Threading thoughts

It all started with holes

2012-01-27T13:02:00.002Z

Cabbage white (2005)

This winter, on my way to shower every morning I have looked out of the window at next door's veg. patch, and admired their cabbage leaves. I love their sculptural shapes. And indeed I have been thinking about cabbages for other reasons recently. (Not least because now is a good time of year to eat them!) And also in looking for design inspiration for my printmaking classes I looked more closely at the above image.

Crambe maritima

Amongst recent photos I took at Dungeness were some of sea cabbages which proliferate on the shingle. In November it was their skeletons which attracted my attention.

For whatever reason - the contrast of the regular grid with the natural form of the leaves, or perhaps a symptom of my control freakery - I am drawn to photograph cabbages under netting.

One year despite netting over my own cabbages the caterpillars of the cabbage white butterfly had a banquet! The resulting lacework of holes was magnificent, however, so I photographed them, and decided somehow to make a piece of work from those photos. I scratched my head over what to do for a long time until I turned my thoughts towards the caterpillars and the holes.

So, I stitched the whole of a piece of off white silk noil, which would become the background and support. On the computer I whited out the holes and took away extraneous elements.

I heat transferred six or seven of these onto silk habotai. The result stiffened the silk, and also was double-sided, having also printed onto the cotton which I had under the silk. I used the same piece of cotton under the silk, and so used that as my base for the figure, which was stitched densely by hand. I cut out all the holes from each sheet of silk, and then arranged them on the white background, catching them in a few places with a couple of stitches. I was so pleased with the result that I have the framed piece hanging on my studio wall. The silk has darkened a little, but retains more green than is evident in the photo above, and I think still looks good.

I never grew cabbages again, however!

Thoughts-a-plenty; but none pinned down

2012-01-22T17:01:00.001Z

I don't really have anything to put in a post these days. This is not to say that I am not thinking; simply that I have no thoughts coherent enough to roll into a bead ready to thread. My head is full of thinking: ideas whirling around as I tentatively try different methods of printmaking, and as I fumble through my ragbag of designs to try out with those methods. I have even put up one of my own images as a pinboard on this blog because I want it to jump out at me regularly.
The image above is made up of a scanned small section of a monoprint experiment, with a figure drawn on digitally. The swirl in my head brings forth various doodles like this, which could possibly develop into 'real work' - but somehow the maelstrom of thinking is also raising a question: why? Although I feel a compulsion to work at developing images, I'm not sure to what purpose.
I'm drifting a bit, not rowing, but allowing a current to pull me along while I dandle my hands in the water. I suppose, to paraphrase W.H. Davies, now that my life is no longer full of care, I have the time to stand and stare. It's just a state to which I'm having difficulty adjusting myself.

Are we lost?

2012-01-12T16:06:00.001Z

It's just that there seems to be a lot of 'mapping' around at present. In 2003 a friend and I saw an exhibition at the James Hockey gallery in Farnham: The map is not the territory iii. (This was the third exhibition, after i and ii, and before Revisited.)
I bought the catalogue, and thought that the concept was an interesting one, which then faded into the back of my mind. Indeed I was not aware of the Revisited exhibition.
Then, more recently I became vaguely aware of Katherine Harmon's book You Are Here: Personal geographies and other maps of the imagination. This was brought more sharply into focus when I signed up for a drawing class to take place next month which uses the book as a jumping-off point. Katherine Harmon has also published The map as art: contemporary artists explore cartography. (I acquired the former, but decided that I could live without the latter.)
Then along came the Winter 2012 issue of the Surface Design Journal, and here we have mapping again. First in an article about innovation there are mentions of Anne West's Mapping: The intelligence of artistic work, Moth Press, Maine College of Art, and then later in the journal there is a review of an exhibition - Traces: Mapping a journey in Textiles.
'Mapping' is obviously increasingly a buzz word. I only signed up for the drawing class because it looks more interesting for me than the others available, and I need a personal shake-up. Journeys and maps have always been of interest, so why not? Now it seems I'm going to be on a bandwagon - but will coming up with our own maps help us find the way?

Drawing

2012-01-03T10:22:00.001Z

Edward Burra: The Straw Man 1963

Yesterday I finished reading Jane Stevenson's excellent biography of Edward Burra. I wanted to read it all around the Pallant House exhibition, and was glad that I had the relaxed time to do so. Both the book and the exhibition have reinforced my desire to draw more. This is something which was spurred by my printmaking classes. It is so easy to get into habits and laziness around them when restricted to one mode of working - drawing, in my case. I have become so used to drawing on the computer that I suddenly felt constrained when faced with monoprint or drypoint requirements. I also so miss working with my soft pastels.

Reading David Hockney's conversations about his working methods recently also reinforced my determination to explore drawing and to widen my experience. I was amused to read the article in today's Guardian newspaper where he makes a dig at artists like Damian Hirst using other craftspeople/artists to produce his works.

So, I have completed a first pass reading of the excellent Contemporary Drawing by Margaret Davidson, which I'm sure I shall return to. Just as I shall re-read a present from Christmas 2009: On Line: Drawing through the 20th Century. And I am about to start reading and working with Drawing Projects: An exploration of the language of drawing to loosen myself up, and to discover/re-discover what it is I like to draw, and how.

I have also booked myself a treat of a long weekend of residential drawing workshop next month.

This is all part of my plan to sort myself out. The studio is taking shape, and I have even started work on an experimental piece.

Resolution

2012-01-01T14:49:00.000Z

This year I am determined to sort myself out. I've already started on the practical side by beginning the move back into our annexe. Previously my occupation of that space was what I called my studio, but after my mother came to stay with us, and then became ill, first the computer, and then other things moved into the main house, so that the room remaining to me was nominally the sewing room, but in reality it was the dumping room.
Now I can call it the studio again.
I have so much to sort out, including unfinished items - who doesn't? And like so many others it is difficult to decide what to do with them. Well, I have found an excellent spur to help me deal with such dilemmas. Mentioned in the current issue of Embroidery is the Unfinishable project. They have been and are still gathering unfinishable items which they will document, and will thence become part of a large textile piece.
I have parcelled up my piece The pose to post to them.

I designed and prepared this in a hurry when my mother went into hospital - so that I would have something small to stitch when with her. I stitched it all, except for the purple: intensive, all over stitching while she was dying. And so I cannot bring myself to finish the piece, nor simply to throw it out.
The Unfinishable project is an ideal solution for me, and has made me feel even more positive about the sort out. A good and interesting start to the year.

Forward - with a buzz

2011-12-31T12:20:00.003Z

I have just finished reading this book, received as a Christmas present. It has filled my head with pleasure, questions, excitement, thoughts, ... a general buzz. Whether one agrees with Hockney's ideas and opinions or not, he is always thought-provoking about how we see, how we look, how he represents what we expect to see in paintings and drawings, using photography, through theatre design, using i-phone and i-pad, and even now in moving images. His enthusiasms have always swept me along - I just love his positive approach to everything.
I really look forward to seeing the upcoming exhibition of his recent work, and in the meantime I shall try to make the most of my shot-from-the-cannon-of-enthusiasm mood! Perhaps you feel like downloading a free fresh flower drawing by Hockney from the Royal Ontario Museum (the exhibition is only on until tomorrow).

I hope that 2012 brings us all creative challenges, expanding enthusiasms, intriguing investigations, at least one outrageous opportunity, and lots of time for serious silence.

Happy Hogmanay!

A quick glance over my shoulder, before moving forward

2011-12-29T12:28:00.002Z

Just as we are about to turn the page into a new year I like to look back over the 12 months I'm leaving - to prepare myself for the new journey if nothing else. I like to summarise as much as possible, so that some element of this year can serve as a starting point if necessary for my thoughts in the immediate future. I am very much looking forward to thinking, looking, experimenting afresh in 2012; building on experience rather than repeating it, and I want to take a useful nugget from this year into next.
Two exhibitions remain at the forefront of my memory - above the others which also provided much nourishing input - and those are the Basketry exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts which I saw in April, and the Bite-Size exhibition of miniature textiles which I saw more recently (and wrote about here, here, here, and here). As ever, it was a conjunction of memories from these two with other small elements which suddenly came together to form a coherent area for further thought.
I had seen a fascinating exhibition of paintings and prints by Jaakko Mattila: Lowest Common Denominator. The paintings have a meticulous look from the front, but I was surprised to see that the edges of the canvas had been left, so that indeed the viewer was very much aware that it was a canvas that one was looking at. This was a kind of shock as it is not what one thinks of when first encountering the work - and certainly not seen on Mattila's website. That niggle stayed out of sight in my brain, just waiting to find its companion thoughts.
I had signed up for a short afternoon seminar at the end of November on Writing about Craft at the Craft Study Centre. It was there that things clicked. I came away from the seminar with the idea that the main, perhaps the only difference between writing about craft and writing about art is the subject of materiality. I had argued with another participant that when one looks at a Rothko one does not think about the canvas he used. But then driving home I remembered that niggle - that looking at Mattila's canvases did deepen and widen my thoughts about his paintings. I did think about the materiality of his work.
Then that took me back to my thinking about Edmund de Waal's vitrines of ceramics. Looking at a ceramic object brings to mind the feel of it - its material. Looking at a combined display of chosen ceramic objects brings to mind not only the feel of the material, but also opens all sorts of other associations. Looking at the ceramics through a glass, or even a glass darkly in some cases, somehow begins to deprive us of its materiality as initial impact. We are now looking at sculpture where idea and materiality combine to make their impact and indeed de Waal had a piece: Untitled, 2011 in this year's Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (scroll down the link to see a pic.) which was firmly in the category wall sculpture. But the materiality is still a vital ingredient - one still needs to have that genuine touch/thought response.

Edmund de Waal: Reading at Night 1/3, 2011 (A series of 3 sprayed black aluminium cabinets each containing thrown porcelain vessels in varying glazes and covered with opaque glass.)

I am not making a point about the difference between art and craft (in the main I find that a waste of time); but am interested in exploring my own work and where my thoughts, ideas, and designs will go from now. I have been treading water for quite a while now, and tentative paddling has started me in one direction trying out designs (like the one at the top of this post) which I like so far, ... but which do not fit comfortably into a previously used category of stitching.

Ambivalent attraction

2011-12-28T16:05:00.000Z

Edward Burra: The Cabbage Harvest watercolour on paper 1943-5

This is one of my favourite paintings from the current Edward Burra exhibition on at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester, West Sussex. Burra is another of those artists whose work I have known since I was young. Some pieces I have been attracted to, but others have left me cold. Always, however, I was struck by his clear - piercing, even - un-hypocritical gaze and his draftsmanship.

I don't remember where I first encountered the paintings - perhaps they were already in the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland. A hazy memory of where, when, and how, but a definite combined memory of like and dislike remained until I recently came across his glorious large painting of Northumbrian countryside in the Tate Watercolour exhibition, and also reacquainted myself with The Snack Bar in Tate Britain.

Edward Burra: Valley and River, Northumberland watercolour 1972

Edward Burra: The Snack Bar oil on canvas, 1930

I cannot remember at what point Jane Stevenson's biography came to my attention, but seeing that Pallant House were about to have a decent exhibition of his work jogged my elbow, and I am currently reading Edward Burra: Twentieth Century Eye. How appropriate that description! He does cover so much of what was going on, especially from the 20s and 30s onwards. He was sharp and witty, a curious and detailed observer who just loved to comment - not only in paint, as I have discovered from reading so many extracts from his letters.

The gallery has put together an excellent collection of reviews which describe Burra's work and the exhibition far better than I could. I still have an ambivalent attraction to the work, but it is so much more informed, and I still have my memory of the paintings, and the second half of an excellent biography to read, and so much to think about.

Edward Burra: Blue Robed Figure under a tree watercolour 1937

A view across the spiral

2011-12-23T11:48:00.000Z

Victor Pasmore: The quiet river:the Thames at Chiswick

1943-4

I love this painting, and have had a postcard for many years. I suspect that I bought it on my first visit to the Tate Gallery in the late 60s. Victor Pasmore is an artist whose work entranced me all those years ago. I was attracted both by the early figurative work, and by the abstract paintings. The power of his compositions combined with a kind of quiet poetic appeal which somehow can also be found in his sculptural work. I even found, and find it in the Apollo Pavillion - no matter that it spent so long decorated with graffiti!

I was delighted when I found that one of my favourite venues was to have an exhibition of Victor Pasmore's work. I have a view of one's progress through life as a kind of up a spiral - rather like walking up Frank Lloyd Wright's Manhattan Guggenheim - so that we can look back across in memory at various events and influences. I also think that I believe that our taste during our formative years stay on as something special, and if not disturbed by subsequent more informed or experienced scrutiny, remaining as core influence.

So, it is always with a kind of nervous anticipation that I go to exhibitions of work by those early artistic 'crushes' of mine. But I need not have worried. I knew that the late spray paint works would still be as powerful for me because I have encountered them over the years - too rarely for my liking.

Victor Pasmore: Untitled, 1992

In the Artist's House gallery at Roche Court (open by appointment) there are also prints, which with my newly acquired specific interest in printmaking I was eager to see.

Victor Pasmore: Points of Contact, Transformations No.1, Edition 5 of 60

I was particularly apprehensive about seeing the three dimensional work and the work on plywood because such pieces do not always age well. Plastics used in the last century have not always worn well. And the materiality too often then - for me, at least - gets in the way of full appreciation. These are occasions when I would deploy a magic wish: the desire to know how the work would appear at the time of making.

Well, once more I was delighted. Indeed given my recent more sideways-directed thoughts on three dimensional wall-mounted work, the pieces were inspirational.

Victor Pasmore: Abstract in White, Black and Maroon, 1962

And if this were not more than enough to keep the creative juices bubbling; on our way out of the Artist's House gallery we met Laura Ellen Bacon busy up a ladder weaving part of her upcoming exhibition. We were so wowed by her fabulous work Growth Tip at the Sainsbury Centre basketry exhibition in Spring this year. Already there is so much to look forward to in 2012.

Catching up with my reading

2011-12-18T13:13:00.006Z

Alexander Deyneka - Woman Reading

Over the last couple of years I have amassed a pile of books to read - a pile even greater than normal due to my not being able to concentrate while my mother was ill. Recently I have devoured so many whodunits and similar escapist writings. Crime and detective stories are not only quick transport to mysterious closed circumstances: a dangerous box in which one can be a safe observer, but they are so often really well written, and can also whisk the reader off to different places and times.

My favourite authors for blocking out my everyday, and whose latest titles have been neatly stacking up on my recently acquired Kindle include Val McDermid (The Retribution) who takes me into fascinatingly sick minds - although I'm afraid that I did guess the denouement of this one, but that could possibly be a result of the sickness of my thinking at the time! Ian Rankin (The Impossible Dead) just does not write quickly enough for me. I also love going back to Edinburgh with him, as I do with Kate Atkinson (Started Early, Took My Dog).

I recently discovered the books of Camilla Lackberg, set in Fjallbacha, Sweden, and have been working my way through them. The last one I read was The Gallows Bird, which is the fourth in her series about detective Patrick Hedstrom. I very much enjoy the small community interaction which she captures, as well as the consequences of the claustrophobia which can arise. She has filled the gap I've felt waiting for the next Karin Fossum to drop in price a bit (The Caller). It is the examination of family history and the unravelling of motive which I very much appreciate in both of these Scandanavian authors.

From the extreme cool of one hemisphere to the heat of another, I was recently introduced by a friend to the writing of Deon Meyer, a South African who writes in Afrikaans, and so again I am benefiting from the underrated skills of excellent translation. I read Dead Before Dying, and Blood Safari, and thoroughly enjoyed the adventures.

Another introduction, this time through a review in the Guardian newspaper, was The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton. This is mystery, but turned somewhat on its head - perhaps describing it as a psychological thriller would be more accurate. A different angle is also taken by Belinda Bauer whose Darkside I recently read. It was by reading a review in the Guardian again that I found her brilliant Blacklands. I must say that I preferred the latter, although Darkside is good too.

And it was because of the translator mentioned in the Guardian review of Death in August by Marco Vichi. Stephen Sartarelli, a poet with a lovely feel for idiom, also translates the detective novels of Andrea Camilleri (whose The Potter's Field I am anticipating with impatience). Death in August is a more gentle crime novel set in 1960s' Florence. The drawing of the characters are more of the attraction than the intricacy of the crime - but all is enjoyable.

For the history I love reading the novels of Jason Goodwin. An Evil Eye is the fourth set in Ottoman Istambul, with an Eunuch as the detective. Istambul is a great attraction to me, in present day as well as in history, and I always eagerly await the Inspector Ikmen novels of Barbara Nadel - the latest is A Noble Killing.

I read good reviews of Ruth Rendell's The Vault, which follows on from a novel she wrote years ago under her pen name Barbara Vine: A Sight for Sore Eyes. I had read the latter, but a long time since, and so I read both together. I enjoyed the Vine again, but was rather disappointed with the new novel. I have been going off Ruth Rendell recently, and I suspect that this is the last of her current work that I'll read. Past Barbara Vine titles, however, are usually worth reading as psychological thrillers.

And then for something completely different: PD James' Death Comes to Pemberley. This is a 'sequel' to Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, and although it involves a mysterious murder is not exactly a murder mystery, nor a detective story. It was fun to read, although occasionally questioning whether certain expressions really were used at the time - they probably were; I'm constantly surprised.

Henri Lebasque: Woman reading

Now I have so much time to myself - I still cannot believe it - my determination is to make a start on that ever increasing pile of books-which-need-concentration, and books which deserve chunks of time. First is The Grid Book by Hannah B. Higgins, a fascinating examination of how a grid was and is used in town planning, music, art, ... it is divertingly informative and thought-provoking.

Also I'm progressing through the biography of painter Edward Burra, written by Jane Stevenson. I was attracted to this for two reasons, and now a third. First, I have always admired a lot and disliked some of the work of Edward Burra, and have been curious about him for a long long time. Second, I very much enjoyed a book of short stories: Good Women by Jane Stevenson, and now third, there is a retrospective exhibition of Burra's work which I intend to see soon.

Waiting at the top of the pile, next, is Katharine Harmon's You are here:Personal geographies and other maps of the imagination.

By, with, from, and in landscape

2011-12-14T14:26:00.000Z

Lotte Glob: Books of the Land - Solidified Thoughts ceramic, 2004, 45 x 42cm

Yesterday we had to go to Winchester for boring administrative reasons, and I looked to see if there was anything else which might make the journey more worthwhile. I found an exhibition of sculpture on at the gallery of the Winchester Discovery Centre (what libraries are called these days) - it sounded interesting. I had been meaning to go for some time in order to see the Alice Kettle commission, so, several birds for one stone!
The Figure in the Landscape exhibition is brilliant: small, but perfectly formed. It has that balance which one wants in all exhibitions: familiar stuff one loves, new (to the viewer) and astonishing/inspirational work, and work which makes one think.

Henry Moore: Reclining Figure: Hand bronze, 1979, 221cm length, Hamburg

The familiar was represented by an 86.3cm bronze working model for the above sculpture, work by Peter Randall-Page, both carved stone and ceramic on the wall, and a piece by Barbara Hepworth who inspired this exhibition. Rachel Bebb of The Garden Gallery curated this show, and wrote the accompanying catalogue (£2 from the Discovery Centre). In her introduction she says that 'Barbara Hepworth came to view landscape as a document of layers of human existence, and the menhirs and megaliths of Cornwall, where she lived and worked as a metaphor for individuals in society, communicating silently between past and present cultures.

... Barbara Hepworth wrote ... "To me a basic purpose of sculpture is to express the importance of man and his fundamental unity with nature."'

Barbara Hepworth: Two figures (Menhirs), Cornish slate, 1964, 82.5 x 63.8 x 32cm, Tate Gallery

Moores and Hepworths are much loved by both myself and my husband, and we never tire of seeing examples of their work. Just these two pieces alone would have been worth the journey. But added to them we were entranced by the works of two artists new to us: Keith Rand and Emily Young.

Emily Young's Maremma Warrior II creates the stunning image on the cover of the catalogue. Partly out of its block of quartzite the head seems timeless, frozen from an earlier age, an ancient warrior or leader still powerful even in sleep: a man of myth. There is a great strength in the stone captured and also released by the carving of the features. On the other hand the work in carved wood by Keith Rand reminded me of folded paper: the delicacy and yet strength too that that has.

Keith Rand: Parsonage Down I bleached limewood, 2005, 108 x 19.5 x19cm and

Parsonage Down II, bleached limewood, rust, boxwood, 2005, 86 x 22 x 16cms

I have read articles previously about Lotte Glob, and her house, and sometimes longed to be living far away from it all in the empty harsh beauty which is Sutherland in Scotland. Although I have seen images of her ceramics I had until yesterday never seen any for real. Well, her Books of the Land: Solidified Thoughts, seen at the top of this post is magnificent. It is as if the knowledge of the ancients has become the land itself.

On the thought-provoking side, one artist new to me has me thinking again about the importance of distilling all the disparate input into an economical elegance, which like consommé is clarity itself while filled with a depth of taste and traces of all the ingredients. Tim Harrisson has two sculptures in the exhibition, one carved out of Carrara marble given to him by the Barbara Hepworth Estate; but it is his three Drawings for a Geological Room which intrigued me more.

Tim Harrisson: Drawings for a Geological Room, Black, charcoal on paper, 2010, 100 x 72cm

White, ink and chalk on paper

Grey, ink and charcoal on paper

I really like these meditative scribbles which remind me of stone floors which contain fossils etc. In going to his website later I found prints which also intrigue me, and have started me thinking about possibilities for my own printmaking.

There were other works in the exhibition, by other artists, intriguing also, but these which I've mentioned attracted me most. My mind was so occupied by my thoughts about the work in the Figure in the Landscape exhibition that I could not at all concentrate on another reasonably substantial exhibition of textile work in another gallery in the Discovery Centre. We buzzed round that, and I'm pleased to say that people were buying quite a lot - there were red dots everywhere and the turnover of stock was quite high for some makers. This show is by the Force 8 group of textile artists.

The sea, the sea, ....

2011-12-08T11:53:00.001Z

My first years were spent near the sea: both in Aberdeen, a fishing city on the NE coast of Scotland, and Thessaloniki, an historic international trading post on the NE coast of Greece. My cousin in the latter location still has an apartment overlooking the wide harbour, and from her balcony I have spent many an hour being soothed by the view.

I used to love swimming in the sea at idyllic locations like the one below down the coast from Salonica.

But the sights of the sea which inspire me the most are of ordinary work-a-day life: people in conjunction with the sea. The fishermen - even if they are not professional:

either in Salonica, or in Southwold, Suffolk -

but I must admit I derive the greatest joy and satisfaction from watching work in and around the sea and deriving a living from and with the sea, and seeing the whole world of activity, architecture, vehicles, engineering, and even detritus of that work.

At the end of last month I had completed most of the paper work associated with my mother's death, and we decided to take off a few days. I wanted to see the sea, and so we decided to explore a stretch of coast new to us both. We visited the southern tip of the Thames estuary, and travelled down from the Isle of Sheppey, stopping to look at Queenborough and Sheerness, and then on to Whitstable, Herne Bay, Margate, Broadstairs, Ramsgate, and then on the way home a few days later we visited Dungeness. Each of these individual places, most of which almost run into each other, has its own distinct character and function. The trip was successful in that it provided a much needed break, it gave us unexpected delights, and provided inspiration towards a positive outlook. It was deeply satisfying.

Here are a few of my snaps: Queenborough on Sheppey

From Whitstable which is a popular tourist town, and was still buzzing on the Sunday, but quietened down nicely for us during the week. We enjoyed the restaurant Samphire so much that we ate there two evenings in a row.

Some folks live precariously right on the beach and risk high tides, and it is possible to stay in former fisherman's huts converted to hotel rooms.

Whitstable is famous for its oysters. Neither of us has had a great love of the beastie in its raw state - which is perhaps just as well! - despite otherwise liking cooked seafood. They recycle the shells to good effect here as well in the USA.

Margate now has a stunning new gallery on the shore just by the harbour: the Turner Contemporary. We were interested to find a thought-provoking exhibition on about youth, which contained quite an eclectic collection of work about youth or by young artists.

The tide was coming in when we went for our walk along the coast, and I was fascinated by how the waves can move in seemingly opposite directions at the same time. Although I don't think I've quite been able to capture it in this photo.

Broadstairs felt very historic to me. And I could imagine some Victorian, or earlier folk bustling about its streets and looking anxiously out of their windows at the sea.

Dungeness however felt completely other-worldly. It is a shingle spit with a bleak aspect, containing small fishermen's huts, some occupied, and some ruined. It is a conservation area, there is a power station, there is wild noise from the wind (and we had a quick hailstorm). The late film maker and painter Derek Jarman's house and famous garden is there, and there is another traditional black house/hut which is architect designed and clad in rubber - although it fits right in with everything else. It is not an alien land as such - really I felt that we were the aliens who had landed. I could not live there, but I just love the look of it.

Sometimes ....

2011-12-06T16:04:00.001Z

on setting out to achieve one task, ... I get sidelined ....
Of course I blame the fact that I had to pop out this morning to buy some essentials, and that that diverted me off my intended course of continuing to clear / tidy / sort my sewing room/studio. Yesterday I achieved a lot of clearing and cleaning, moving a mountain of accumulated paper, projects, materials, and once-seen-as-useful-or-potentially-useful-junk. I was not only pleased with my achievement, but I had also discovered some work which I'd completely forgotten. Indeed I quite like what I found and set about scanning it.
Anyway, after I returned from my successful shopping expedition there was not really enough time before lunch to pull up my sleeves and resume my Augean task, so I sat down to potter about with a couple of the pastel drawings I'd scanned. Well, in this case one pastel drawing and one stencil/mask I'd cut out and used with pastel.

The experiment with Unison soft pastels - I love them for their silky soft crumble.

This had been used and the pastel residue makes interesting marks on the card.

It needed the bite of black, and a few tweaks around, all done with Corel Painter 11, my usual toolbox, and this work-in-progress has got me excited. I don't think that it is something that could stand being very big, so I shall probably print it on some A3 prepared cotton to be stitched. Not too bad for a displacement activity!

Fish in a box

2011-11-25T13:13:00.001Z

When we went to the Bite Size exhibition I was waiting for my friend in the lobby of Japan House, and was looking around. Drawn to a beautiful example of basket work in a piece of art for the wall I peered closely at Owl by Kazuhito Takadoi. Exquisite, the tiny ties, the precision of placement and spacing. To sigh for!
Below the framed Owl, on the mantle of a redundant fireplace I encountered a pile of postcards of the above image and was immediately not only attracted but stimulated. The postcard is to promote an upcoming exhibition of work by Riusuke Fukahori at the ICN gallery. The exhibition is entitled Goldfish Salvation.
It was a box of fish which cleared the log jam in my thinking. It brought back a kind of clarity, not of actual ideas as such, but a flow, a facility which allowed me to approach image-making in a relaxed way. Over the years fish have wiggled their way into many of my images, and I am grateful to them.
The first work to arise from these little slivers in their box was an exercise in exploring possibilities of viscosity printing with monotype. Thinking about the fish gave me the figures, which gave me my range of compositions.

offset from the roller on newsprint

another detail of an offset from the roller on newsprint

a detail from the print below

the whole roller offset on newsprint from another design

I sometimes find that searching for content ideas can get in the way of fully concentrating on exploring technique, and so it was a glorious gift to stumble across the beautiful box of fish!

The sideways view

2011-11-13T11:53:00.001Z

As you can see I am still chewing over the nourishment I received from my visit to the Bite Size exhibition. The quality of this exhibition, like many in the series has been outstanding for me. Not only has it introduced the work of extraordinary makers but also has inspired my own work. One aspect in particular has un-jammed my thinking to enable me to leap forward with my ideas.
Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time will know that I witter on from time to time about my thinking about aspects of 3D. Well, something finally gelled when I saw some of the pieces in the Bite Size show.

Michael Brennand-Wood's piece Flower Heads (embroidered blooms, acrylic, pencils, resin, and wire on wood base) started it off. By being bright, recognisable, and hung in a corner I went to it first, taking this side-on snap before squiging myself round to take a font-on view as seen here. I love those multiple views of the coloured pencils, the flower stems, the angles on the flowers, etc. The piece is so animated, and although still miniature it explodes beyond its actual space.

Squiging myself again, and hence the dreadful snap - apologies, directly opposite Flower Heads is Masae Bamba's Black water (25 x 18 x 14cm, cotton cloth) which looks mildly intriguing until moving round to the side.

The artist is intent on expressing in cloth something about water - which she says 'for me ... is symbolic of beauty and life.' Even without the title the sideways view brings more than simply a different dimension to the work - and I also so like seeing the supporting shelf and wing nut too.

Liz Nilsson's Veiling and Unveiling (25 x 25 x 10cm cotton satin, PVC mosquito netting, embroidery fabric, embroidery thread, Perspex fitting) also had me entranced. From the front it is mysterious, intriguing, theatrical, ... all of which qualities as well as being architectural are increased when given a sideways view.

Somehow, even with some of the layers unveiled, the mysterious quality remains, simply in another dimension. In looking at this intense small work from the side I also started to imagine myself in there, walking between the layers. Heady stuff these miniatures!

Ealish Wilson's Jabara 1 (digitally printed Tyvek with mizuhiki strings) is of course presented for best possible otherwise viewing all from one spot. It is possible not only to see into the form, but also the mirror at the base reflects the bottom narrower outer section.
It was my comparing the fully rounded 3D pieces with the in some senses apparently more limited sideways view pieces which clicked with me. I immediately returned to a piece which I had made as an exercise to use up fabric paints. (Which just goes to show how wise the Irish are - as in the old joke: ask an Irishman how to get somewhere, and the answer you get is 'I wouldn't start from here'!)

I realise now without knowing it then that what I was trying to achieve was a sideways view from the front. And this is what is filling my mind at present - triggered and fuelled by a smashing show of wee pieces, only a few of which I have mentioned in my posts.

Distilled delights

2011-11-10T21:42:00.001Z

No matter how clear or otherwise I am about the road to follow in expressing myself, one clear aim which I try to keep in mind is to distill. Not just to Keep It Simple, Stupid, but to try within that clarity to have depth and power. It is those admirable qualities which I see in so much of the work presented over the years in Lesley Millar's exhibitions.
It can be seen in the work of Sue Lawty and Diana Harrison in the Bite Size exhibition, and shown in my post of 5 November. It can also be seen in the pieces by Harumi Isobe, Masakazu Kobayashi, Hideaki Kizaki, and Shihoko Fukumoto, for example.

Harumi Isobe: Untitled 12 x 23cm

Masakazu Kobayashi: Untitled 25 x 25 x 4cm

Hideaki Kizaki: House As Asian Origin 20 x 23 x 20cm

Shihoko Fukumoto: TOHOKU 28 x 25cm

This last was quite sufficient in itself: a sumptuous small treasure, and then I read in the catalogue that it is made of paper fabric. The pleasurable frisson I felt at that I suppose equates to the delight some folks have in eating a particularly rich dark chocolate.

Love-hate relationship?

2011-11-08T15:49:00.000Z

This rather inferior snap is of Jun Mitsuhashi's Rainy Book in the Bite Size exhibition. It seems at first glance different from his other work.
I liked the statement made in the catalogue:

In Japanese we have a phrase which translates as 'work in the fields when the sun shines, read books at home when it rains'. ....

I based this piece upon a book. The inspiration was the bookmarks that I used to mark interesting pages as I read through the book. The bookmarks are like splashes of rain, reminding me of rainy days. On the cover, fossils or gemstones are embedded as a reminder of ancient events.

I hope that this piece serves as a 'book mark' to show the intersection between a uniquely Japanese view of nature and my own point of view.

I found that the work stands alone without any explanation, but the statement gives so much more.

Of course this piece brought me again to thinking about the book form as art. I have said that I have a longterm tussle with this area. I am so drawn to the form, the feel, the delights of broad aspects of what can be called a book. I have even from time to time gone so far as to play with actual maquettes such as the one below.

But there is always that niggling question of whether an art book is neither fish nor fowl. Is the form appropriate for the content? Does the content merit this form? This arose again at the sight of the Rainy Book because I wanted to open it, and was it really a book if it could not be opened? I'm splitting hairs because it could be seen as sufficient that the piece had stimulated curiosity and desire as well as memory of other books etc. within me. But nonetheless, that niggle keeps returning, and I would call Rainy Book a piece of sculpture and not a book.

A satisfying meal

2011-11-05T15:06:00.000Z

Yesterday my duodidactic friend and I braved forecasts of apocalyptic rain to travel up to London to see Bite Size an exhibition of miniature textiles at the Diawa Anglo-Japanese Foundation. The day was gloriously sunny, and the exhibition was stunning, delightful, thought-provoking, and inspirational - so well worth the trip!

The work above, Flower Heads by Michael Brennand-Wood 25 x 20 x 20cm, is one of the brightest examples. So many of the pieces are understated but breathtaking in their achievement.

One such is Lead XV by Sue Lawty 24 x 24cm (above is a detail). It is woven lead. Extraordinary in that it is so simple, elegant, powerful, and quietly redolent of the heavy noise of early battle!

The exhibition is curated by Lesley Millar who has brought so much of what is happening in textiles to our attention over the past ten years or so. I suspect that she has also stimulated many artists into broadening their outlooks and their ambitions by bringing so many of them together, either directly in collaborations in the past (such as Through the Surface), or simply in introducing them and their work to each other.

I as an onlooker have certainly been a most grateful beneficiary, not only from the great input, but more important for me, has been the inspiration. It never ceases to amaze me that seeing brilliant work such as Eilish Wilson's Jabara 1 20 x 20 x 20cm(pictured below),

or Diana Harrison's Damage (work in progress) 22 x 23cm stretched on a square of tiny pins,

or Chiyoko Tanaka's Mud Dyed Cloth - Twig and White Dots #279 12 x 13cm (below)

none of which is remotely like my own work can have my brain buzzing with ideas on the train journey home, and through the night, and still developing now, .... And those ideas are for my work - again not anything like those images which I hold still precious in my memory.

There is an excellent and delightful small square catalogue which on each double page spread presents a large clear photo of each piece of work with a comment from the artist opposite, available for sale. If you go to the exhibition take your cheque book with you, because they can only accept cheques. And do go to the exhibition if you can!

Distilled light

2011-10-15T11:54:00.003+01:00

Circle aquatint 2008

We are extremely fortunate to live close to really good exhibiting venues. One of my favourite destinations which is but a twenty minute drive away is Farnham. There are at least three exhibition venues there, and this time the specific attraction was the James Hockey Gallery and its show Jaakko Mattila: Lowest Common Denominator. This is a stunning exhibition of paintings and prints by the Finnish artist Jaakko Mattila who studied in Farnham.

All the work is so calm and calming - and yet exciting too. The quality of light ranging from the white gloss of large paintings to the edges of translucent colour in the aquatints and watercolours is something which demands attention and scrutiny. I felt pulled in to examine the delicate edges of brush strokes, the textural quality of layers, the immovable yet liquid graininess, ....

This is not the kind of art which I am compelled to make; but it is very much the kind of art which I enjoy and which inspires me.Cube acquatint 2008

Cube (anti) aquatint 2009

Everything and nothing oil on linen, mixed media 2008

Progress with collagraphs

2011-10-11T10:01:00.005+01:00

How I would love to spend much more time working with printmaking! Nevertheless I am also enjoying the measured progress of one day per week, with a wait of a week for my prints to dry. It is unusual for me to work on images which have no title; but there is a feeling about each one which helps me to develop it.
I love using chine colle to add to, embellish, expand, ... an image, and because the above figure is a warrior in my mind's eye - perhaps ancient - I struck on the idea of using some of my piles of Greek stamps in the process. I like the result, but I think it is not there yet.

The next collagraph plate with which I used stamps is one made up of ginkgo and eucalyptus leaves on a piece of khadi paper which I had machine stitched. In this case I'm really not sure about the bright stamps on the right which grab too much attention. I had taken too much ink off the plate before printing, but I quite like the cropped slither below which is more abstract as well as the stamps blending in.

I have long had an interest in printmaking, and in effect the way I go about producing my cloth for stitching is one form of printmaking. I started taking these classes last term (i.e. after Easter) for three purposes: 1. to get me physically away from the environs of my mother and her care one day per week, regularly. 2. to explore an image-making process about which I was already curious, and 3. to shake up my own design process because I was feeling that the new designs for textile work were becoming stuck.

The classes are succeeding in all three. My daily stress headaches have gone, and I wake up now with developing design thoughts in my mind pushing out inadequate-daughterly worries, and the proportion of time spent using my brain is beginning to increase once more. More important than anything I am beginning again to enjoy life and to look forward to the next day's work - and to finding more printmaking books to spend too much money on!

Revisit

2011-10-03T21:40:00.004+01:00

In my spiral meanderings I revisit figures. I love to come back to figures which please me, or intrigue me - or even which niggle at me for some reason, even if it is to correct or adjust some aspect. I have been visiting my repeat designs recently, and suddenly I saw The birth of Athena - so I isolated the image and completed that design - as seen below.

Enjoying the journey

2011-10-02T14:04:00.002+01:00

None of my printing work is ever regarded as being 'finished'. This is but the beginning of my second term of one day per week for 10 weeks - so I am barely at the start with the practice. Everything is of interest, and in many ways that is the main joy.
I was born on a Thursday: 'far to go', and it really has turned out that way. It is not that I have reached a specific distant point, but that it is such a fascinating journey. There has been - still is - a great deal which I do not enjoy about it; but that is far outweighed by the rest of the experience.
The above image shows my initial rubbings off of the ink from the collagraph plate shown in the last post. I scanned it through the other side of the tissue paper because the ink is still wet. I have no idea if I shall go on to do something with this, but nonetheless it excites me. And I get so excited that I have at my fingertips the technology to go on to make something more from this happy accident should a possibility leap into my mind.

Printmaking progress

2011-10-01T21:37:00.003+01:00

We have had two sessions in this new term, and at present we are learning about collagraphs. I am really enjoying these, with the above image one I produced with a plate I made up on the spot, trying out various materials. The one below I'd prepared from home. A long time ago I was seduced by paper string, and at last I have found a use for a very small part of my stash! The line running down through the figure below's hand is it.

Something in the air

2011-09-15T15:06:00.003+01:00

I first encountered Janet Echelman's sculptures in the November/December 2010 issue of the sadly departed Fiberarts magazine. I found it astonishing, exciting, but life somehow got in the way, and I did not purse more information. The article did make me recall my excitement in the 70s when I learned about Magdalena Abakanowicz and her Abakans, and about other ground breaking weavers such as Lenore Tawney. I sought out a long out of print volume by Mildred Constantine and Jack Lenor Larsen - Beyond Craft: The Art Fabric which covers several weavers and other workers with big fibre. I really enjoyed going back to those heady days when I was learning about the breadth of visionary creativity around.
Then came my latest issue of Sculpture magazine with another work by Janet Echelman on the cover. The article intrigued me once again, and I looked further. I found this video, and this interview, and am looking forward to the day when I can actually experience at least one of these fantastic creations for myself. Her explorations whilst on her Guggenheim Fellowship sabbatical seem to indicate that the sky certainly will not be the limit!

If in doubt ...

2011-09-10T11:24:00.005+01:00

When I worked in publishing one of my touchstone mantras was 'If in doubt, cut it out.' and this has stood me in good stead in other areas too. It is so easy to complicate, and then to over complicate, so I usually benefit from standing back, squinting my eyes and then taking out the scalpel.
Recently I have been concentrating on trying to loosen up my design thinking. This is both helped and hindered by the trying. Diverting attention to thinking about printmaking has been one really good solution which has allowed room for 'left field' ideas to start popping in (like my recent obsession with the notion of repeats). But my brain keeps trying to come up with themes or specific ideas. One such was the notion of women finding the limit or edge. I decided to try to make a four directional work with figures finding an inner edge rather than more conventionally breaking for the border. The above is my first rough on-screen drawing.

I had recently scanned a soft pastel exercise which had consisted of collaged paper which reminded me of islands, and which had inner torn edges which I liked. It might work, I thought. Hmm. There are many aspects of the above which I think are OK, but it was just not doing it for me. Well, if in doubt, ... so I stuck with the elements I liked, and suddenly a whole new dynamic developed.

The whole design has now gelled for me and it is at present resting on the back burner until I am ready to finish it. I prefer to leave designs-in-progress to one side for a wee while once they have reached a certain stage - even if I can see one or two elements which I want to tweak immediately. Fresh eyes can be most informative and can do away with tentative fiddling.

Final post on MADE 2011

2011-09-08T15:01:00.012+01:00

My favourite amongst the ceramics at the show in Farnham was the work of Elaine Bolt, pictured immediately above and below. I am a constant sucker for elegant simplicity, and here it went so well with the weaving hanging beyond.

I was also attracted to the work of Judy Dibiase (seen at the top of this post) which uses ceramics to convey her ideas about archiving memory. According to the notes beside her work she 'sees memory and trace as being the key to making sense of our own emotional terrain as well as the world we inhabit ... shadows and small objects act and are as used as a metaphor for how we remember'. I am intrigued by how many artists are bound up in memory and archiving these days. I thought that the sheets of ceramic were very like sheets of paper, and liked that - it's a good way of presenting and preserving them, and nowadays so many interesting things can be done with digital transfers onto ceramic.

The other work which interested me was that done on book arts. I am attracted to the idea of book arts and artists' books, but I must say that lately trying to think about the form is rather like trying to see in a blizzard. There is just so much about!

Of the book artists the work of Ken Borg appealed to me most. I love the geometric precision of the cuts above, and of the black and white work below. The forms were beautiful, but I did not find enough content for my taste.

Cerian Rousset excited a little interest, as did the coloured textures of Suppamas Youngcharoen, described in my last post, but they did not hold that interest long, I'm afraid. There are fuller photos on this link. Ken Borg had cards for distribution with this website printed - but it seems that they are all at the beginning of things, as one would expect from the newly graduated.

I did come away stimulated, and I must say that I have thrown myself even more obsessively into design work along the lines I had already started.

Visit to MADE 2011 (part 2 - textiles)

2011-09-04T11:34:00.014+01:00

In the main gallery the work which immediately attracted my attention was that of Louise Renae Anderson: beautiful large weavings. Her work was also being shown in Blue, an exhibition just past at Flow gallery.

I love the simplicity and the craftsmanship in these pieces - that consideration, care, and concentration which seems to be a hallmark of so many excellent weavers. It has always struck me that when people reel aghast at how long it takes me to stitch my pieces that that time is nothing when compared with the hand weaver.

The timeless qualities of the work attracted me, and I was delighted to find that craftsmanship and timelessness in the work of others in the show. It often comes over as a desire for neatness on my part. This is not so, necessarily, but in this post it certainly seems so. I believe that craftsmanship is like design: they should facilitate appreciation or be invisible - and definitely not get in the way of the primary message of the work.

I had to go up close fully to appreciate the qualities of Rachel Gray's work. I was intrigued by her description that 'Our clothes contain our secrets, secreted in seams and sewn into linings and kept close to the body.' Her work for me resembled short stories, or poems.

Each carefully framed, and belonging to the group while also being isolated. Carefully wrapped and stitched twigs with thorns, a strip of tablets, delicate fabric and rough, ....

For me there was a sense of vulnerability, of hiding what was really meant behind perhaps a now familiar language - but then is that not what fashion is?

It is certainly a lovely and rather beautifully disturbing manifestation of this kind of textile collage.

The other textile work which intrigued me was in the Book Arts section: the work of Suppamas Youngcharoen, whose page on the college site gives nothing away. But then, neither did the books except that they are meant to represent the four elements and are part of a project called Four Elements, 'exploring the building blocks of our universe through the language of colour craft and texture'. Yes, they are yummy, like yarn colour swatches are, but books?

Visit to MADE 2011 (part 1)

2011-09-03T12:14:00.006+01:00

I was not exactly overjoyed when I received my invitation to MADE 2011 because I have given up going to degree shows in the past few years. This not only because on various time and travel constraints, but mostly because of disappointment at what I saw. I am not a great fan of the conceptual work which depends wholly on an explanation written in fantastical bullshitese. On the other hand, this exhibition was on our doorstep, and I wanted to spend the £10 I had won on the lottery on a coffee and delicious cake at Maison Blanc, (although the £10 did not quite stretch for the two of us) so, ... why not? But then I have so often found that the event I really did not care too much about going to turns out to be a bowl of delights. The foyer of the James Hockey gallery at the University for the Creative Arts of which Farnham is but one campus contained two stunning pieces. (It contained more than those, but these are the two which appealed to me.)
The one which pulled attention first was the contained distressed piano by sculptor John Joyce. As another viewer next to me said: 'I just want to touch it. Doesn't it look like felt, or fabric?' So many different thoughts entered my mind, clashing: did those things at the corners look like buoys? A piano at sea? Music in dry dock? Emotionally I found the piece intriguing and endearing, and thought-provoking - this last always a fundamental necessity for me.

Having first walked past her work to get to the piano I had already glimpsed the work of Susan Derbyshire as we had approached the foyer. Built around another distressed item: this time a window or mirror, I love the printed images - not just the dress, but more the obscure drawings round the edges. Those prints recalled for me the work of early church glass where the colours are muted and few, with the lines of the illustration in black. The piece has made me want to look again at that early glass.

The pinking shears are cast in glass as is the hook and eye which I particularly liked. I definitely felt drawn back to early memories of dressing and of dressmaking.

And I thought that placing the piece in a large window, so that it acted as a kind of window to the outside itself was much more appropriate than having it hung against a white wall.

Late Summer sunshine - early Autumn glow

2011-09-01T18:41:00.016+01:00

Today we went to Loseley Park to see the garden. For once the weather was beautiful and the garden a real delight. There was also the added bonus of very few folks around, so we had the gardens almost to ourselves. Bliss. Here are some of my snaps.

Spillover design

2011-09-01T09:56:00.005+01:00

With all the thinking about linocut logistics and looking at what I like about relief printed images, I suppose that it was inevitable that one day I would wake up with an image in my head at which my subconscious had been scribbling away. I think that I like it - not as a linocut design, as one of my reverse applique A4-sized stitchings. And it just so happens that I've been wondering what I would have in reserve once I've completed Red hen.

So: The pose, design in progress.

Design challenges

2011-08-27T11:16:00.014+01:00

Recently the brilliant fabric designer Susan Collier died. Collier Campbell designs were joyous accompaniments to my career years in London, and my spirits always rise when I see an example from those days.
The design at the top of this post is a birthday card version by the publisher Roger la Borde of the Collier Campbell design Egyptian Birds.
Reading the obituaries, and looking back at the designs with which I am so familiar both in my own home, the home of my friends, and my memories, I started thinking about repeat patterns. In my current designing over the past several years I have not thought about repeats, but in the early to mid-90s I did make a lot of repeat designs for my knitwear.
Indeed I spend a deal of much enjoyed time designing both geometric and figurative designs to be worked in Shetland wool on my trusty (and sometimes not-so- trusty !) second hand Brother knitting machine.
My even earlier experience as a child working with printed cross stitch designs, and then designing my own suddenly became useful. One never knows when life will require the skills that you don't know you are acquiring!
I decided to take a couple of the figurative designs and use the Egyptian Birds palette as a starting point for who knows what.
First I wanted to create repeats of the pattern in a file - and because of various limitations in the scanner and on the knitting machine template I had to make a little adjustment which can be seen in the yellow gap in the image below. But a few little fiddles apart I achieved the basis from which to develop something.

I did not want the whole pattern, and I also wanted to use the facility to reverse the pattern in layers that the painter program gives me. Also I found that the pattern itself was not enough for me. I wanted a strong focal point. However, that in a way was getting away from the idea of repeat which I wanted to develop. So - how about a focal point figure, repeated -?

I used the jiggery-pokery that I employ with the design of all my images, and I must say I'm relatively pleased with the result. I used the Egyptian Birds palette as a starting point, but strayed to adjacent tones to make the thing my own. I also see that my focal point figures are very influenced by my memories of the drawings and prints of Elisabeth Frink, an exhibition of which I saw a wee while ago.

Indeed I was pleased enough to take another design, and work on it similarly. But I think that that will be it along these lines for a while. I shall perhaps pursue repeats but not in this exact way, in order to create a creative pause. I have been lucky that these turned out OK, but I usually find that pushing my luck tends to end in crumples of frustration.

Instead I moved on to design challenges afresh. My printing classes follow terms, and so I am still on holiday until towards the end of next month. I have not wanted to let the momentum lapse, however, so meantime have been researching and thinking. As a side bar to the thinking on repeats has been an exploration of linocut printing (which could also be used to generate repeat designs in the form of block prints perhaps). I am reading a step-by-step book for background, information, technique, etc. while jumping past the idea of starting with simple designs.

I am not interested in technique for its own sake, but as a means to achieving the end. Of course the means can be rewarding, and challenging on the way - indeed I prefer it that way. But I don't want to engage in the exercise for the exercise itself. So, I wanted to look at the kind of image I would want to make, and see which aspects could be interestingly rendered in linocut.

I have made a few tentative steps. It's not as straightforward as it looks, and I am sure will turn out to be even more complex when I go on to start with blade on lino. But I love the challenge of starting with the kind of image which I want to make, and adapting my design methods and the image itself to a different technique, and watching how this adaptation feeds into my wider design development.

All designs in varying degrees of progress.

Beautiful baskets

2011-08-23T21:28:00.007+01:00

Sometimes things just come together in the most pleasing way - and result in pure joy.
I love baskets, and have collected many over the years. In my second career I have found a practical use for some of these baskets for storing threads, scissors, bobbins, tape measures, etc. But most important have been my winnowing baskets from Zimbabwe. Who would have known that they would turn out to be the perfect way of storing and carrying my ongoing stitch projects: deep enough to hold specific threads, scissors, and pins etc. and the work itself whether it fits in snugly, or spills over.
Well, recently I have been working on far more pieces than before, all at different stages, and I needed more baskets. And specifically more of the Zimbabwean ones. Hey ho, I thought, wish away!
Out of nostalgia I googled, and found this and this which show how beautiful these baskets are.
And then I found the Red Giraffe site. Just the baskets I needed and wanted! And at ridiculously affordable prices too, and in the UK!!! And today they arrived.
Retail therapy is an indulgence which these days creates more frustration for me than satisfaction, usually because I cannot find anything other than books which I want to buy. But this purchase was an exquisite bonus. I now have four more beautiful baskets and my immediate needs are more than fulfilled.

Natural wrappings

2011-08-22T09:02:00.009+01:00

We went to Kew Gardens yesterday. We had not been for a while, and we wanted to see the exhibition of garden photographs. It is an interesting experience seeing the photographs outdoors rather than in the hushed environs of a gallery. The images have stiff competition from the splendid trees around.

I love Kew, and try to see different areas on each visit. Although there have been many visits over decades, this time we discovered a delightful enclosure formed by a wisteria. And I was delighted to see more examples of wrapping - this time very slow wrapping!

And I was drawn to this example of practical wrapping and tying. This picture is one with which I feel the desire to do something - though as yet no idea what.

All wrapped up

2011-08-20T11:24:00.006+01:00

from Sheila Paine's collection

I am following with interest Kathleen Loomis (Art with a needle)'s Package Project posts. Above is an example of a set of packages from Kathleen's blog. And as is so often the case, when you see one example, suddenly there are three.
I first encountered the deliberate wrapping of what might otherwise be called detritus many years ago when I was on an Embroiderers' Guild workshop on using unusual materials. It was taught by Clyde Olliver. Another participant was Gwen Hedley who had brought her beachcombings along. They can be seen beautifully couched, above.
Both Loomis and Hedley seek out their packaged material and are making something out of seemingly 'nothing'. Hedley especially is thoughtfully deliberate, and has been working on this aspect of her work for some years.

I recently encountered another manifestation of such a gathering up: this time by Laura Potter in the exhibition Memoranda at the Crafts Study Centre in Farnham. Memoranda is an exhibition of the work of four artists, inspired by objects in the CSC collection.

Laura Potter chose a shoebox full of Lucie Rie's archived small test-glazed pots, and from this she was inspired to create An incomplete archive of unfinished ideas, a small part of which can be seen in the photo above.

She says: For various reasons, these ideas have stopped, or rather I have stopped working on them. They all present me with problems of one sort or another, but because they are still hanging around it is difficult to stop thinking about them. But there are a lot of other things to think about right now, and these ideas are just taking up valuable head-space. I'm going to 'finish' them all, by putting them all in neat little boxes with numbers and labels so they can be archived and forgotten: not for negative, but for positive reasons. (I have edited this slightly.)
It's a lovely idea that the seemingly worthless, discarded, lost, and unsuccessful objects around us can be gathered to create something meaningful beyond a comment on our over-consumption. I like the idea that these repurposings are manifestations of our culture just like the Afghan gun cosy at the top of this post.

The Memoranda exhibition is well worth seeing. It is difficult to sum up in a post to do it justice - and I also found the accompanying book containing essays and interviews with the artists most illuminating.

From the red tablecloth to the green chair

2011-08-15T12:15:00.008+01:00

It was just a quick drawing: the table at the cafe up on the mountain should really have been an ideal spot for looking at the landscape. The view was of the city spread out below, and the bay beyond it, but in front of me I saw a possible design: a woman and a plant. I ignored the view, the plates, the food, the glasses and did a quick sketch.

Once scanned into the computer I could start work. First moving the elements around a bit for a more satisfying composition. In my head I thought of this design as working towards The red tablecloth.

I blocked out the areas of colour. Dark to begin, to give a sense of substance before I actually allocate value to the colour. Sometimes I seem just to know what I want to use where; but in this case, maybe because the drawing was quickly snatched so as not to be noticed and quizzed I had not thought much at the time about what I would do.

Also, the figure needed a couple of tweaks: her right hand had been attractive there when I saw it first, but now it flapped somewhat. A string of beads which would echo the red of the small flowers was needed. And hair can be a pain in the colour balance! So headgear is a great solution.

She needed a support for her elbow. There had been chairs nearby, so I drew one in. Chairs are very much part of my memories of cafes, and so thoughts of the tablecloth were fading as this new prop arrived.

I very much liked the green. It was the green of the leaves in reality. But it was too much on the figure. I decided to keep it key, but low key, and that's when the chair came into its own. The piece was now The green chair.

All the backgrounds used to 'colour in' the areas are from my files: the blue, the flower pot, flowers, and beads, and the greens are all from scans of soft pastel work I have done in the past. The clothing is from a photograph I took years ago of an old textile, and the table is from a photograph I took of an ancient fresco.

The size is just under A4, and the design was derived very quickly in order to have something appropriately small to stitch while visiting my mother in hospital a couple of months ago.

Augustaflora

2011-08-14T21:55:00.010+01:00

Perfect - at that moment

2011-08-02T13:28:00.010+01:00

I prefer to stay away from London in August, because of the crowds at exhibitions, and so it was on the very last day of July that we went up to see this year's Serpentine Pavilion. Last year's was distinctly RED, but this one is well and truly black. Designed by Peter Zumthor, this pavilion is enigmatic on first view.

It was a warm sunny day, the first that really felt like summer, and at first glance the pavilion did not look inviting. I loved the surface, however: a fine scrim all over, and with the entrancing shadows of trees fluttering in a pleasant breeze.

Very early on a Sunday morning, London reminds me of how it was when I first started work here nearly 40 years ago. At lunchtime I sometimes came over to Hyde Park for a stroll: an oasis that feels miles away from all the frenetic bustle. And on entering the pavilion I was filled with delight.

An intriguing dark corridor all round the structure leads to its interior: that place of cool and calm that I craved. One of my favourite aspects of hot bright days is the effect enjoyed in a cool dark room with just enough slats in shutters to let in slivers of that heat outdoors, or a well shaded verandah just like the open atrium design of this space.

Inside this calm sliver of shade and light is planted a bed of cooling plants designed by Piet Oudolf. No matter that many are bright red, the effect is of cool. The open area above them is large enough to invite breeze and bees, and with only two other visitors besides us two, it was bliss.

As ever with the Serpentine Pavilion the cafe tables and chairs are designed to fit. There is a dark blue wooden bench all around the four walls, and tables and stools which look a treat when unoccupied. We were fortunate to see it like this.

As it filled up the space quickly felt more crowded and noisy. The calm disappeared as snaps were taken of folks standing in front of the plants, and groups each in their own bubble intrude into the peace of others. We left before this happened to us.

In this way, I would say that the design is a delight if experienced with few others, unlike the design by Frank Gehry a couple of years ago which embraced occupants, making of us all a theatre for each other. But for me, this year's Pavilion was perfect while we were there.

Development of a design - from Lullaby to Trio

2011-07-24T12:25:00.015+01:00

One of the aspects of the way I work gives me feelings of fresh excitement about every piece. It is to do with the time that stages take. I am just now about to embark on the first top quilting of a quilt form version of Trio. Some months ago I stitched an A4 digital transfer version (on which I still have not finished the reverse applique because of not currently being in a state to do all the particularly fiddly work). That's another aspect of my working processes which I enjoy: the differences in the scale of print versions of the design.

Some designs fall completely into place, with my mind sorting out the right drawing with the right background before I sit down at the computer, leaving me with only minor adjustments to make. In the case of this design, I started with a vague idea, which progressed through some throwing out of bathwater before arriving at a satisfactory conclusion.

I started with some blind drawings I'd done of cellists; the three I chose are at the top of this post.

The idea I had was to derive the mood of the music from the form of the work - i.e. a quilt form, and therefore a lullaby. So, to that end I chose a peaceful photo for my background starting point.

Immediately I knew that the colours would be too restricted, that I needed an element of contrast, and so I chose the photo below.

So, with these two in mind I began to process the design. It was soon obvious, however, that the strength of the colour was causing me to lose the lines of the blind drawing. But I liked the tones, and the colours, and did not want to lose them completely.

But in the meantime I had to tweak the positions of the cellists within the whole composition, and relative to each other. That done, I could start thinking about the colours again. (The yellow marks show where I moved areas.)

I was still clinging to my initial ideas at this stage, trying a mix of the two photos, but to no avail. Drastic measures were needed: so off to one of my favourite background photos. This is a scan of a large chunk of stone I picked up years ago on the Welsh coast. I use it relatively often to provide an 'active neutral' to designs. It has a positive life of its own, but it also has the power to enhance elements appearing with it.

But, I still wanted green, and a statement more assertive than the elements I'd added to enhance the lines of the drawings. I wanted geometry: straight lines which would not fight with the stitching I needed to add. (It is sometimes difficult to design something which does not quite work on the screen, in order to accommodate the stitching element.) Well, this was a design concerned with music, so groups of five lines turned out to be just right. I laid them out by eye because I did not want the effect to look too exact.

I then put the whole design together, and was pleased. The title had meanwhile changed in my mind, so that I abandoned Lullaby, which is not really a 'me' title anyway and too much of a contrivance (- to justify being a quilt form?), to simply Trio.

Another cup of coffee

2011-07-21T11:31:00.002+01:00

I'm back in the cafe again - this time probably repeating what everyone has already said.

Random recent colours

2011-07-18T21:31:00.007+01:00

Taken from the car window as I sit in Atterbury Street, waiting for Tate Britain to open on a Sunday morning. The view is of Chelsea School of Art- or as it is now known: University of the Arts, Chelsea. The building used to be the Royal Army Medical College.

This was one of our sunny summer days. Below was another one. The two snaps were taken in the replica of George Washington's Mount Vernon garden at the American Museum in Bath.

But a great many of our summer days are not so bright in colour. I must say that I do love a limited palette however, and the exhibition of black and white photography which this poster advertises is stunning, and a real feast for the eyes as well as the mind.

A quick burst of caffeine

2011-07-16T13:13:00.001+01:00

I've just added a post to the Ragged Cloth Cafe.

Seduced by scribbles

2011-07-14T19:33:00.008+01:00

I had heard of Cy Twombly, and had seen his work in reproduction. Inspired by the work of Rauschenberg, Johns, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, and others from the Black Mountain days, I passed Twombly by. I gave him just a passing glance. That is until a remarkable exhibition at the National Gallery in London : Encounters. In retrospect I believe that this was one of the most important exhibitions I have seen.
There was so much to look at in this exhibition, ... so much to distract, to draw attention, to inspire, to provoke so much thought, and yet Twombly's three piece contribution not only rivetted my attention at the time. I can remember the shock of the coup de foudre even now. It helped of course that they are huge. The photo at the top of them hanging in their now home in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia shows their scale.

Cy Twombly: Three studies from the Temeraire

Those paintings, and what Twombly had done with his inspiration from Turner's original would not leave my mind alone. I kept returning and turning that pebble in my brain. I did not understand, ... I was just going with the feeling of it.

Then four years later there was an exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery: Cy Twombly, Fifty Years of Works on Paper. I was determined to see it, and there the seduction was complete. I went with my duodidactic friend, and we still remember it as the best of days out together. We were entranced, inspired, ... knocked off our artistic feet.

Cy Twombly: Apollo and the artist

It was with great delight that I looked forward to the Tate Modern great retrospective four years after that, in 2008. Passion renewed, I now became more discriminating: forming preferences within the works, and learning to consider and weigh my responses. But I still did not understand why I had been so wholly seduced. My husband, with whom I can usually discuss my reactions and who can contribute rationality was no help this time as he withstood the seduction completely.

Now Twombly is dead, and because of that I have received my answer from another artist: Howard Hodgkin in an appreciation article in the Guardian Newspaper in addition to the obituary. He too had been knocked out by an encounter with Twombly's work, and he said "The experience was one of total immersion. He painted with such emotional freedom." That's it. That is it. It is as simple and as momentous as that.

But I still find that I don't get that great seductive pull from reproduction of work I have not seen myself. It is strangely as if encountering the art itself is like being in the company of the man, listening to his talk about his interests, his reactions, his opinions, his conversational meanderings; and that the reproductions are like seeing photographs of him. I am drawn through memory to reproductions of the pieces I have been lucky enough to enjoy in person, just as if they are photos of events with which I was involved, and that is sufficient. And so I am not desperately sorry that I won't make the current Twombly/Poussin exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery.

Put off by attitude and atmosphere

2011-07-07T21:33:00.010+01:00

Beverley Daniels: St Margaret of Cordona with Heti and Ada (top)

Jean Hurst: We4 in the Garden with Van Gogh (below)

The Herstory exhibition at the Link Gallery in Winchester in which I have two pieces is about to end this weekend. I should have written a post about it ages ago, but somehow I have felt rather negative about the whole experience. I am certainly delighted with the quality of the
work with which mine is keeping company, and the space itself is a bright attractive gallery on two floors with lots of light.
When I knew about my inclusion in the exhibition I looked up the gallery, and saw that an interesting exhibition of photographs was on there for another few days. My husband and I decided to pay the venue a visit to see the pictures of Chernobyl, and to suss out the space.
We found the place easily enough from their website, but they had not warned us that there were no public parking spaces - indeed there was hardly anywhere to pause! I dashed in while my husband waited in the car, primed to move out of the way if needed. I found folks setting up a temporary conference, and sought out someone who could point me to the photos. Well, the photos were obscured by the conference stands, which would be there until beyond the duration of the exhibition. And although normally we could have parked -if a place was available - and come in to request a parking permit (no information about this had been on the website, nor on the numerous displays round the place saying no parking without a permit) we could not park today anyway because of the conference!
I complained to Women's Work who were about to put on the Herstory exhibition, and it is true that the gallery website did change some of their information - and at least one of the listings has the dates of the gallery's opening down as just weekdays now. But it still feels as if the venue is there simply to make the University feel good about its cultural credentials.
I wanted to return to see the Herstory exhibition, and so we got a bus there. We found a variety of good work, well hung, but bereft of anyone around. The exhibition had been on for at least a week, but there were only a handful of comments. I had the distinct feeling that no-one other than exhibitors and their friends had been to the opening, and perhaps no-one else had visited the show. There was certainly no-one there during the half hour or so that we were there, except one of the other artists checking whether any of her free postcards had gone - they hadn't, which she found most unusual.
There were large pieces of catering furniture clogging up one side of the first room, and another table with coffee and cups along another wall. While we were looking round several women who appeared to be staff of the University whose gallery it is came for their coffee and chat, and looked at us as if we were invaders with no right to be there.
Nonetheless we did have a good look round, and I was pleased to be in the company of such a diverse and interesting group of artists. So many pieces attracted me, and some intrigued me; but the ones which stood out for me were Penelope Wakeham with her two What if? collages (pictured immediately above). I later saw technically similar collages at the RA Summer Exhibition by David Mach, but found Penelope Wakeham's so much more engaging and worthwhile in thought-provoking exploration of subject. She has sourced internet images and carefully collaged together fantasy other life possibilities - in these cases tongue-in-cheek 'ideal'.

Next to my piece above, and unapproachable because of the table with the coffee cups was the work of another artist I liked: Ruth Wallace. I loved the density of her drawing and the subject matter - and its mysterious atmosphere, slightly diminished by the adjacent furniture, but not completely lost.
Other artists I was drawn to were Beverley Daniels, Caroline Kirton, and Lisa Traxler.
I was also intrigued by one piece of work which roamed over three areas in the gallery, but which had no label anywhere. I later found that it is by Gill Horn and is called Life Drawing - part of the University's public collection, as is another piece in the gallery: another multi-piece work entitled Repetitious Landscapes. This I found beautiful, but wished it had not been hung so high that I could not see it properly.
Overall, I was pleased with my inclusion in such diverse quality work - but my bitter taste from the encounters with the gallery still linger. Is it true that any exposure is worthwhile as long as one is seen with companions of merit?

Looking and learning

2011-06-28T21:35:00.005+01:00

Bill Jacklin: Crossing the square in the snow

In the RA Summer show there are many prints, and this year I paid more close attention to them. I have only just started my printmaking classes, and am intrigued by so many aspects of the medium and its techniques. I have long enjoyed Bill Jacklin's work, and I think that he probably had a strong influence on the work I produced for my attempt at monotype printing, as shown in this previous post. So far (and it is not very far at all) I am drawn to this technique in particular because it provides me with a means of creating an image which is different from my methods with the computer.

Paula Rego: Escape

Paula Rego has a hand coloured version of this etching in the RA exhibition. I love her work, and am always intrigued by the subject matter. I also find interesting the idea of producing a series of multiples which are then further treated individually, as in the hand colouring.

Allen Jones: Letters

I was surprised to find four of these delightful small prints by Allen Jones in the exhibition. Usually his work is very bold, defined, poster-like, sexual, ... but these are mysterious, intimate, personal, and they appealed to me. This link shows a wider range of his drawings and prints.

These are all figurative - I was looking in particular at work to which my own might vaguely relate. I did also seek out prints by Ian McKeever because I am so moved by his work. They can be seen on the bottom row at the left of the opening in the photo in this link. With a better view on the Alan Cristea Gallery website. As I stated in my previous post, I feel that McKeever's smaller work tends to be lost in the context of such a visual mix. The large paintings can command a stillness around them; but for me the effect of the prints and gouaches wither somewhat in the context.

An artist new to me, however, illustrates a printing technique which I want to explore further: chine colle. Andrzej Jackowski's Woman with trees was like a magnet to me, and unlike the McKeevers somehow created a whole tardis-like world of its own when I stood in front of it.

Taking me back

2011-06-27T09:41:00.003+01:00

one of the pieces in the touring Fabric and Form exhibition

I was sad to read that Tadek Beutlich had died. Sad not only because such an innovative studio artist has ceased to be, but also that I had not thought about his work for such a long time.
I first really took note of his work in the late 70s in Crafts magazine which in those days was full of such exciting work. Then in 1983 I was lucky enough to be in Zimbabwe to see works in the British Council touring exhibition Fabric and Form, New Textile art from Britain, selected by Michael Brennand-Wood. I scanned the piece above from that catalogue.
There is very little online, but I have tracked down some links to images: here, here, here, here, and here. The last two, when I saw the pieces originally excited me to beginning to think about figurative textiles, just before I embarked on working in the field myself.
Through my online trawling I also found that he produced prints - which links in nicely to the exploration I am currently making of that medium. Beutlich's death has spurred me to look again at that time when I began to be aware of the world of studio crafts.

Hot day in the city

2011-06-26T18:24:00.006+01:00

We went up to London to visit the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy today. Last year we had left out the architecture room, thinking that we would return - but didn't. So this year we decided to do it in two bites - with lunch in between - on one day, ... and a collapse with tea and cake at the end!

The beginning was very good. In the courtyard is Jeff Koons' stunning piece Coloring Book. My snaps are first looking up, second the side view, and third ...

a view apparently through the piece. It is a reflection of the building behind me that can be seen in the photo, but because it is set in a square of similar build, it looks transparent.

The rest of the exhibition is interesting, less frenetic as there are fewer pieces, but I was drawn to little on show. My absolute favourite beyond doubt is the Anselm Kiefer beautiful Aurora. Nothing quite blew me away like that did.

I was delighted by Sonia Lawson's works throughout the rooms, but especially by Edge of Spring, and Fait du beaux reve.
There were works by people whose work I like, but nothing especially different to strike me. I was slightly disappointed with the placement of Ian McKeever's prints and acrylics. To me they suffer from the proximity of the funfair of the hang.

As ever, however, I make new discoveries. Last year it was Hughie O'Donoghue. This year it was two sculptors: Ann Christopher with Marks on the edge of space, and Kenneth Draper. The work of each of them has set my brain tingling. And tea and cake in the Friends' Room was refreshing!

Bearing witness: art without artifice

2011-06-23T20:04:00.005+01:00

Guy Tillim: Petros Village Malawi 2006 (copyright)

Santu Mofokeng 'Nousta, Rister and Noupa Mkansi at home in Dan, Tzaneen, their parents Richard and Onica are both dead' (from the series Child Headed Households) 2007 (copyright)

These are two of my favourite photographers in the current exhibition Figures & Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography on at the V&A museum in London. I am not a great fan of conceptual art in most cases, and like it least in the field of photography. There is at least one example in this exhibition, and a couple of photographers whose work did not engage me; but, most of the work is a straightforward but masterly and honest engagement with the subjects.

This might seem strange given that the figures in the top photo are running out of shot. The series showed lively 'stills' from life in the village, and felt like a true capture of a group of children. Mofokeng's picture above is a more conventional portrait shot, but for me spoke volumes without sentimentality not only about a dire situation but about the matter-of-fact dignity of just getting on with that situation.

This is the aspect of photography I enjoy the most: art without artifice. I don't mean that there is no technical tweaking (I have no idea if there was in these cases - and I don't mind if there was) - what I mean is there is no pseudo-intellectual jiggery pokery such as in conceptual art, where you have to read the label to have any idea of what is going on. I mean that there is no laboured sentimentality and attempted manipulation of emotional reaction. This is just looking your subjects in the eye and letting them look back at you and subsequent viewers.

There is also a further display of the work of one of the photographers in the exhibition: David Goldblatt: Lifetimes: Under Apartheid. It is shocking how quickly one can forget that the poor and oppressed under one regime can remain poor and oppressed even if the circumstances change. This is the other kind of photography which I really appreciate: bearing witness.

This is what art is about: providing an experience which makes one stop, think, feel, and then stays burned in the memory in some shape or form, continuing that influence.

Food for thought

2011-06-22T11:11:00.005+01:00

my lunch on Sunday at the V&A cafe

Yesterday a wrote a post for the Ragged Cloth Cafe site, spurred on by the abrupt demise of Fiberarts magazine and the end of Telos art publishing. With regard to the former there has been a discussion on Linkdin which is linked from the Ragged Cloth Cafe, with the concern widening to encompass the digital/print debate.
I love print on paper - everything from art books to recycled paper bags. Printed materials still hold the allure of exotic fare for me - on the other hand already too much of my diminishing future is spent drinking in stuff online. But that's my beef! It's meaty content I crave in whatever form. And not just visual stimulus, although that is important.
Years ago I was a commissioning editor responsible for a children's non-fiction list. Non-fiction in many ways was the poor relative within the children's book field: picture story books and fiction having top spots. Then along came Dorling Kindersley! I still remember the awe we non DK folks experienced at the bookfair in Bologna when we saw the display of 17 different language covers of the same book spread across their stand. The design blew us away. It was so exciting: a new era in publishing! It is difficult to convey now what a leap this was, after over 30 years . I see from the DK website that in fact their covers today look so much more relatively conventional. This title on this page in Amazon was how the first Eyewitness Guides looked.
So many publishers now wanted to 'do a Dorling Kindersley', and at last I thought that I had evidence to request a larger design budget! So many people were seduced, BUT, ... what did the design support? It turned out to be glorious packaging for surfing the information. And what struck me as saddest of all was that was what most people wanted. Gloss first, content later - perhaps.
Dorling Kindersley went on to publish many other books and series which had and have tremendous amounts of content. Indeed we always turn to them when we travel to a new area, because they do provide well designed accessible worthwhile information. But the people who followed DK's example most often did not care about content, just about the fast selling packaging.

Is it universally assumed that everyone wants everything instantly now? Is it imperative to hook the viewer, the buyer, the judge instantly or fail? My mother suffers from expressive dysphasia since her stroke, and because so many (most) of the nurses etc. do not read her notes they instantly put down that she is 'confused'. Let me tell you that her mind is still razor sharp! What ever happened to time for critical judgment?

Anyway, I'm ranting too much. I should be spending the time reading well written content-rich articles and books instead.

They don't fit

2011-06-17T13:19:00.003+01:00

Remember

As I stated not so long ago I am no good at making work to fit a theme. Also, because my work takes such a long time to finish, working to a deadline can become tricky. I do keep my eyes open for exhibitions which could possibly fit my work, however - because I would dearly love to exhibit more. So I was delighted when I came across a call for entries to an exhibition entitled Layers of Memory. Wonderful, I thought. I was at the time working on the quilt pictured above: Remember. And my quilt Surfacing is all about emotions and memories. Indeed several of my pieces are about memory in different ways.

Great. This was just the spur I needed to finish Remember, and have it photographed.

All well and good. So I returned to the particulars, and my jaw dropped. Not only would I have to fit the theme, but I also had to fit the size criteria.

And both quilts did not fit. Remember is too wide, and Surfacing is too narrow and too tall.

Surfacing

So I shall have to remember next time I am scanning the calls for entry that not only must I check out the theme and the date, but even in the wildest chance they should fit - I must make sure that I read all the criteria before I think my work might possibly be appropriate.

Rush of blood to the head

2011-06-15T12:21:00.007+01:00

Red hen

In my main work I was happily progressing through a pile of quilt forms, and at present am in the middle of a fairly large one. Then over a week ago my mother was rushed into hospital, and in order to have something in my hand whilst visiting I had to turn to a small piece. It was lucky that I had one design - for The green chair on the computer which was planned for a small format (the image is to the right, in the Also stitching space) which I could quickly print and iron onto cotton and start stitching. Phew!

Warm in winter

But it seems to be taking an age to get my mother out of hospital, despite her recovery, and I am progressing through my small piece quickly. Desperation drove me to design something else suitable for the small format. Normally when this happens all creativity departs smartish, ... however for once luck was with me.

The crow's story

Over the last couple of days I have managed to come up with three designs - two of which (top and bottom) appeal to me enough to take further. The third needs to hang around for a bit to see if I still like it in future.

Oiseau(x) de Paris

2011-06-10T17:20:00.015+01:00

This is a design - still in progress - which I developed after our one month stay in Paris in the Autumn of 2007. I like it so far, but don't know where to go with it, and in any case it does not feel right for a stitching project. So it remained in my limbo file until I was looking for a suitable image to use for making a solar print.
I did not think that the image as a whole was suitable; but thought I could isolate the bird at the top.

It was still probably too dark, I thought, so before I printed the image onto acetate I switched light and dark.

This done I was ready to make the solar plate. Well, I was ready, the whole class was ready, but tempremental sun was shyly hiding behind clouds! Eventually, after ages to get a test strip, I achieved a plate, and then a print.

First in black, and then in red. I was interested to see what difference simply using a colour can make, even though it is still a monotone.

Then, taking the original design once more, I traced some curves onto a separate acrylic plate, printed that in red and pink, and than printed the black solar plate on top of that. I was pleased with what resulted. (Of course realising that this is but infant steps - but I find it delightful to make even stuttering progress in a new field.)

After that we tried chine colle. The print below is the result of my taking a tissue paper with silver and gold fragments stuck to it (commercially available like that), very gently ! colouring it with Prismacolor blue pencils, and then tracing the first notes of Allouette onto it with a fine pen.

It is much paler than I expected, but I love the delicacy of it.
I am really enjoying learning the first inklings of this medium and these techniques. I have no idea how this will impact any work I do, but the research, the discovery, the delights - even in disappointments, make it all worthwhile.

After rain

2011-06-06T15:27:00.007+01:00

After a week of heat and sunshine, at last some refreshing much needed rain fell at the weekend. Today we visited one of our favourite gardens: Hinton Ampner where the plants were still holding on to their droplets.

This peonie reminded me of the livestock which strains through a fence to reach the grass on the other side. I suppose that the bud was on the dark side of the leaves, and glimpsed light through the gaps in the hurdle, so pointed that way, ....

The planting combinations are most felicitous at Hinton Ampner. And there are so many complementary shapes and shades of green ...

as well as delightful clouds of red.

Not quite Athens, to Athens - and without me!

2011-06-05T08:08:00.004+01:00

My quilt Ponder was accepted into Quilt National '11 which opened the other day. Deirdre Adams took some photos of the opening which I was not able to attend. The show looks fabulous. Also Karen Davis said nice things about my work. On Kathleen Loomis' Art with a needle blog there are several posts about the exhibition: here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here and here - so far.

I was really pleased to be in the show, for all the usual reasons, but also because this quilt has come on journeys with me. I was working on it for two years running on my trips to Greece with my mother. It was not in Athens, Greece, but close enough. It was great that the quilt made it to Athens, Ohio although I didn't.

Summer's day

2011-06-03T17:26:00.018+01:00

For me a meadow is the picture conjured when thinking of a summer's day in England. I have spent most of my adult life, and all of my married life in England, but I still do not feel native. From my outsider view I find that the county of Dorset sums up as near perfection when trying to describe summer in England.
Yesterday was the first hot day which felt like summer, and we happened to be in Dorset. We decided to visit Kingston Lacy to wander round its grounds and gardens.

This peacock quite deceived me at first. It is a wire sculpture by Paula Joule Blake. There were more birds around the grounds made by this artist, but none attracted me as much as the peacock.

The grounds are extensive, and beyond this ha-ha was a field of red cattle. They were sensible, however, and were in the shade of the vast trees, and did not come out to be photographed.

My favourite area of the grounds was the fern garden which also had the advantage on such a hot sunny day of being cool. I love the sculptural qualities of ferns in their many manifestations, their diversity and their similarities, and their intriguing intricacy. In here was another of Paula Joule Blake's wire sculptures - in this case a Murder of Crows!

And for me the most successful colour other than green in the grounds was red, in its many and varied manifestations - it was quite inspirational

A favourite sculptor

2011-06-02T19:42:00.007+01:00

There is a display of the work of Elisabeth Frink at Bournemouth University at present. Having missed one exhibition of her work last year, I was determined to see this one. This week is half term and therefore a holiday from my printing course - so wanting to make sure I had a day away from home, we decided to head south.

The work hangs and stands not in a dedicated exhibition space or gallery, but on the walls of two adjacent building, in a foyer, and as seen in the top photo in the cafe. My husband and I both enjoyed the feeling of being back in a space designed for serious thinking - we both liked the atmosphere of the buildings we encountered, and it was a pleasure to be able to spend time with the work, discussing it within the working environs of the university.

From the build-up we had expected somewhat more on her methods, thinking, and development rather than simply quotes from her on large posters. However, it was enough to get me thinking, and was a reaffirmation of what I like about her work. That bold figurative sweep of her marks, the affirmation of life, even if the humanity might be questionable. Enigma, that's what I respond to.

The catalogue accompanying the display, available for £5 is more than value for money. Here is a review in a local paper which also has a film showing the display.

Outside, the university continued to delight us with its architecture, and with the display of geological samples: a sculpture park in itself.

A fitting theme - or a theme that fits?

2011-06-01T22:16:00.003+01:00

I find it such a lottery with exhibitions.

There are the big shows which display the work of fewer than 100 folks, but to which many hundreds submit. Then there are the themed shows - but I find that my work rarely fits the theme. And I seem to be unsuited to sitting down and producing to an ordered theme. Not to mention the time it takes to make my pieces anyway.

Then sometimes a theme comes along for which my work is appropriate. And having submitted, am accepted! My quilt forms Waiting, above, and Snagged (to the left) will be appearing in the mixed art HerStory exhibition in Winchester from 8 June to 8 July.

To stand and stare

2011-05-21T11:15:00.005+01:00

Sara Brennan: Broken white line with green

Joanne Soroka: Fragment No.7

William Jeffries: Knapping

... well, to look around and take stock at least. Although I believe that it is very important to take time to stand and just stare, I think that it is more important to take time to put oneself in a different viewpoint. As I get older time seems to whizz past increasingly faster, and so I will have to institute some kind of deliberate shift of viewpoint. Before my mother had her stroke I had started to look at residential weekend courses, and even went on a batik on paper course.

Now not only are residential courses out, but I also want something more sustained, making me think deeper, wider: challenging me more. After thought I have chosen printing, but on the way I considered other craft/technique based creative activities. One such was tapestry weaving. Indeed, an introduction to same was to be my next weekend course.

The conjunction of art and textiles began for me with tapestries. My personal experience with textiles was the stitching I did with female relatives in Greece. This was almost exclusively cross stitch and for the practical purpose of making items for my bottom drawer! I became most aware of tapestry weaving during the 1960s in Edinburgh when the great Archie Brennan was director of Dovecote Studios there.

It was a period of awakening for me when I first encountered the work of poets and other writers, artists and thinkers while I was still at school, and then at University. Edinburgh was for me my then Internet! It was seeing the artwork of contemporary creators and others rendered in fibre which excited my thinking about how it was possible to make work which was not necessarily painted on canvas.

Having seen and been excited by Archie Brennan's own work, and followed the development of studio tapestry weaving through my subscription to Crafts magazine in the 1970s, I have maintained my interest. From time to time I have been lucky enough to encounter the actual work of weavers such as Jilly Edwards, Annika Ekdahl, Aino Kajaniemi, Sue Lawty, Sara Brennan, and Meabh Warburton whom I encountered several years back at a Chelsea Crafts Fair in London.

I also read Meabh's blog, where a wee while ago she mentioned an upcoming exhibition involving three of my favourites: France, studio tapestry weavers, and folks who have lived, worked and or studied in Edinburgh. I shall have to wish myself there whilst it is on from 16 July till 18 August. The disappointment of not being able to be there is mitigated in the tiniest way by saving me the irritation of not being able to view the work in the morning before the heat settles.

Meabh emailed me the three illustrations at the top, and they look beautiful. I wish them a great show. Sigh.

On the tiles: progress

2011-05-17T09:42:00.004+01:00

My exercise to use up bits of silk screen printed design based on cathedral tiles is going well. I am happy with the way that the printed silk bodies have taken the ink, and how well they stitch. The cutting away was a bit fiddly - but when is it not.

I wanted the biggest piece to be more active, and so decided to adapt and use a juggler figure I'd used previously. I wanted to echo the colours in the background, and so thought about masses of Greek postage stamps I have. One series (at least) used reproductions of black and red figured vases from antiquity, and so I have made them into collaged circles: juggling balls.

Almost there, but not quite. One aspect of this exercise which should have entered into my thinking at an earlier stage is just how am I going to present the pieces. The first two are pinned up on my wall so that I can ponder the question. The third and biggest piece poses a different problem in that it is on much flimsier fabric, and I might have to bondaweb that to a sturdier layer.

But apart from that, I'm pleased with the outcome. I know that I have not moved forward as far as design is concerned - I have used figures again from my stock. But that does not matter in this case. I have come out of that immediate comfort zone of either having designs printed large to make into quilts, or printing them onto transfer paper to stitch on cotton. Yes, I have still used printing (the original silk screen as background and the A4 silk sheets I put through my own printer), but in enough of a different way that it stirred the little grey cells.

Having to think again about presentation is also a plus in the exercise, although it might appear to be a stumbling block. It's all about getting myself solving problems again, and out of solving problems comes even more creativity, I have found.

Thought-provoking input

2011-05-15T21:54:00.005+01:00

Bridget Riley: Red with red

We went to the National Gallery today to catch the Bridget Riley display before it is taken down. What wondrous stuff! There are but a few paintings, but what a feast for brain and eye. Colour and light are her drivers, and it is fascinating to pursue her analyses of the use of colour in Raphael, Mantegna, Seurat and others alongside her own works. My brain is still chewing, and it will be some time before even a small part is fully digested. Conceptual art is supposed to be the intellectual genre, but it is Riley who gets my mental juices flowing.

Pursuing process

2011-05-13T19:05:00.010+01:00

Many many years ago I played around with lino cutting and produced the above image. Later, by scanning it into the computer, digitally collaging it with other stuff, and having a couple of versions printed, I turned it into a couple of quilts.

During the intervening years I have been meaning to do some more lino cutting, printing, and developing, ... but never got round to doing more than buying the lino and having passing thoughts and furtles around Google. When my living situation changed and I kind of 'closed down' creative operations somewhat, I packed away all the gear.

However, the back of my mind was stimulated by my discovery that Julie Speed spent a chunk of her year working on collages in order to regenerate and stimulate her main activity of painting. I wrote a post about her here. Doing something else, not totally unrelated in order to fire the ol' cylinders appealed to me. And recently this wheeze jumped to mind when I was looking for some way of sparking my brain and its seizing gears.

When my mother returned from her respite stay, I wanted to pursue an activity which would take me out of the house regularly, so that I would not be sucked into the closedown I experienced before. I wanted a creative activity which I had thought about, but which I had never pursued seriously - so that there would be a deal of research and learning involved to occupy large and different areas of my thinking. I wanted something which was apart from textiles, but which would contribute to my overall design generation. And I wanted an activity which had teachers and facilities which were not impossible to access.

So - printing it is! And the class started with monoprints. Here are snaps of my first efforts: I used two plates each time, and printed the second plate on top of the second print each time. This was so that I could hang onto an image of the 'bottom/background' print for my own reference especially as I was thinking on my feet and had had no plans for this at all. I am a complete novice.

The exercise was to work in two colours only to begin with, and I chose black and white (two of my favourite colours!).

I was really pleased with the way the figure became lost in what I chose to make weather - remember I'm starting with an empty brain when I face the unmarked acrylic plate and the load of black and white inks. I was making the 'designs' up as I went along.

This is my second effort, which I tried to make landscape-like, with a little bit of perhaps oppresive winter involved. The second printing lost a lot of the heavy dark, and so I thought would not look right the way up I had designed (!) it, so turned it round to put figures on.

I regretted the decision as soon as I saw the result - but on reflection, I do like it this way. And I'm loving the printing classes.

Recent reading

2011-05-02T16:54:00.004+01:00

Corot: Woman reading a book

Sometimes it seems not the right time to read a book or an author. I don't know why, but there it is. This has increased my shelves full of as yet unread books, and added to the lists of as yet untried authors. Well, this recent trip has given me an opportunity to catch up on both categories: a book from my shelves, and an author long on my wish list.

The second of these is Alice Munro. For years I have read reviews of her short story collections which have encouraged my desire to read them - and yet for some unknown reason I never have. I cannot fathom it because I love the short story form and have many collections to which I return to re-read far more often than to novels. Indeed I very rarely have re-read a novel. Anyway, I happened to mention this while my husband and I were browsing in a bookshop, and lo for my last birthday I received The view from castle rock, and Too much happiness.

I started with the former. Again perhaps odd, because it is a whole, whereas the latter is a collection. Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed The view from castle rock, in which Munro has taken facts about her ancestors in the Scottish Borders, and documented history of their emigration to Canada, and has woven a fictional life between the warp of those facts. It is more than a history, more than a biography (although the second half is about Munro as a youngster, and her life with her parents), and more than a fiction.

Perhaps it was not so odd, however, because one project I am looking at to re-stimulate my work process is that of Mapping the future: Where are you now? My thinking around this started with tentative attempts to map my past, and thus the Munro book was pertinently stimulating. And I still have the short story collection to which I can look forward .

One book of short stories I did read was again stimulated by a review - this time of Tessa Hadley's most recent novel The London train. Because we were going to Wales, and Hadley lives there I decided to try out Sunstroke and other stories. I enjoyed the collection, although I did feel that I would have become tired of them had there been many more.

The book which has been on my shelves for some years, and which I now was ready to read is The eye's mind: Bridget Riley Collected Writings. It was to my annoyance that I discovered that my edition Collected Writings 1965 - 1999 has now been superseded by a new edition: 1965 - 2009! I am nearing the end of my edition, and I am just going to have to buy the new one.

Reading Magdalena Abakanowicz on her own work and its development was such a stimulus to me that I was desperate to continue that kind of exciting input. Bridget Riley has not disappointed in the slightest. She is so focused and serious about her thinking about what it is she wants to achieve that she provides a fascinating example of single minded creativity. It is marvellous how as an abstract artist she can be so illuminating on examinations of figurative art - such as the work of Titian, Rubens, Poussin, Cezanne, Seurat, Matisse, .... It is the use of colour she is examining, but more than just that: it is the effect of the colour.

I am certainly hoping to get to London to see her current work on show at the National Gallery. When I first read Hilary Spurling's review of the show back last year I was too tied up to take time and space to visit the displays. Now I am glad that I have had this delay which has put my mind in a better position to appreciate it, both because I need it, and because I am better attuned having read Riley's thoughts on her own and others' work.

A gulp of fresh air in Wales

2011-05-01T14:28:00.010+01:00

Laucharne castle

Normally public holidays are quiet home times for us - but circumstances
dictated that now was the time to go, if we were to go anywhere. So off to Wales we went for a few days. These are a few of the snaps I took on what was a diverse and sunny break, which turned out to be just what I needed to recharge the run down batteries.

It is an amazing year for dandelions: millions of them everywhere! This is in the dunes at Poppit Sands.

Slate walls are everywhere, and I love the way that the ends are rounded.

Mwnt church

An unexpected 'stain' on the rock!

Where there were no slate walls there is living basketwork round the fields.

Kidwelly castle

Inside the Great Glasshouse in the National Botanic Garden of Wales.

One of the sculptures in the Cardiff Bay development

Contributing to my exploration and regeneration of process

2011-04-20T21:58:00.003+01:00

The felicity of positive thinking! No sooner do I look up from my gloom to set myself in motion again when things around arrange themselves to my advantage.

I have just finished reading Magdalena Abakanowicz's monologue Fate and Art, which is a mix of autobiography and her writing about her process. I so enjoy and benefit from reading about the creative process in others, whether or not I concur with their thinking or methods. It is the rubbing up against it all that sets my mind tingling. I shall certainly be reading this again, dipping in to different episodes to savour more specifically.

I love one of her sentences near the end - it so sums up my own thinking and realisation: 'As a youngster I thought a sage could share his wisdom with me. I searched for him many years to discover that like myself, he knows nothing for sure.'

It is all in what you yourself make of your experience, whatever that experience is. Hey ho.

Process

2011-04-19T17:08:00.011+01:00

I am extremely lucky in that I do not lack input. I have access to many interesting and inspirational exhibitions, there are many lovely gardens around, and I subscribe to a variety of magazines with thought-provoking articles. I also have a pile of work to do which I have designed from ideas developed over previous years. What made itself clear to me recently was that the ideas are not flowing as they did.

When people asked me 'where do you get your ideas from?' I was always stumped because the ideas were just there. There were more than enough, they were everywhere - the problem was not where to find them, but how to choose between them. Well, now I have stubbed my toe, and am staggering if not quite stumbling. My ideas are running out.

Input is perhaps the obvious source; but no - as I said, there is really no shortage of that. Sometimes, indeed there is too much input. And it could be said that I have worked non-stop through the last few years during difficult times. But the thinking had mostly been done: the stitching keeps me sane, but does not stretch the mind. What I had stopped was the thinking process: the mulling, the matching, the mixing, .... The connecting process, the editing process, the leaps of conscious thought which is switched on all the time, and the siftings and sortings of the unconscious mind set going by the concentrations of the day.

Instead while I have been stitching I have been thinking of how to best cater for my mother's emotional and physical needs. There generally has only been two hours of 'free' time between dealings with my mother, and even then I have been planning and preparing for dealing with her. There has been no time to take the creative input beyond my brain's reception area toward any kind of process.

In past years a friend and I had a system of projects which we gave ourselves to spur on and aid creative thinking processes. It was a kind of duodidactic system which more than made up for our not having gone to art college. I knew that I had to get back to this in order to regain my mind, and I set in train a preliminary exercise which I started just before a crisis fortuitously led to my mother going into a care home for a few weeks of respite.

My first exercise was to look back at my piles of accumulated stuff and use something which had come to a dead end by itself. In this case I chose a subject which had fizzled out many years ago when I was still working with knitwear design, but was starting to think about stitching as a more fruitful area for personal expression.

I had taken many photos of the beautiful tiles on the floor of Winchester cathedral. I worked on the designs at the time, and while on a class made a silk screen of that design. I had printed onto odd bits of cloth I'd dyed grey : an old flannelette sheet and some thin calico. But I got no further with them.

the floor of Winchester cathedral

I decided to take those silk screened pieces and do something with them. I had on my desk a pack of prepared fabric for use with my printer. They are A4 silk sheets from Crafty Computer Paper. I decided to play about with that. The figures are familiar from previous work, but I was not concerned with trying to produce everything all new - I am trying to re-start a process.

I took my cues from the pattern, the colours, and the feel of the materials. The shiny silk on the matt background felt good. I started with the first piece, and chose a figure which looked like I felt.

I stitched it onto the background while it was in its A4 form, but intending to cut it away. To do this I ran a fine paint brush with PVA glue round the edge of the figure once stitched, and then cut the surrounding grey away. Of course this works well with a simple shape, but of course I had to go for something more complex for my second attempt!

This second piece is so much more fiddly, but it was worth it in the end. So far the silk has stood up well to the printing, the stitching, and the glueing/cutting.

The first two pieces were made with the thicker flannelette fabric - although it is old and flat now. I had run out of decent pieces of silk screened work on that fabric, but had two pieces of the fine calico which I rather liked. By now I was feeling reassured with the effect, and have chosen to make a slightly more complex design which is still in progress. I put the two pieces of the background together by machine, and now am stitching the figure.

Again I shall cut away to the figure, and to a few added elements. The three are essentially the same kind of thing - rather simple, but involving some gentle problem-solving to set me on my way. I hope to carry on setting myself projects like this until my buckets are full once more and ideas flow freely.

I shall nonetheless continue to stitch those pieces which are already ready for the 'mindless' stage, as not only are they part of my continuum, but they too can contribute to the process once there is something happening between input and output.

Spring colours

2011-04-17T14:52:00.014+01:00

We chose a lovely day to visit the RHS gardens at Wisley. Late Spring provides such a range of colours in the flowers, while leaves too appear in more greens than later in the growing season. These tulips are dramatic in the bright sunlight, and were even more pulsating red for real.

The formal planting in one of the walled gardens.

I just gasp at the thought of all the dead-heading that has to be done! In the woodland there is a wealth of beautiful plants growing together.

The short irises were out - this yellow is my favourite of their colours.

The extremes of rhododendron / azalea!

And then back to the pots, with their tulips - I must say that I prefer them planted this way, or in a very formal setting. My preference is for a wilder looking planting in the earth.

A grand day out!

Back to the well

2011-04-14T10:37:00.003+01:00

It is beginning to dawn on me exactly how empty my mind's buckets have become. To begin with, when taking on my mother, even before her stroke, I pottered along relying on and thankful for the fact that I did my designing on the computer, and than the hands-on stuff could even be done while sitting with her. And that thankfulness increased when my caring role took over most of my life. "Thank goodness" I said to myself, "that I can continue to work despite the circumstances."

Well, yes, ... and no. I have been draining my mental buckets of ideas which had been accumulating for some time, and neither refining those ideas nor adding to the supply. So much depends on making connections: despite keeping up a reasonably tolerable stream of input, somehow I need to be processing away in the background, middle ground, and foreground to be able to make something of - let us say weave these connections into developing pieces of work. Too often I think that I have been using already familiar links, making the connections tired and ultimately uninteresting to me.

Now, having been enthralled by the basketry exhibition I find myself with a few technical curiosities which I wish to pursue, but with a dearth of ongoing thoughts and ideas with which to link them. I find that to a certain extent I have been shutting myself down and relying on the same old same old. And now I find that I am not only recovering from a debilitating viral cocktail, from emotional stress, but also from a deprivation of creative activity. It is vital that I recover from all three - the first being the easiest by far, and the last the most difficult.

Indeed, inklings of this shutting down in anticipation of not being able to pursue deep all-consuming thought because my mind was already occupied by trying to cope with my mother's emotional needs had filtered through, and I began to set in train a regime whereby I would gain two whole free days per week. Unfortunately at this my mother decided that she was much worse, demanding much more attention, but this has backfired on her. I had to have four carers come in every day, rather than what would have been an escalation from one carer on two days to give her lunch to four carers on two days per week - and simultaneously I succumbed to such a bad cold that she hardly saw me at all for a whole week. It has ended with her staying in a nursing home for a few weeks, and my acceptance that I cannot succeed in making her life the way she would like it.

So. I am now examining the damage, with a view steadily to restoring my buckets - perhaps not to their brimming state pre-mother, but to a fullness from which I can draw deeply and move forward.

Respite care

2011-04-12T10:58:00.017+01:00

'The eye is a rose window' by Ueno Masao at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art at UEA in Norwich,

with a Henry Moore Sculpture seen through the window.

I didn't realise how stressed I was until the stress increased and I became ill - and that really is such a waste of good creative time! Not to mention not being much use for caring, either. So, luck found us a place to care for my mother for a few weeks (she's not happy; but she's not happy here either, so ....), and I'm rediscovering how pleasant life can be. Of course, now is the very last time in the year that we would normally have chosen, every weekend being full of holiday traffic - but this is more than good enough in the circumstances. The purpose is to take breath, and to establish a life into which my mother can fit, rather than me scrabbling around trying to fit my life into caring for her.

So, best to start with a weekend right away, despite it being the first weekend of the school holidays for Easter. I always love going to the sea, and how about a textile exhibition too - so off to the East coast via the stunning basketry exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art. Norman Foster's architecture, the Sainsbury collection, and the excellent exhibition are destination enough on their own.

The basketry exhibition contains so much to get the juices flowing: information, diverse history, beautiful and intriguing examples, tradition, thought-provoking context, contemporary art, and above all inspiration. It was interesting to see how Mary Butcher has moved from mastering tradition to creating astonishing works of contemporary art. Ueno Masao's two large pieces are not only beautiful, but also provided me with specific inspiration from an elegant aspect of technique.

Head buzzing, it was good to make our way to the coast, where the sea helped me to sort through the tangled threads of inputs and ideas.

The beach at Lowestoft

Fisherman at Southwold

The following morning we set off for Southwold. I enjoyed spending some time watching fishermen on the beach. They would walk to the edge of the sea, cast off out into the sea, and then walk back as their line played out. The rod was then parked on a stand, and they returned to their cup of tea under an umbrella. They caught fish from time to time, but often the taught line hauled in to reveal an escapee.

An attractive little town, Southwold was filled with folk, and so a stroll after lunch confirmed our decision to drive down to another tourist spot: Snape Maltings. This too was filled, but having found a parking space, it was easy enough to lose the crowd.

The East hereabouts - East Anglia is very flat with reed beds and much water. It is possible to go for a pleasant stroll along the reed beds and away from the shops, looking back at the concert hall, and hardly seeing anyone at all. Snape Maltings is known for its concert series and for the music of Benjamin Britten. There is sculpture dotted about, such as the three members of Barbara Hepworth's Family of Man below. And delightful sculpture in the form of buildings, such as this rehearsal room built within ruins. Then on to Aldeburg beach in order to see Maggi Hambling's sculpture: The Scallop. This family was settled in, and did not seem to mind being included in our photographs. A bonus was our encounter with nearby ruined Leiston Abbey. We were alone as we wandered around in the evening sun, with the sounds of rehearsing violins and piano filtering out of open windows.

Finally we paid a quick visit to Great Yarmouth before we set off for home. An exuberant place of kitsch-filled fun, we enjoyed its self-assured character, and were delighted to stumble across a Nicola Portuguese coffee shop where we had not only delicious coffee, but also meltingly fresh Portuguese custard creams. We left the East with a good taste in our mouths.

An elegant understated lost dolly in Southwold

Bright brash replacements in Great Yarmouth!

The madness of March

2011-03-31T09:14:00.003+01:00

Barry Flanagan: 30ft Acrobats

What a month this has been! I have not blogged at all simply because I have had not a thought worth threading. On top of various other circumstances, my husband and I have the worst cold ever - still going strong after over two weeks. Surely it is time for the wheel to turn.

In an article on the wondrous television series The Killing, today I was reminded of a quote from Nietsche (not someone I normally turn to at periods of despair) about those who look into an abyss having the abyss look into them. This reminded me that one contributes to the luck one experiences, and that a positive outlook is what is needed.

Meantime I have been reading: Sara Paretsky Body work, the new V.I.Warshawski, Donna Leon A question of belief, Val McDermid Trick of the dark, Alice Thompson The falconer, and I am nearly at the end of Jane Smiley's wonderful Private life. These have sustained me in a pleasantly cosy cocoon while my fingers and creative brain have been idle. I have Lindsay Davis's Nemesis and an author new to me: Camilla Lackberg with her detective Patrik Hedstrom in The ice princess to help me back to full brain power.

Just before the Jane Smiley I read a book of many delights: Muriel Barbery's The elegance of the hedgehog. This is a beautiful book, full of detail, humanity, philosophy, and for me incredible sadness. Already inclined to be weepy if not wail-y these last weeks, this book had me in a deluge. But I loved the book, and immediately ordered The Gourmet, which I shall try before long.

With all these straws clutched, I'm sure that I will have fashioned a fair basket before the end of Spring!

Relief

2011-03-03T09:48:00.003Z

After 'playing dodgems' with the crowds in the Watercolour exhibition it was a great relief to relax and enjoy looking at, contemplating, and being inspired by the Naum Gabo display. I have always found his work thought-provoking, and with my current longterm pondering of 3D within my own work, this quiet perusing of his philosophy and practice was a delight all round.

Mixed medium

2011-03-01T21:50:00.009Z

Rebecca Salter: Untitled MM15 2008

Watercolour is the current blockbuster show on at Tate Britain. I try to avoid blockbusters, not only because I hate crowds, but also because the more the visitors the greater their rudeness, I've found. Anyway, despite that I gritted my teeth because I do like what some people do with the medium, and I wanted to see what the Tate had done with its presentation.

Jenny Franklin: Scorched Earth, Regeneration 2001

There were so many people that I gave up any idea of seeing each piece of work, and concentrated on spotting individuals to examine. I am sure that I missed a lot, but on the other hand there was more than sufficient there to keep me happy. I have included a few of my favourites here - the Rebecca Salter pictured is not the piece in the show; you can see that here. Another favourite was a work titled Ruin by Uwe Witwer, but I have not been able to find an image of that.

Edward Burra: Valley and River, Northumberland 1972

It was interesting to see a historical overview of the medium and techniques, but somehow that aspect of the show is more damaged by the presence of crowds. Really, it struck me that this was just like going to a quilt show where really it is the quality of individual works which make the impact.

Peter Doig: Driftwood (Yara) 2002

Reviews can be read here, and here, here, here, and here. The first of these points out another association with quilts in that the first mention of the medium can call up images of nice ladies amusing and distracting themselves. We found it a most interesting exhibition, despite inevitable gaps, and the crowds of course, and there were inspirations for me in individual finds, and an especial delight in finding a tiny atmospheric piece by Victor Hugo.

Not least of course was another chance to see the work of Turner. Such chances should never be turned down because every time, EVERY TIME I see his work in watercolour I see a sliver of pure genius and experience awe and joy. Indeed so powerful are the works of Turner that everything else seems to be on a different level completely.

They say

2011-02-20T21:18:00.003Z

Giorgio de Chirico: Mystery and melancholy of a street

that you should not judge a book by its cover; but I'm certainly glad that I did with this one!

Not only, but also

2011-02-16T09:41:00.011Z

Although uncertain as to what the sculpture exhibition would be like, I was certainly looking forward to seeing Eileen Cooper's collages in the Friends' Room at the Royal Academy. EC is an artist whose work has attracted me for many years, and I always enjoyed seeing her paintings and prints, and was curious to see what her collages would be like. I particularly enjoy seeing work while I am taking time over tea and sandwiches, or a cup of coffee. Somehow I find that work stands a greater personal test in those circumstances rather than in the crisp white halls of a gallery setting.

The collage form interests me, and examples often disappoint me because so many folks' work is similar to that of so many other folks. The one illustration which was available on the RA site at the time I looked intrigued me because it looked just like a straightforward print. That is true of all the further illustrated examples they now have on the page. There was also no mention of collages on her website.

However, my curiosity was satisfied when I saw that Eileen Cooper has approached collage with a slightly different technique. She has indeed used printed elements: printing several versions of the same image, be it a bird, a body, pots, etc. in different colours, and then stuck them into several individual but similar compositions. It made for an interesting group, each of which also works well on its own.

On my way back to the car, my mind full of both exhibitions, I stopped to peer into the windows of the Marlborough Gallery and saw the above painting, My mother by Celia Paul.

There were only three paintings visible from the street, and unfortunately the gallery is closed on Sunday, but the website shows a rich vein. Yet another life-enhancing day out!

Anticipation, disappointment, reluctance, ... elation

2011-02-15T10:41:00.011Z

A controversial replica

The reproduced Merz barn which once contained Schwitters' work was the first piece of 'sculpture' to greet us on our entrance to the Royal Academy courtyard on Sunday. We had gone to see the Modern British Sculpture exhibition. Last September, when I first read of the exhibition, I was delighted. There have been and are so many wonderful modern British sculptors who tend to become forgotten, that I looked forward to an exhibition devoted to that subject. Just like me, the reviewers should have paid more attention to the curators' words which said that they 'would have done their job if the public left the show questioning what is modern, British, and sculpture.

Curtis and her co-curator Keith Wilson, a practising sculptor, said the aim was not to have a traditional survey but to have a series of visual arguments or dialogues.' (From the Guardian, 8 Sept. '10)

As the exhibition approached, I was anticipating a thought-provoking, inspiring, and most enjoyable outing when the reviews started appearing. The first was by a reviewer with whose opinion I usually agree: Laura Cumming in the Observer. Then came Waldemar Januszczak's vitriolic review in the Sunday Times (which one has to pay to access online), and a general wave of annoyance, disgust, anger, such as here. Some reviews that I have found since are more explanatory: here, here, here, and especially here, and the BBC has an interesting video on the exhibition.

Anyway, it was not exactly with reluctance, but prepared for disappointment and even perhaps disapproval we set off.

Epstein: Adam

Well, Wow! I have said before that over the many years that I've been going to exhibitions, the catalogues have improved an enormous amount, becoming stand-alone educational documents as well as illustrative accompaniments. I have always been keen on finding out, learning more, being given more doors to open, corridors to explore, and here was an exhibition whose purpose was to feed and further facilitate that curiosity.

This show poses questions about modernism. It looks at the routes of abstraction and figuration - are they clear cut or not? It looks at influences, whence and when they came, from the same or different mediums.

Philip King: Genghis Khan

For instance, I loved seeing a room of 'minimalist' Chinese ceramics and thinking about the work of Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson presented alongside. For me this exhibition represents the equivalent of a whole term's worth of input at some institution of art education; so much more than a simple survey of all or most of the British sculptors from the modern period till now.

Barbara Hepworth: Pelagos

I bought the catalogue, and although I want to finish On line first, I can see by just flicking through that my mind is going to be buzzing for some time - just what I need. In fact Tony Cragg's Stack is an apt visual representation of what was going on in my brain as I left the show.

Tony Crag: Stack

This blog has photos of the exhibition, showing the excellent room containing the pieces from the British Museum, as well as the glorious amount of space allowed for a thorough appreciation of the work and thoughts thereon.

About all the negative reviews: well, it is a 'difficult' exhibition in that it makes one think, is perhaps provocative, and is short on 'easy looking'. I also think that the title of the exhibition is rather misleading, at least without some qualifying phrase. But if you are within visiting distance, if you are interested in art and its development, go, make up your own mind!