A close up of the details of textile art coral sculpture, Thrive. Created using free motion embroidery by textile artist, Agatha Lee ‘Agy’ based in Singapore.

I completed my art piece! I let out a sigh of relief when it’s done.

For the past month , I created close to 50 pieces of coral textile sculptures using free motion embroidery and shibori techniques. There were some bumps I faced along the way.

Underestimating the Art Process

As with any project, planning is important, but what I had failed to take into account, or rather, what I had underestimated were issues such as:

The time needed to free motion embroider the individual coral sculptures. The easiest to sew were the smaller versions that were the size of pennies, but once the corals got larger, the details and number of stitches grew. It was a good thing that I embroidered the smaller ones first so that I could at least tick those off my list!
I was limited by the arm length of my sewing machine, and it got me thinking if I should get a long arm sewing machine to cater for bigger pieces. Most of the time, I would take the fabric out of the hoop and shift the piece accordingly, but this was difficult when using such light fabric for my corals.
As I was using organza I couldn’t predraw the corals unless the fabric was fixed in the hoop. I learnt this the hard way, as the initial batch of coral sculptures were warped.
Combining the free motion embroidery and the shibori technique was difficult. I wanted to ensure that I didn’t have warped corals.
Creating the moulds that were needed for creating the shapes of the coral sculptures was something new. I had never worked with form making materials such as clay etc. It took several rounds of experiments to get the right shape and look I wanted. I ended up using a combination of sculpey clay and aluminium foil, and even used various circular objects I could find around the home! If in doubt, there’s always something in the home you can use.

Mood board, samples, and the final work coming together.

Bringing the Textile Pieces Together

The eventual compilation of the coral sculptures took some time and thought. Although I had sketched the layout of the final sculpture, I was still unsure of the base of the fabric. My initial thoughts were to use a white base so that there would be contrast with the sculptures. It would also emphasise the theme of thriving coral. But as I was curious, I tried various bases, including a stitched base and a painted base emulating rocks. Even though the samples looked good with the coral pieces, the final look was not right; the stitched and painted base distracted my eyes from the stars of the artwork. In hindsight, I think I could have just gone with my gut feel right from the very beginning, but I guess there’s no harm in trying!

Although these bumps were resolved, it did set back the timeline for the project, and adjustments had to be made. All-in-all, I enjoyed working on this, and I’m definitely looking forward to improving the technique further, and seeing where this takes me. Maybe something bigger? More interactive? Stay tuned!

Introducing My New Art Work - Thrive

Thrive Coral Textile Art Sculpture by textile artist, Agatha Lee 'Agy'

The textile coral sculpture art piece, Thrive, is currently being showcased at RESS Midterms and will be available for purchase after the exhibition. Enquires are welcome.

Thrive is inspired by the climate resilient corals that offer hope for the world's reefs. The artist uses free motion embroidery and remnant organza to produce sculptural pieces that emulate the fragile corals. She has worked into this series, colour and depth, to represent the abundance of the reef.

2 pieces of 12x18”

Organza and cotton textile remnants

Free motion embroidery

purchase enquiries

RESS Midterms

RESS Midterms is a multi-event project that includes the art exhibition Renewal, activations and workshops, community workspace, craft goods showcase, clothes adoption corner and fashion waste recycling station. RESS Midterms will be housed at SMU de Suantio Gallery till 13 Nov 2022.

Artist Talk Stitched Together - Craft & Community

Artist talk on 28 October, 7pm

Please register at https://peatix.com/event/3393783/view

Stitches only work when they come together to create a strong seam. The 3 artists, Agatha Lee ‘Agy’, Adel Ng, Lisa Teng, will introduce their artworks created for the RESS SMU exhibition. They will also share their practices, their collaborations/community building with other craft-based artists, and the challenges of navigating craft and art in Singapore. A demonstration of their work will occur after the talk.