On Wednesday October 16th, Rachel Meginnes delivered her lecture - "The Plainweave Thread."
The audience was mesmerized by the progression of Rachel's work and the fastidious attention to detail that was payed to the fabric itself. Rachel works to remove threads, distress the cloth and then build it back up again with paints and surface treatments. The work can take weeks and it continues until she is satisfied that the piece is complete.

Rachel's journey was a fascinating one and she has often restructured her artistic practice to suit the locations in which she finds herself. A frequent phrase was "I needed to push myself." Indeed Rachel's body of work has been built up through a series of investigations as she interacted with new locations or landscapes. Often her starting point is a grid. "It's where I feel safe." she has said.

There was a lively question and answer after the lecture as people wanted to know more about both her work and her method of working. You can find Rachel's pieces online here: www.plainweavestudios.com

Rachel adapting her work to paper, while working in a friend's studio in San Francisco.

A series of works where Rachel has adapted her working methodology to combine fabric and paper.

The pinboard at Rachel's workshop in the Maiwa Loft.