Kristin Kelley Munoz – South Downs the Trundle
Kristin creates abstract tapestries in response to liminal landscapes she finds personally compelling. She responds in particular to evidence of change at all scales -natural or human-induced decay, erosion, renewal, growth; the cyclical shift of seasons, daylight, the tide; the elusive momentary stillness within an ever-changing landscape. She works from recollection, in situ sketches, photographs and notes responding to specific locales in which she has immersed herself through repeated observation.
Her designs often start with mixed media drawings and paintings based upon these field observations, along with additional research into the geology and history of the area, which she then develops further. Landscape forms, weather patterns, the evidence of human effects on the countryside, details from both the micro and macro level, and her personal emotional response to a particular environment may all play a part in the final design. The process of then weaving a tapestry based on the final design is, by its very nature, immersive, and involves creating the pieces solely from that concept, manipulating warp and weft yarns to create artwork as whole cloth. The hours -tens to hundreds -Kristin spends creating a tapestry serve as a meditation on the landscape that she chooses as her subject.
Ultimately, she is focused on creating a personal, tangible evocation of momentary lace and atmosphere, using the woven form to add to that story through surface interest, light reflectivity, and texture.
South Downs: The Trundle is an abstract landscape based upon the many walks Kristin took up to The Trundle while studying at West Dean College. Each season brought new sights and sounds -the astonishing golden light of winter yielding to spring’s foliage and playful lambs, summer’s exuberant blackberries and kites wheeling overhead, and autumn’s moody skies. Each walk up the curving path from the town of Singleton, alongside cultivated fields and pasture, over the steep downs, and guided along the way by “finger posts” to the Iron Age circular hillfort served as a reflection upon how the landscape has both changed and remains the same since those Iron Age people first constructed the fort.