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.]"