The Sketchbook Project Print Exchange 2013

500 hundred printmakers, including me, signed up to take part in The Sketchbook Project Print Exchange 2013. We were asked to make an edition of twelve 7 x 5 prints on the theme The Journey Home. Each printmaker will receive 10 prints from other artists taking part. Lovely!

My print was inspired by a dérive to Whatstandwell in Derbyshire, I walked with my Undiscovered Networks collaborator, artist Jo Dacombe. We explored an area flanked by the River Derwent, the road, the railway line and out of use canal. We got lost and found, fell in love with Cromford Mill and High Peak Junction, found everything always seemed to be three miles further on, got tangled, entranced, enticed and curious! You can read about it here. On the journey home our minds were full of what we had seen, what we would do next and would eventually lead to our return to stage two train interventions along the Robin Hood Line - The Ticket Exchange. It was an intriguing day and I wanted to make a print that revisited that memory. 

The print is a monochrome linocut printed on vintage Zoffany wallpaper in muted tones and sprigged with wildflowers. Parts of the pattern peep through the cut marks. The wallpaper was then stitched to 300gm Somerset paper and is called 'River, Road, Rail, Canal'. They are winging their way to Brooklyn now and I wonder what will come back to me as the exchange part of the project. There was a fee to take part but I love the spirit of generosity that informs this Print Exchange.

The Chronicle Project Artwork

24 hours. 1,440 minutes. Or 86,400 seconds.

The Chronicle Project challenged artists to document a single day in their lives and share it with the Art House Co Op community. I had to sign up and choose to create a visual record, describe a day in narrative form or depict my path as a chart or map and limit my focus to a single 24-hour span. Participants were asked to keep track of something specific, like every sound heard, or attempt to capture an overall impression of a day. The only restriction was that the work had to fold down to a size of 4" x 6". The Chronicle needed to be postmarked no later than May 15th and Art House Co Op will be staging an exhibition of the resulting chronicles in the Brooklyn Art Library, in order to collapse 1,000 unique days into one.

I am flying very close to the wire, I've spent the week planning work, writing applications and trying to make some time to make some work. It's now late in the day and tomorrow we're off to explore Derbyshire. I am supposed to be relaxed, I am supposed to have packed, I am the boring woman who keeps peering up from the computer to say "yep, nearly finished, I just have to do one more thing". This goes on for hours and by 3am there is no one awake but me and I'm just about running with regular infusions of liquorice tea. 

Work changes as you make it, I had planned to use arial views of four significant locations visited during my chronicled 24 hours but in the end I just used one from Kidsgrove as the visit there was the true heart of the day. The image below contains words, numbers and images which not only sum up the kind of 24 hours it had been but capture the feelings I'm having during the making process, Whirl being the most significant! I had intended to use this image to cover the whole of one side of the paper but then got myself in a stew about the toners sticking to each other and the image losing definition once folded. 

I then decided to make it smaller put it on one quarter of the page. Because the moon is hiding inside two of the images I went back to a diagram of Newtons Law and gravity as the pull of family is very strong. There are two diagrams and each has 12 small circular digital images representing an hour. These were taken from an earlier complete image called Love. I'm not totally satisfied with the paper or the surface, I would have preferred to output it on a watercolour paper, but time and ink supplies were against me. 

I do like it when it is folded. It's a bit like a coded diary that could be carried in a pocket, kept close and pondered about. I enjoy the scientific diagrammatic look as well. If you found it on a street, would you wonder what it meant? 

Because some parts are upside down when unfolded I sent two versions, one that reads the right way up when opened out. Friday morning packing bags, whirling round, trying to relax, artwork and applications in the post, me in the car and off to Derbyshire!

The Art House Co Op Chronicle Project - The Day

The Art House Co Op Chronicle Project - recording my chosen 24 hours. Initially I thought I would I choose the Miles & Dacombe Light Walk day at Sywell Country Park as we would be taking lots of photographs and making a map. But then it seemed a bit lazy to record the event twice so I decided to chronicle the 24 hours from 12 pm May 4th - 12 pm May 5th. May 5th saw us making a day trip to see relatives in Stoke-on-Trent. I noted down times and events but not thoughts or emotions to use as the starting point for my Chronicle artwork.

Chronicle in notes and images

Sleeping

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 23:00 to 01:30

Continue sleeping

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 01:30 to 02:00

Still sleeping

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 02:00 to 03:00

Dog wants to look at the moon

(it may not be this exact moon)

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 03:00 to 03:30

waiting for dog to finish moonlight garden ramble 

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 03:30 to 04:00

back to bed

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 04:00 to 04:30

Check email on phone

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 04:30 to 05:00

Check Twitter & Facebook

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 05:00 to 05:30

Sleep

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 05:30 to 06:30

Wake, bathroom, coffee, bed, internet

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 06:30 to 07:30

Feed dog

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 07:30 to 08:00

Shower, wash hair, dress, assemble gifts

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 08:00 to 09:15

Drop dog off at parents house

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 09:15 to 09:45

Join A14 - I am the passenger

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 09:45 to 10:15

Reading The Pleasures of English Food, watching cloud

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 10:15 to 11:00

A50 Services before derby Turn off. Coffee. 

Magazine. Buy miniature Rosebush

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 11:00 to 11:30

Rejoin A50 heading for Stoke-on-Trent

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 11:30 to 12:15

Passing Britainnia Stadium - 

ring Andrew's parents to explain late arrival 

of fish and chip lunch

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 12:15 to 12:45

Packmoor - David's Chip Shop. 

Cat on a lead on a wall. 

view of Mow Cop from Chip Shop window.

 Millenium Breathing space garden and Millennium Throne

(artist on the project Phil Hardaker)

Finches and sparrows investigate plants

and perch on satellite cables. 

Explore remains of terraced street life. Breath in. scheduled 5 May 2012 from 12:45 to 13:30

Arrive at the inlaws to have lunch scheduled 5 May 2012 from 13:30 to 14:15

The rest of the boyz arrive

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 14:15 to 15:00

Talking in the back room

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 15:00 to 15:30

take family snaps, say goodbyes

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 15:30 to 16:15

Visit Trentham Gardens - shopping, eat pie, buy new lime green shoes in the sale

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 16:15 to 17:00

Leave Stoke head out to A50. As I am not 

driving I read the Pleasures of Engish Food again which is strangely engrossing

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 17:00 to 17:30

Stop at A50 services to stretch legs, have a break

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 17:30 to 18:00

Rejoin A50 heading home

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 18:00 to 18:30

Join M1 road getting pretty busy

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 18:30 to 19:00

Join A14

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 18:45 to 19:15

Collect Charlie Whippet from my parents. 

Have tea and chat about the day.

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 19:15 to 19:45

Arrive home, unpack, check emails, 

make coffee, download photos

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 19:45 to 20:30

Make food

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 20:30 to 21:00

Watch back to back episodes of The Bridge

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 21:00 to 23:00

Watch unremarkable TV programmes

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 23:00 to 23:30

Bed

scheduled for 5 May 2012 at 23:45 to 6 May 2012 at 00:45

Day Five - It is Done!

Cover - fabric map design 'Jensen', produced by Liberty (also used in Miles & Dacombe Ticket Exchange bags) recurring maps - showing sections of the Manifold Valley in Derbyshire

 

Note to self - it really is time to....

 All pages stuffed to bursting and ready to post to Brooklyn on Monday.

I worry that things may tear, fall out or come unstuck

and that I haven't made this very easy to scan

but I've loved making it and hope 

others will enjoy it too.

You can see it here

or check it out from the Brooklyn Art Library Call Number: 187.16-9

Day Five - Frantic Activity

On the final stretch now that the magnetic poetry stamps have arrived - although the words I wanted aren't all there, but  I did find two sets of alphabet stamps hidden away in 'safe places'. I wanted to use stamps because of their unpredictability and to make up for the fact that only I can really read my handwriting, especially when it is small.

 Halved envelopes become pockets to hold textile samples, 

 laminated pattern pieces and shift tags

 The tags have had more added to them

On the reverse there is a little postcard stamp in which I've written a thought, memory or observation :-

"The texture of the world is worth exploring"
"I am the ghost of winter and the promise of spring"
"I want to wear the landscape"

"I am trying to follow another direction"

"There are many doorways, paths, options"

"A day walking the canal side. Huge foxgloves"

The surface of the table and most of the dining room is now covered with the signs of my frantic activity and I keep having to remember to wash the ink off my fingers before touching anything else. The Postman has been especially welcome as I also received a wonderful surprise parcel from the amazingly talented Tara Badcock who I am hoping to meet in person some day! Best of all there is a real, hand written letter, so I'm taking a break now to read it!

Day Two - Studio and Dining Room

My plan for the day was to give as many of the sketches as possible a watercolour wash and whilst the pages dried I would make some other images using free machine stitching. I have gone back to the Shift dress as the source of my ideas. However I'm taking a much more personal approach, since my twenties I've been overweight. A couple of years ago I managed to lose a considerable amount, but last year I lost the plot again. How foolish, how self-destructive you might think, it was a stressful year, there was very little work and a lot of demands placed on my shoulders. Everything was a struggle and I just couldn't exercise or count calories for a moment longer.

When I started thinking about the shift dress, I could probably still get away with wearing one, but now my body is running away from me again. I am troubled by my body, how to look after it, how it is worn out and falling apart. Even when thinner, this fact was inescapable. The Shift dress has power because it is a simple shape. I have always longed to be a straight line able to inhabit a simple shape.  I long for freedom of movement. I don't fit. This first image is something about feeling uncontainable.

See also the Milan Kundera quotation from The Unbearable Lightness of Being which starts "The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground........."

Here are dresses that contain memories of a place I long to be - I find I would love to be able to wear the landscape.

These are a combination of shapes from 1960's pattern pieces and things seen along the Brampton Valley Way. I also laminated small pattern pieces which were made from maps, stamps and photographs, these will also be going into my sketch book.

Fabrics sorted and paint drying I attempted to start sewing, but my machine was having none of it. I did get some stitching done but not as much as I would have liked. I went to see if the only local sewing machine repair man could help, only to find that he'd sold the business and moved on without letting anyone know. The lady in the Florists next door wondered if he'd been one of the group who had won the lottery recently!

It might take me some time to get going, but once I do, I'm very determined. I took my machine home and asked 'the man who can' to undo the bottom of the machine and see if the works were clogged up with fluff. We found plenty. Machine attended to I started sewing again, but there was still a problem with the shuttle and the tension, threads kept snarling up. A very tiny piece of plastic has worn away or broken off and it's amazing to find that something so small could cause so much trouble! I did manage to coax enough decent stitches out of the machine to complete the samples I wanted to make. Then it was back to painting.

"weight |wāt|noun1 a body's relative mass or the quantity of matter contained by it, giving rise to a downward force; the heaviness of a person or thing : he was at least 175 pounds in weight.• Physics the force exerted on the mass of a body by a gravitational field.Compare with mass .• the quality of being heavy : as he came upstairs the boards creaked under his weight.• a unit or system of units used for expressing how much an object or quantity of matter weighs.• any of several divisions based on relative lightness and heaviness into which boxers and wrestlers are classified for competition.• the surface density of cloth, used as a measure of its quality.• Printing the degree of blackness of a type font.

2 a heavy object, esp. one being lifted or carried.• a heavy object used to give an impulse or act as a counterweight in a mechanism.• a burden or responsibility.3 the ability of someone or something to influence decisions or actions : a recommendation by the committee will carry great weight.• the importance attached to something : individuals differ in the weight they attach to various aspects of a job.• Statistics a factor associated with one of a set of numerical quantities, used to represent its importance relative to the other members of the set."

Here is the dining room table after day two's activities.

Limited Edition Sketch Book - Day One

Jackie Morris first alerted me to the existence of The Art House Co-op and their Limited Edition Sketch Book Project. I love the idea of sketchbooks but I don't always use them, I have a lot, some full, many half empty. My partner has been worried that I've given up making images, making my own work. I have a variety of pieces of equipment that have been languishing whilst I go out and inspire children and adults of all abilities to use their creativity. He bought me one of the Art House sketchbooks as a way of trying to inspire me to make some work for me again.

It arrived months ago, I put it in a variety of safe places and convinced myself I'd lost it several times causing that heart stopping 'why aren't you a tidy person' panic to set in. Thankfully the sketchbook kept finding it's way back to me but its pages stayed alarmingly empty. Here was my problem, I don't  know what my story is anymore, so what would I put in this book? I am constantly divided between 'illustrative me' and 'slightly more conceptual me', it is easy to fall into safe ways of working, so I tend to deny myself the pleasure.

When I showed Jo Dacombe, my collaborator in Undiscovered Networks, the sketches I'd done during my visits to Snibston, she was very encouraging, understanding that sketches are marks on the road to more complete thoughts or ideas. My Mentors were less convinced and perhaps they were right, their preparatory work was wonderful. Seeing how other people work is inspiring, trying to find your own voice is hard. Finally I said to myself (and my friends)

"Okay - stop paperwork and funding applications and get on with your sketchbook project. It's tiny, it has 24ish pages - what are you so scared of?" and one very sensible friend replied "every new sketch book I always scribble on the first page - stops it being precious!" I had been working though, it was going on in my head. I was combining the elements I wanted to work with, drawn from resources I'd been gathering. I did keep forgetting what my theme was. I thought it was a journey but I'd actually opted for thread and surface, eventually I decided to combine to two.

So today I have been sitting, filling the pages with quick pencil drawings, I've filled every other page and tomorrow the work will continue. I have to finish by the 16th, so I'd better get moving!

 Petticoat sketches

Dictionary definition:-

"petticoat |ˈpetēˌkōt|

nouna woman's light, loose undergarment hanging from the shoulders or the waist, worn under a skirt or dress.• [as adj. ] informal often derogatory used to denote female control of something regarded as more commonly dominated by men : he was in danger of succumbing to the petticoat government of Mary and Sarah.ORIGIN late Middle English : from petty coat, literally [small coat.]"