Another New Year

Somehow this new year feels far more like part of a continuum rather than a fresh start, or even a reboot.  I am still more positive than negative; but I must admit to some evening out.  This extra blog was started in a fit of enthusiasm and optimism, and often I have thought of shutting it down – goodness, one blog should be enough, surely!  But, not exactly inertia, but something close to it perhaps, keeps me hanging on, – hoping….

The final couple of months of last year found me oppressed and depressed because of personal circumstances as well as the political ones here in the UK.  In order to distract myself with work rather than simply sinking into detective novels (although I did that too) I used a book-making offer from Photobox to spur myself into putting something together from my mass of sea and shore-related image files.  And just in case anyone is interested, I am outlining my progress below.

I wanted to see what a Lay Flat book would be like at displaying a full double page spread – to show one continuous horizontal image, with no hiccup in the middle, and no surrounding border.  The sizes on offer were not really what I would have chosen, in that the A template is not a very dynamic one – but given I did not want a huge book, I went for the A4 horizontal.  At least the open double page spread would provide a more interesting format.

Depression can seep negative thoughts into planning, and so I did not want to spent too much time thinking about the process.  It would be too easy simply to give up – and indeed that is why I had pre-bought the book production: I had to design the book within a set time, or lose the money.  I wanted the design to suggest itself to me, and instinct to take over.  There was to be no pressure other than time, and that was not too onerous in that I had a month from the company, and also I knew that my husband would be away for five days within that month.   This was an opportunity for serious play.

My idea was to make composite images, digital collages to incorporate every piece of work inspired by sea or strand.  The work would comprise not only finished stitched pieces, but also digital sketches and designs.  The size of each piece of work would vary according to how I wanted to incorporate it in the collage, and thus large quilts would not necessarily be large on the page, etc.  So, I reckoned that I needed:

• a selection of sea backgrounds
• a selection of strand backgrounds
• my digital images
• a range of abstract elements
• words

Of those ingredients the digital images and the sea backgrounds were the easiest to provide.  For the latter I cropped horizontal elements from scanned prints of an etching I’d made years ago inspired by elements of plankton.

That was fine as far the sea background was concerned, but I did not already have a similar source for the strand backgrounds, so I decided to make those using soft pastels.  Taking pebbles which I’d picked up at Hunstanton as my starting point, I made several horizontal strips which I then scanned and cropped to the same size as the sea backgrounds.

These two were not sufficient.  The images of my work were from necessity in rectangles, so I needed random shapes to provide dynamic in the compositions.  My obsession with the sea provided a solution.

From time to time I worry that my not having a sketchbook is detrimental to my progress, and I will make a huge effort.  A friend had given me a concertina sketchbook, and I’d filled it with collage and scribbles inspired by the sea.  This was just what I needed, so I scanned it.   Fortunately I had also added words to my concertina collage, so that provided the final ingredient.

The rest was fairly straightforward – hard work in some senses, because the scanned concertina collage as you can see above was full of unruly elements – folds, shadows, bulges, etc. because of the nature of the sketchbook – but the digital collaging process is a fundamental tool for me.  It was particularly satisfying to be able to use images which had not progressed beyond digital design, or even doodle.  The latter (such as the one below), even though in only preliminary stages of design, and perhaps will never progress further, could be used within a larger collage.

On the whole I was pleased with the experiment – you can see more double page spreads on my Threading thoughts blog – but I’m kicking myself for making the text too big.  The lay flat format works – except if like me you add double page spreads so that the book is too wide for its spine!  My determination to include all my sea work made 17 double page spreads in the end, and I guess that about nine to eleven spreads would have been ideal for this process – I had to add extra pages to the ones offered.  Nonetheless, I am so glad that I did it – and the whole process achieved its purpose on so many levels.

Towards the end of ’18

This was supposedly the year of the big think about where, why, what, etc.  Well, it’s almost next year and it feels as if I’m not really that much further forward.  Just as when I clear out a cupboard or a room, there seems to be an upheaval and more chaos before order is imposed, I seem to be in that chaos stage – but with no inkling of the order to be imposed.

Perhaps I will be able to sort it out in the new year.  It’s lucky – I suppose – that I still generate ideas for stitching, so meantime I shall carry on carrying on.

Its own direction

This is the year of the big think for me.  I’m using my completion of  three score years and ten to start seriously putting my house in order – both literally and metaphorically.  I have accumulated so much possibly useful but probably never used stuff that it has begun to oppress me, and it is an ongoing liberation to find useful outlets for its disposal.

In order to make decisions about what should go of course, I have to decide what must stay.  And for that I have to think about what I want to make and do.  I rather fell into quilt making through serendipitous encounters, not through conscious purpose.  I enjoyed the making of the work, and have been successful when I’ve applied to enter prestigious quilt exhibitions.  Of late, however, I feel out of step with current trends – and as it is the subject matter of the work which drives me I have not applied to compete any more.

I have been fortunate this year in having been asked to judge the SAQA Europe and Middle East Wide Horizons VI exhibition, and as such will have a piece in that show.  Also I was delighted to be asked to contribute three quilts to the upcoming exhibition at Wisconsin Museum of Quilt and Fiber Art: Fiber Arts in the Digital Age.  But although I do and doubtless will continue to use the quilt form, I do not feel or think myself to be a quilt artist.

At the end of Spring I finished my most recent quilt form piece: Soliloquy (seen below).  This piece grew out of thinking about old age – not necessarily my own, but maybe also.  There has been so much on the news these days about how little adequate care there is in the community for older people, how they are neglected, how lonely they can be etc.  The ideas for Soliloquy developed around the commonly held to be traits of the older person: fading into the background so that they are almost part of the wallpaper, repetition, going on about their youth, talking when no-one is listening – or when no-one is there, ….  I wanted to portray these elements, but with a strong, humorous character who emerged from the background trying to engulf her, despite being fixed in her armchair – and with the repetition being a dynamic pattern rather than a monotonous drone.

I have satisfied myself with the result.  And this work has reinforced for me the direction I want to take.  I want to be driven by the work which speaks insistently to be made – the work must make its own direction.  I do not want to be guided by technique to follow subjects.  This decision was finally clarifying after I attended the excellent workshop on 3D fibre work taught by Debbie Lyddon early this year.  (As I described in Threading thoughts.)  I very much enjoyed the experience, and perhaps one day I shall be impelled to make a work which needs to use a technique covered then.  But I do not want to try to fit a subject to the technique.

Of course there are core techniques which I use, and will continue to use.  Digital collage from ingredients including photography, drawing, and printmaking, and other scans.  Digital printing onto cloth – because cloth is the basis of the things I make.  And of course stitching – the vital meditative ingredient.  Although I took up fabric as my medium because it fitted practically with my life – an activity with which I could be absent and present at the same time; it was also even then a perfect fit for how I wanted to express myself.

So I am getting rid of all the stuff which I have just accumulated over the years through temptation to acquire, or accepting gifts of what might possibly be useful one day, or just somehow arrived I can’t remember how.   The local hospice charity shop’s craft corner has suddenly burgeoned into a craft department as my cupboards empty!

One big stumbling block I found in my journey to this point was my anxiety about not having gone to art college – about not being able adequately to judge my work, and thus not knowing where I/it might fit.  I realise now that this does not matter, and that realisation has been reinforced in my recent reading of a book about postwar London artists: Modernists and Mavericks by Martin Gayford.  In it I encountered the perfect quote from Howard Hodgkin:

‘What is important,…is that what I feel, think and see turns into something.  I mean, ideally, it starts off in my head, and ends up a thing.’

Stasis

It is a while since I wrote last, but contrary to possible speculation I have not been doing nothing.  At the very least I have been thinking.  Thinking, unfortunately, does not necessarily offer evidence of the activity, nor does it necessarily yield results!

Thinking has not stopped me actually doing things.  I continue to have at least one stitching project constantly on the go.  My mind still throws up various ideas for ‘doodles’ which please me more or less, … but I feel somewhat limbo-ish nonetheless.  I don’t think that the new images that I’m currently developing are actually moving my work forward – whatever that means.  And I guess that’s what is bothering me: I cannot fathom at present what direction to look towards.

Meanwhile, a bit of organisation always helps.  I am on a general life project to downsize possessions, partly so that as we become more decrepit and literally downsize to a smaller dwelling, we will not suddenly have to cope with a mountainous task.  Today I decided to sort my threads.

Happy conjunctions present themselves when taking time over the sorting of stuff.  One problem is that I have lived through several eras of need.  For instance when I was working freelance in publishing, teaching abroad, and writing a publishing manual I needed filing drawers – not only for files (remember paper files anyone?), but for paper, flimsy, carbon paper, tippex (!), and other stationery.  One cherished piece of filing furniture is my bright red Habitat set of drawers.  Just right to accommodate threads.

Bit by bit nearer to some kind of Chaos control even if I’m not much nearer finding any coherent direction for my work.

 

First, look back

In the early 2000s I made a few pieces which I described as brodages (collages, but stitched rather than stuck).  They were one-offs, and more a kind of exercise of using up bits and pieces.  Frieze above was made with vintage kimono fabric I’d bought on impulse in the USA, my experimental strip of painted silk, paper figures coloured with pastel, and a piece of wire mesh.

I used paper again in the figures for Hard place and Waving.  They all arose from my thoughts after attending a workshop given by Clyde Olliver I’d attended at the Embroiderer’s Guild in the days when they used to have brilliant classes.  (Clyde Olliver gave me the pieces of drilled slate.)

I was moved to make Waving in response to conversations with a friend who was having a double mastectomy.

I then went on to experiment with a couple more pieces: Measured response above was the result of sending off a digital image to be printed on canvas.  An emotional turmoil brought about Sharper – the title comes from King Lear: ” how sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have an ungrateful child”.  During the workshop I had had the idea of making a whole figure out of flint – our garden is full of pieces of flint, and had discussed this with Olliver.  The difficulty was how to attach the individual pieces.  In the end I used linen thread which had been covered in PVA, and wrapped and tied each stone to the wire mesh.

At that time I also found the acrylic frames which seem just right for the work.  All the ingredients of each piece could be seen without impediment, and yet they were tidy in a box.  Sharper has two layers of mesh, a finer one at the back onto which is stitched the patchwork of felted knitwear, then on that are cotton figures stiffened by accident – they were cut from the cotton used underneath silk which was being ironed with transfer paper.  Both the colour/pattern and the stiffening went through the silk to the cotton, thus providing me with a bonus!  Then the wider grid went on top of that and the flint head at the front.

After Sharper I concentrated on the quilt form, both large and small, until another one-off in 2013.  I had created the digital design for Acrobats electric long before I made the piece. But I could not work out a suitable means of realising exactly what I wanted.  Stitch distorts a surface, and yet I wanted the electric elements to be stiff and flat, and yet the bodies to be abstracted and stitched.  Finally what should have been obvious was suddenly clear:  the backgrounds are stitched printed silk, the pylons and wires are cut card, and the bodies are machine embroidered on soluble film.  Sorted.

I was beginning to work out how to make this piece when I was fortunate enough to be invited by Maggie Grey to take part in Approaches to Stitch – which shows, step by step how I made Acrobats electric.

As I look back in order to move forward I remember how much pleasure I had in constructing these brodages, and how I enjoyed the problem solving.  Perhaps I might think about dabbling in the process again as I review how I am to proceed.

2018 – the year of the big think

I have reached a point at which I feel the need for an assessment of what I’m doing, why, and of what I want to do.  Amongst other things the work I’m making at present is too slow to keep up with my ideas, and that is having a dampening effect on the excitement of those ideas.  The stitching element is taking up time which I want to devote to print making.  And I still have vague ideas of trying out three dimensional work, somehow.

I now think I want to eschew external influences which are constraining.  I’m giving up thinking that my work fails because it does not fit into a size category, for instance.  Indeed I don’t want to think of being in any category at all.

I think.  Well, I have quite a bit to think about.  I am certainly not thinking about giving up working in some way; it is an essential part of living as far as I’m concerned.  But I have vaguely thought about giving up this and the Threading thoughts blogs.  As I say, it is to be a Year of Big Thinking.

Jazz flute, and Ginkgo rider

The first of these two pieces started life as one of my not exactly series, but better described as a group of works based on players of musical instruments.  Most of the individuals are women, and one day a woman with red hair playing the flute came into my mind.

I like rendering my drawings as relief prints – showing the carving too.  There is something in this which seems to combine the flat image with movement and even three dimensionality, I find.  In any case, I like the effect, so have been using it a lot.  The digital graphics can also add to the layered look.

For Jazz flute I wanted her hair to be red, and the whole atmosphere to be a warm and sunny one.  The fact that I have a friend who plays the flute and who loves the sun may have influenced this desire.  So I tried out printing the lino block on yellow tissue paper which had been crushed once then flattened (adding more random elements with a batik-y feel).  I think she looks good even starkly thus in the initial image which was scanned.

The digital work gave her the red hair, the green dress, and the pastel scattered background from my ‘background’ digital files – much used many times before, and once I was happy with the image I printed this out onto a prepared A3 sheet of cotton lawn.

I am really happy with the effect of the yellow rather than white base, and I am now adding the final layer of stitching with fine silk threads.

In the case of Ginkgo rider the final image came about through trial and error.  When learning to print collagraphs one of my attempts used leaves.  The image of that attempt I thought might be worth chopping up digitally to use as elements in a future piece.

One of the great advantages of scanning at a high resolution, then cropping is that I’m not limited to the scale of the physical piece of paper.  The ginkgo leaf was its actual size on the print – as can be seen in relation to the stamps; but I am able to render its looks much more appropriately sculptural with a crop.

Turned round the sweep of the stem and the fan of the leaf made me think of kites and windsurfers,… although a sail is usually above the sailor my thoughts took me to a rider – someone who would be swept off on top, holding the mast, so to speak.  The digital processing in this case simply added the red rider.  The rest of the image is a high resolution scan of the cropped print.  This will also be printed onto A3 prepared cotton lawn, and more colour will be added with thread when I start stitching.

 

The development of Quiet work

As with most pieces, Quiet work started as a doodle destined for lino cutting.  She was printed while I was experimenting with the use of handmade papers prepared for inkjet printing.  As she has such a large empty background – necessarily so – I used a photograph with faint texture and pale colour.  (A close-up snap of the Serpentine pavilion which is now at Hauser and Wirth Somerset.)

The print came out well, and after I had scanned it I put it up in my print kitchen.  But in order to stitch the piece I thought that more colour was needed, so I played around for a bit before printing the image onto cotton.

The balance of visual weight had to be at the base of the image, so I decided to use a different stitch with the leaves to try to achieve that.  Also important is her hair, so more pattern detail was stitched into that.  The background, however had to be kept separate and airy, so I used a seed stitch – and I’m still not completely happy with that.  But it’s done now, and overall I’m pleased.

 

The simple stitch

Plunge (2016)

All this pondering how or whether to use the felted knitwear I have has got me thinking through the ways I make work anyway.  I know that I always have to have work to think about – I always have done.  It is what motivates my living.  I have to have mental occupation almost all of the time – for instance, I cannot often watch television or listen to the radio without also doing, making, or thinking about something else.  Creative outcomes arise from all the input; the curiosity, the pursuit of threads tugged by the curiosity, thinking, and of course seeing – paying attention.

This was also true when I was occupied with publishing, but with a large and fundamental difference from what I do now.  When I was for instance orchestrating the creation of a book other people’s work, wishes, and money were concerned.  I worked with colleagues who had various expectations of and influences on the decisions I made.  I commissioned the work: writing (although I did write a few myself if I wanted to commission a particular artist who had no particular subject in mind), artwork, production, sales – and then of course the consumers also played a huge and vital part.  With books for children the parents, librarians, and teachers comprise the first level of consumers.

When I left publishing and was thinking about being creative for myself, it was with notional consumers in mind that I started.  I thought I saw a gap in the market for a kind of knitwear – but quickly it became obvious that that was not the right path for me.  I carried the thought of consumers with me when I then combined my hobbies of painting pictures and stitching, hoping perhaps to find galleries which would carry my work.  I had sold some paintings through a gallerist friend in the USA, and a couple of galleries did take my early stitchings – but over the years I have learned that my work is an acquired taste, galleries have to make consistent money, and besides, there are now just so many makers existing and emerging whose work is more appealing, instantly attractive, or fashionable.  Perhaps my work is just not good enough.

But it is more than good for me.  It is taking years to get out of the mindset that developed a successful publishing career, to adjust to a state that is neither paid employment nor hobby, but is a kind of manifestation of being.  But as such it does not seem to fit comfortably into any labelled box.  ‘Twas ever thus: many years ago even at Oxford University Press where I began my publishing career I was labelled an administrative anomaly, in this case because my responsibilities straddled both the schools and tertiary markets.

Although for convenience I have so far put myself in the textile artist box, I do not think that wholly appropriate, despite using cloth and stitching.  Printing is at the heart of what I do, but I am not really a conventional printmaker. Collage, the gathering of divers elements is also fundamental to what I do, but somehow does not wholly describe my practice.  Everything goes towards the way I want the work to look, and the simple stitch is at the heart of it in two ways.

First, and essential, it is my handling of the cloth.  It is a long slow process which has been with me since early childhood when I sat amongst older generations, making cross stitch cloths.  When I saw Kantha cloths I realised how powerful the simple running stich could be for me.  I have to be a-making with my hands.  It helps my mind to clarify, to digest, to make connections, ….

The stitching might be described as a kind of colouring in, but it is so much more than that, despite being simple.  When used with wadding (batting) it creates a bas relief.  It emphasises, it provides a flow, and it presents a kind of subtle catching of the eye with colour and shape.  On my Soliloquy project I have decided to keep it muted with the first top stitching before I join the panels and then quilt the whole.

Soliloquy (detail of work in progress)

With the couple of pieces I’ve explored with felt again the simple stitch I think works well – in Winter sun with the simple outline of the felt itself – and leaves room to appreciate the subtle pattern in that felt,

Winter sun (2017, detail)

and in Cathedral (below) the simple stitching will I hope calm the somewhat (deliberately off register) chaotic screenprinted fused collage.

Cathedral (detail of work in progress)

Regarding the use of the felt – you perhaps can see in the full photo of Plunge that I have used a scan of weaving (my first effort with a backstrap loom and knitting yarn!).  The actual weaving – or any felt would have been inappropriate there because of the importance of the relative flatness of the elements making up the image.

 

Fixing a flaw

For my latest quilt project I have once again chosen to put together a patchwork of individual images.  These images are printed on cotton lawn because as there is to be quite a bit of hand stitching I want to make it as easy for my arthritic fingers as possible.  The down side of cotton lawn, however, is that it is so fine that it can fold imperceptibly, causing breaks in the print.

This happened to two of my 25 pieces – in a very minor way, but nonetheless rather obvious.  I’m lucky that the design of the pieces is visually chaotic having been derived from a lino print, and deliberately includes the lino cutaway marks – as well as a kind of ‘wallpaper’ pattern superimposed.  But I needed to fix the white jagged line as much as possible.  Annoying, but not the end of the world.

I have found in similar situations in the past that Prismacolor coloured pencils have both the range of shade as well as the waxiness to achieve a good enough fix.  Although it can be seen still in the pic below, I hope that once the stitching has been done that the flaws will not be obvious – especially as I will give them another going over with the crayons once stitched.