Entering work for Guild competitions and exhibitions
This page is intended to give some background information about our competitions and exhibitions and to encourage members new and old to take part and to show us all what they enjoy doing.
The Guild has three competitions each year open only to members of the London Guild. They are the Lore Youngmark Memorial Competition, the Gwen Shaw Competition and the Kennedy Cup for Spinning. A member may enter one or more pieces of work for each competition subject to fulfilling the criteria set for that particular competition that year, but a single piece can only be entered for one competition. If the item simultaneously fulfils the entry criteria for more than one competition, the member must choose which competition to enter. Please note: This differs from the practice in past years where a single piece could be entered for more than one competition.
Any piece of work can be submitted for selection to a National Exhibition as well as to any of the London Guild competitions. The same piece of work should not be entered for the same competition or exhibition year after year.
The competitions are judged on the basis of members’ votes. Each member can vote for the three items they like best in each category, the votes are counted during the speaker’s commentary and the winners are announced at the end.
The competitions are being held in 2008 on 13 December, and more details of this year’s specific competitions are set out below.
The Kennedy Cup for Spinning: From Light to Dark and Back Again
Background
The Kennedy Cup for Spinning was set up in 1992 to honour Aileen Kennedy and her late husband. Aileen is a current Vice-President of the London Guild and was Guild Secretary for many years.
The Competition: From Light to Dark and Back Again
Spin a variegated yarn that uses graduation from light to dark and back again throughout the skein.
The Brief
Choose one pure hue colour. Blending varying amounts of white and black with your original colour, spin two singles which graduate the colour from light to dark and back again throughout the singles then ply the two yarns. The singles should include some of the pure hue colour not blended with any white or black. (A skein = 15 grams for a fine yarn and 25 grams for a thicker yarn.)
Entries should include a sample of the fibre of the original colour and the white and black used for blending from light to dark and a small knitted or woven sample to show how the colour changes.
Guidelines
Pure hue colours – colours without any grey, white or black in them. (Itten illustrates 12 pure hue colours on his colour wheel. The guild has a copy of his book The Art of Colour; refer to this or any colour wheel if you are not sure what is meant by pure hue colour).
Lore Youngmark Prize: Weaving with Colour
Background
This competition has been held every year since 1987 to honour a member who, amongst other achievements, co-authored the book Foundations of Weaving and was an inspirational teacher. The competition was originally open only to weavers weaving floor rugs but in recent years the competition brief has been broadened to include a wider range of weaving techniques.
The Competition: Weaving with Colour
‘Mixing colour in weaving is very different from mixing colour with paints or pigments’, Foundations of Weaving p.56
The Brief
Using one warp, weave two or more finished items where each piece transforms the colours in the warp and looks very different from the other. Please include a wrap of the original warp colours with the finished pieces.
Guidelines
Weaving is dependent on the interaction of warp and weft and offers the weaver the opportunity to create colours through optical mixing. Optical mixing is usually most successful when the colours in the warp and weft are similar in value. Value = lightness or darkness.
The Gwen Shaw Competition: Small Details, Big Ideas
Background
Gwen Shaw was a founding member of the London Guild and a force behind its success. When she died in 1959 a subscription list was opened to purchase something that would perpetuate her memory. This is now the Gwen Shaw Cup, which is awarded to a London Guild member at the annual competition.
The Brief
The Gwen Shaw competition is for a finished item created using any or all of our three disciplines. The emphasis is on designing and evidence of this is an essential part of the competition. All entries must be accompanied by evidence of the design process. Do you remember maths exams? Getting the correct answer was never enough, examiners wanted to see your ‘rough work’. That is what I mean by evidence of the design process. Ideas come from somewhere and often need developing. Show us that process – the original photograph or drawing, the thought process in words, the wonderful happenstance of something happening that you didn’t expect but changed the direction of your work in progress, samples, wraps etc. We don’t all design in the same way, but we do all design.
As makers we train our eyes to look at details. A tree can be magnificent but there is a miracle in the tracery of the bark; a bicycle gets us from A to B, yet there is beauty in the patterns the tyres make on wet ground. From observing small details, ideas for texture, pattern, colour and form emerge and change in scale.