Hazel Terry

 

Tiny smaller than a pinkie nail, this Red Riding Hood was made for Folktale week. 

Hazel Terry

 

Poppy Red sketch of LRRH for some reason this fairytale is still home an anchor for when I'm lost.

Hazel Terry

A little illustration about chin hair . . . with a pink winceyette nightie, this granny gobbling wolf is in trouble with a Little Red armed with tweezers.

 

Hazel Terry wounds

 

The multiple watching/ staring/ unseeing eyes, locked in by emotions and thoughts, licking wounds. 

Hazel Terry: Grief or Rage, Rage or Grief ?

 

I have paper off cuts from an illustration job, I often do, and luckily love long, thin pieces of paper, to draw or make books from. It seems the wolves have me again,  so I made these two illustrations this morning exploring my inner demons. I haven't had time with them lately, as I have been working to exhaustion and did not let them in (often) during the day. During the night they are crushing and breaking my teeth even with a tooth guard in place  . . . so I will have to face them, and to do so I may return to my muse Little Red Riding Hood. Interpreting her story usually helps me work out perturbing thoughts.

A decade on . . .

I started this blog a decade ago. Little Red Riding Hood became my go to communication tool, a metaphor for life and all its injustices. Starting an MA, it was natural to dig my toes into the subject more and so the posts of the first year were academic and correctly referenced. As time has gone on I still find historic and contemporary renditions of the tale and share them here. 

My rage at life for now has gone beyond LRRH, and is almost untranslatable into imagery, but Little Red Riding Hood in all of her manifestations still appeals and I think I will always return to this tales sharp teeth.

For today, I am sharing a carousel book that has been waiting, a trio of gelli prints cut and folded, for months. I do not plan these complex books meticulously, I like to wander through the pages and let what ever happens happen. This time I have to admit to being reckless, as half way through I decided to change the order of the papers and slice and swap, messing up the accurate measurements for the folds, but I adapted and it works. 

Hazel Terry, Folktale Week 2023

 

I have not finished this image as I write, the image below will be it completed. This LRRH creation has been odd, its inspiration was a miss (visually) read greetings card of a cat. Miss-seeing things is always interesting and I tried to keep the misunderstood image in my head.

This is my second ink drawing and it turned accidentally into a hairy (rotten?) apple and so my intention is to make Little Red the pip. 

I like these happy accidents and I like the imagery of the wolf as temptation and that whole sexual dynamic and blame game being turned on it's head. My excuse for creating these is that it is Folktale Week and todays prompt is ink. 

Lost

I am attempting to complete #folktaleweek this year, my first two illustrations for the prompt of 'Lost' involved barn owl feathers, because I have a collection of them and they are so beautiful, and because I wanted a different forest. However I also have some magpie feathers and I wanted an even darker interpretation and so returned to my old favourite folktale Little Red Riding Hood. 

 

Paths of hair and tears

 

With this piece of applique and sashiko I used the 'Little Red' figures as arrows to point along the paths. I chose the printed fabric on the paths as I thought it looked like hair.  The blue watery print as tears. The wolves eyes are mother of pearl one a beguiling flower, the other an evil slit.

So much of the little red fable is concerned with loss of innocence, the persistent threat of, and real, danger to young females, and coming of age. The paths that we take in life are so often arbitrary and yet when you are younger they have so much impact on shaping us and our direction in life. Hair and tears seemed to fit for this piece, I was abused on three separate occasions by three separate males as a child / teen the nonsensical injustice of this and the marks these events left are not a daily burden, but they are a presence, something that scarred. 

As an artist I use and often return to the little red imagery and story to explore injustice, sexuality and to make sense of events in my life, just now it feels like a hairy, scary path. 

Cotton Candy and Polka dots

 

This piece was unknown from the start, as I was playing with some gifted cotton. I am not a crocheter or a knitter so I decided to try to weave it into a wolf. It worked but then grew a strange life of its own as I had woven no body, but I kind of like the peculiar and uncomfortable nature of this.

It's getting darker . . . Blood Lines

 

These images evolve as I work, I start with a rough skeleton of fabrics and then flesh out the design as I go. This piece called Bloodlines started with circles of blood, I planned on crocheting them, but in the end wove circles and then added the drips, which evolved into red trees, and finally a path of blood in red sashiko.  I like the dark skinned Little Red, I just like the darkness of this piece in contrast to some of the lighter coloured and designed ones I have been working on. 

Pearly Eyes and Pearly Skies

 This LRRH grew arms and legs as the sky took on a life of it's own and needed a full galaxy of stars planets and comets. The starting point was the death of a much loved and suddenly too holey linen t-shirt that needed a good send off. 

A drop of blood, a blood red tear.

 

I have just finished my latest little red, which started as a red tear and developed into red woven teeth and  little red becoming a drop of blood/ blood tear.  Every time I set out on one of these works it is a surprise. I don't plan them completely, but just start playing with colour, pattern and texture of fabrics layering and playing and then the design grows, and as it grows so does this particular interpretation of the tale and its protagonists. After all these years I still cannot believe how versatile and complex this seemingly simple story is and how it reflects the human story of power, evil, love, death, life, kindness . . . 

This piece is approximately a meter square with sashiko background, my daughter is always bamboozled by the time and effort of the sashiko and wonders why I insist on it but those stitches  and the building of texture is very important to the process., a meditation on humanity that I seem to need.

The path of the slimy tongue

My new Little Red Riding Hood sashiko, the 6th of this year.

I was talking with my daughter about how long I have been preoccupied with LRRH imagery in my work. She remembers riding her bike (tyres inked) over a piece of paper to make a LRRH piece about road safety when she was 5. This ancient theme, myth, tale stays with me. I use it to make sense of events; personal, ecological and political. Currently it is personal, I need that repetitive stitch, that re-telling with protagonists enacting different roles, ethos, psyches. I need this ancient tale to ground me and show me a path forward even if the path is not one I want to take.

Loop le loup

 

I am on a strangely compulsive roll of making textile illustrations of Little Red Riding Hood. 

This latest piece is large and the wolf is made wild with loop stitch. It is covered with the puckers of sashiko stitches and a single flower button indicates the wildness in his eyes. 

Weaving a wolf

 

I have had a weaving stitch saved as a desired wolf effect and so probably a month ago started this piece, embroidery takes time and this was the fur of the beast. 

Well I am so happy with him and he seems happy and his hitch-hiking Little Red has a smile to! well worth the wait and the search for the tiniest scrap of vintage fabric (I knew it was there somewhere) which provided the flowers. 

Hazel Terry

 

'In the mouth of the Black Dog' my latest interpretation of little red riding hood. 

I have been meaning to do this for so long, using this weaving embroidery technique for a wolf, so here is my first embroidery piece for a while. I really enjoyed weaving those teeth! I have been giggling at them with my daughter., they are time consuming (like all embroidery) but so worth it.

Hazel Terry

First little red in a while but I was trying out a technique for some children's classes which is where you use tin foil and cover it in a solid coating of oil pastel, then cover with paper and draw through to make a mono-print. 

 

There is a fight!

Little red riding hood and wolf fighting/dancing toys. 

The Perfect Never Ending Story

The perfect never-ending story; Little Red Ridinghood.