Thursday Thoughts...

“But I’ll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected with everything.” 

Alan Watts

So true.  I imagine if hermits are living life in the forest, singularly and alone, they may well come to experience a sense of wholeness, oneness and connectedness to earth and to nature and all things.

Even if we are not actual hermits, I think that when we go to the forest, to the quiet heart of nature we do come to understand and realise that we are somehow connected to the depths of the earth; to the height of the trees; to the birds above and the scurrying animals below.  

Perhaps when we go to the sea and we see the far horizon; we feel the whip of the wind; we watch the powerful surges of the ocean we feel a part of it.

At the top of a mountain, with the majesty and distance spread out below us and in front of us, when we are above the birds and when townships and buildings appear minuscule, we have that sense of being one.

For surely we have come to know over recent years, that we are all connected even tho we may be apart.

The Black Isle, 2018.

Cue...Ben Lee, All in this together

Tangling

 During the week between Christmas and New Year I had a job to stitch a book. It was a hefty book and required quite a lot of thread; and quite a lot of needles.  I knew I needed a long stretch of time and a whole lot of quiet to do a single sheet binding on this scale.

The book is not yet revealed, but in the interim here are some lovely shots of thread, and the capacity for tangling!

So I started to unfurl and cut eight lengths of thread - each 2.8m long.

Got just a little bit distracted by their loveliness. And the shadows.

How nicely they played together as organic forms within a grid...

The linen top and skirt I was wearing acted as nice back drops to a bundle of thread.

16 needles and 23 metres of waxed linen thread - what could possibly go wrong?!?!?!

As I began to stitch this is how the threads draped to the floor.

Here they are slightly better aligned than above.

To organise them I often wheeled way back on my chair...

And all that back and forth not unsurprisingly, led to this a couple of times.  A new way to tangle threads!

The good news is that it all worked out OK.

2021 in Review

 I have found over the years that stopping to reflect on the year that passed; and pausing to consider the work I have made is a really helpful reminder and record.  Especially now when time has become such a strange concept;  seemingly elastic and shape-shifting.

I admit that Covid has left me often unmoored with regards time; the markers I can usually pin things down to have moved, disappeared, or happened at unusual times, and I have had to work hard to recall what work was made this year rather than last.  But I did and I enjoyed it as ever - it felt like greeting some long lost friends as I went along the way!

Here are my Top 10 things I made this year - things that I love, things I am proud of, things that make me smile, things that matter to me and things  I am simply happy to have out in the world. They appear alphabetically rather than in any order of merit.

1. The Angels

This commission made me smile.  I love the nod to old fashioned peg dolls; I love how they link to friendships and I was really happy that each piece ended up being individual.  Another one is underway to acknowledge the latest member of the team.  For some of the drama in the making see here.

2. Feminist Postcards

I love these cards. Such small yet powerful reminders of our need for change. Siblings to my larger posters, they gathered together really well in this set of 7. I wrote about them here.

3. For Mary

As part of a beautiful birthday commission for a friend.  This wee book offers reminders of home; and offers words of remembering too. It was such an honour...

4. Friendship Unfurls

The Red Thread exhibition offered me so many opportunities to play with notions of female friends; holding and connecting.  This wee book, in combination with Barry, was an absolute favourite. It sat so well in the hand; it gently unfurled and you could pop it in your pocket and carry it with you. It now lives at the home of a friend. 

5. Hear Me Roar

After having made my individual feminist posters through the year; I brought them all together in a book, which makes quite the statement.  It feels good to have them all together, bravely and boldly telling it how it is.

6. Llorac

The companion piece to the book at number 2; this beautiful work formed part of the birthday commission.  It spoke to the heart and was welcomed with love. Such a lovely lovely thing to have been  part of.

7. Morningtide

It's funny how some thighs are lovely, yet never really get loved.  I really enjoyed making this series of works. There are 42 in the series and they bring together crisp and beautiful digital printing with hand set traditional letterpress. I like the combo and I like the images and the words and yet they don't seem to resonate with too many other folk! 

8. Old Friends

This is the piece that got me kick-started and headed in a good direction for The Red Thread.  The story of the returned rusty tin is here and I once more offer my gratitude to Pauline Prior-Pitt who generously loaned me her words. 

9. Ongoing Friendship

Another of my Red Thread works - I love the possibility of a continuing and shared story between friends with these unbound books.

10. Pocket Book

A sibling to my original poster Pockets are Political, I love this book. It is a slim volume packed with good thoughts about pockets and women's clothes and has always got a lot of nods of recognition as women read it.

Thanks as ever for coming along on the ride looking back over the year that was. It helped me remember that there were many beautiful things and moments of magic and that there will be again. 

An honourable mention must got to my Covid hankies.  They are not yet complete and so I will roll them over into 2022; but I must say they occupied an enormous amount of time and thinking this year and I do love them so.

New Year

 Here we are again, on the cusp of a new year as the calendar turns a page.

Once more our tradition of sending new year cards has begun. We have printed and illustrated and written and addressed, and when the post office next opens, we will send.

This year I thought of flowers; sending a small bouquet of flowers to folk across the world; a little something to brighten and to cheer the day. I love flowers and hope others do too!

With wishes and hopes for health and for happiness; for finding ways through; and for loving and enjoying the small and simple things.

Thursday Thoughts...

"… Rather, paintings and poetry, music and fashion, design and dialogue, they all define who we are as a people and provide an account of our history for the next generation". 

Michelle Obama

Throughout the various stages of this pandemic, we have all found ourselves entertained by, saved by, enthused by, and gripped by, the arts.  From movies to online choirs; to great books and stories; to balcony operatics; to jigsaw puzzles of great photographs, time and time again the arts have supported us and helped us feel not so alone.

As we once again watch how theatre, and circus, and concerts, and movies and exhibitions are all being damagingly affected by the impacts of the virus on gathering and on people's health, we ache because we know the arts is our communal, national, global heart. Its rhythms and beats keep us going, sustain us and help define us.  

What is 'left behind' by the arts definitely does tell a story; definitely does provide guidance for future generations and insight to, and understanding, of our times. And so we keep making, keep telling stories, keep on performing and recording and filming and hope that we find our way out once more to gather and celebrate the arts in all their glory.

Ahhhh... Letraset

 I have had the chance to pull out some of the lovely old and used Letraset I have bought and been gifted.

I have a small book in mind and have been trying to work out how to say what I want to say.  It came to me that glassine paper might do what I wanted to do - it has a shiny surface and can be a bit crinkly and crackly...

It is also a bit see-through and the light plays with it in a very pleasing manner. So being me, I chose to go with the bits of white Letraset I had and to see how they might work...

Must say, I was pretty happy with it!

The Letraset is old and a bit dry; and a bit temperamental and all of that; but oh how I love it.  You can have no idea how much it makes my heart sing!

I even tested out if my emboss machine mark would work with it and I can happily report that it does.

But oh my goodness I make a mess; and have pretty much taken up a couple of tables in the studio without  any effort whatsoever.

So things are coming along with this - I am learning to appreciate it when the Letraset transfers like a dream; and to go with the flow when it is a bit tacky and broken.  

Simultaneously I am trying to work out what the attraction is; what is it that I am finding so enjoyable and pleasurable about working with it?  Am jotting down a few thoughts and will hopefully find my way to understanding what its all about.

Star completed after one of those days...

So, I was travelling along nicely with this star piece I was doing for the bloke from Dad's church.

It took me three hours to get the lettering and design onto the star (previous post).  Then I began to fill it all in. Thanks to Barry for taking the shots of me at work.

Slowly and steadily we went along.  After another three hours the pieces was complete.  All the letters coloured in and tidied up. All the pencil lines removed.

Until disaster struck.

I thought that because it might need to be protected against the weather a bit, I should seal it with some fixative.  We took it outside and applied the fixative, and I think we overdid it and before we knew where we were, the whole darn thing was running!

Some very ugly letters...

Whole words almost wiped away.

The stress and despair was awful.  I tried a million ways to see if I could cover up the gold and re-do the letters, using things in the studio - metallic pencils; gold leaf; gold gouache; gold calligraphic stuff... and a resounding "NO" was the answer.

We went and bought a can of gold spray paint to see if I could somehow apply that and then re-work the lettering. Which in the end, was what I did.  Each and every letter had to be painted around again to create a straight outline (every single line had become furry and blurred, but not all as bad as those pictured above).

I got a container and sprayed the paint into it so it became liquid, then got a paintbrush and painted it on. This is the worst E repaired.

The overall results were satisfactory. This is the THE that had virtually disappeared.

And the star was delivered on time for the Christmas Light Show and Festival. Very. Very. Stressful.  The repair took a further 4 hours, so all up a 10 hour job.

Must be time to do something more relaxing!

Thursday Thoughts...

A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counsellor, a multitude of counsellors. 

Henry Ward

Book ARE so many things, in so many ways, to so many different people. At this time of year when I am giving books as gifts, receiving books as gifts and in strange twists of fortune ending up getting books I have bought for others, I wonder to myself - what might this book be to others?

Sometimes I share books because they have been so powerful or pertinent to me at the time; only to find others less impressed and definitely not as deeply moved as I was.

Sometimes folk gift me books that they are sure I will love; and I find that I can understand why but am not as excited nor passionate about it as they are.

Sometimes I buy a book for a friend and end up having to get my own copy because I know I would love it! 

Books land in our lives at different times and receive different welcomes depending on how things are with us.  No rhyme, no reason and no judgement.

Sometimes they fill whole a small hole in your hear that you hadn't even realised was there!

I think however that I have found one book that most everybody would enjoy.  

You can read about the story behind it here... but it is truly beautiful, an antidote to so much of the worry and concern and difficulty in this world as people answer respond to the question "Would you tell me a love story?"

An absolute keeper and one to dip into time and again to be lifted up by love.

Of birds and bits

 We are roaring towards the end of the year and there is still plenty going on.  We have however, taken some time to wander and ponder, and play and prepare...

We were buying some sandstone at a landscape suppliers the other day and found these two precious wee metal birds on a windowsill - they came home with us.

We popped them onto a garden wall; and here they are peeking around the corner at each other.

Tidying up our vegetables and herbs, the lemon thyme needed a serious haircut. It had been overrun by tomatoes and sage and gone all leggy and dry.  I had such a handful of it I couldn't help but build myself a nest (with none of the skill or sophistication of a bird - just thrown together!)

And then I nestled one of our cement hearts in it..

And popped it on top the same wall.

And then to play - the agapanthus are in stunning form at the moment and we have a big bunch inside.  As the petals dropped I wondered if they might solar-dye some thread.  

So here they are before going into the bottle and into the sun.

And to prepare...there is now a seventh Angel in the group!  A young man has joined the team and folk would like me to make a seventh angel work for them.  We decided we could pretty much do as we did before - I will need another set of wings to work with and we needed another colour to differentiate things a bit so we have added orange to the mix.

I have done the thinking and ordered more easels and I think once I get a moment I will be able to get down and make number 7!