ABOUT MEG RUTHERFORD'S MISCELLANEOUS THREE DIMENSIONAL WORK

This section covers a wide variety of three dimensional items most of which are not sculpture or those which Meg did not consider to be sculpture as such. In the case of some carved items the borderline between sculpture and other three dimensional is a matter of choice, here by the compiler of the Meg Rutherford web site.

Other categories included in this section are weird and imaginative items of which Meg made a large number for her own amusement, glass blowing, glass beads, specialised knitting and crocheting, hats and film models.

Weird or imaginative items

Meg's excellent imagination led to her producing a whole range of unconventional items, including an articulated model and a wooden hand with moveable fingers.

Meg made some notes about the wooden hand she made."I had 'been mending wooden' hands and was fascinated by them. One day I could quit the idea no 'longer and 'made one 'for myself. (Couldn't afford the ones I mended). It took me eight hours 'of solid work'. Rod said I could make a fortune doing more, typical ignorant remark. 'People have no idea of 'the time and effort involved. And then fact that people expect to pay 'less for a home 'manufacture than for a 'shop' piece. Anyway, one hand is enough".

She Designed and created a toy for Play Orbit exhibition of Toys, in the Institute of Contemporary Arts. Other weird items were created by Meg as a result of her imagination, using any bits and pieces to hand, and assembled into strange or unusual items. Also she sometimes carved unusual items such as a large leaf and a sun face. She was especially fond of creating toys that permitted different faces by rotating a multi face head or different bodies by rotating a pile of blocks.

Film work.

Meg made items, for John Stoddart's film 'Blue Beard's Last Wife  including an articulated peacock for stop motion filming. She also worked for Ken Russell's film.

Other crafts.

For seven years to 1995 Meg did part time hot glass blowing at the then High Wycombe College, producing a huge range of items, mainly imaginative vases incorporating colour.  Also Meg spun her own wool mainly from Jacobs sheep for the colour variety., but she also purchased coloured wool. She designed and created many attractive Specialised knitwear items (i.e. excluding normal 'family' knitting), mainly during the 1990s. These designs attracted the attention of a shop in the Lake District.  At their request, Meg drew up the knitting patterns for several of her creations, but the patterns did not sell well so no further progress was attempted.

She also crocheted a cat as a three dimensional model from which to draw Bluff' in her 'Bluff and Bran books and similarly a grey cat and a badger  for her 'Foggy' books.

Other clothing;

Meg made many of her own clothes and a large number of hats, mainly for herself  but a couple of waist coats for her husband.  Later on Meg made Glass beads and necklaces using lamp-work techniques.