion piece You, It’s Raining Men (from the Weather Girls single) or Kiss Kiss (from Holly Valance’s debut No 1 hit). Currently, I’m busy on a whole series of It’s Raining pictures - cows, money, cats & dogs, etc.

As well as the rich prehistoric and mediæval history of Dorset, I have also been inspired by places I've visited around the world, including Morocco, Central & South America, Thailand and India. India holds a particular fascination for me - the motifs they use in their work and the fantastically bright colours in the textiles and embroidery. I've been there several times, including a very long trip with my young sons and my husband, Andrew Green, who is writing a book about our experiences there.

click here to email Mary-Clare I moved from London to West Dorset, shortly after our twin sons, Arran and Fingal, were born and now live in the artists' enclave and picturesque village of Abbotsbury, with a view of the sea to add further inspiration to my work. Our sons are educated at home by us.

My husband Andrew has designed and created this website and my main site, www.1-art-1.com - including extensive search engine optimisation work on both sites - as well as working with me on the digital imaging and publicity for my work.

My studio gallery is open to the public all year round.

For further developments in my work, or, better still, (your details will never be passed to anyone else without your express permission).

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images, text and website design © Andrew Green
the gallery, 13 Market Street, Abbotsbury, Dorset, DT3 4JR, UK