No was the first word I learnt to say and in many ways I've been battling against the inner No ever since. So when I was invited by artist Sophie Cullinan to become a Sockateer I said yes - having very little notion of what I was saying yes to! Sophie is blogging about the project on the A N website and if you click the project title below you can trace my socks' journey before it arrived with me.
By: the sockateers
Wholly holey sock continuum consortia.
Posting postal parlance.
Sock protocol and manifesto created by
Elena Thomas and Sophie Cullinan.
Mathematical
Advice from Dan Thomas MSci MA (Cantab)
Apparently I am Sockateer C and here is the Dinosaur sock after my additions. Being quite a literal thinker I was out there running around in pre-historic forests filled with exotic, imaginary flowers; the textile and stitch additions are a handful of those blooms, some impressed with dinosaur footprints.
I've attached copper tags which hint at the dinosaurs demise and where we might find their remains now. The tags say Bones Under Earth, which reminds me of Kathy Page's novel The Find and of trips to museums as a child, especially as this is a child's sock. I love the fact that this collaboration is'nt dependent upon grants or funding, as grants and funding in the current climate lead to more noes than yeses and tend to create a pause in creativity. We spend hours of unpaid time thinking and planning, writing and scheming and there are benefits that come from taking an idea for a walk. We can't get paid for everything we want to do, but events like this inspire me to keep doing, rather than just think about doing! I'm intrigued to see what will happen next, will I get another sock, will I remain Sockateer C, where will the maths come in, what will I manage to excavate next............
