September 2019 – Cheshire Cheese

I know I wrote at length about working on tools and bags, but somehow I’ve ended up working on hands (again) and books.

I had this fabric ready to work on before we went away, with no real idea of what to do with it. It’s actually two layers of failed gelli prints, one on calico and one on cheese cloth. (The hands are a later addition.) Neither was very inspiring on its own, but they seemed to work better together. And I had a vague idea about working some sort of pulled stitch on the cheese cloth to reveal the underlayer.

I decided I wanted to make it into a book cover, for a ‘hand book’. The colour made me think of 16th century embroidered books, so that’s the design inspiration, though you would probably be looking at it for a long time before you realised that. The pulled work is there, but the little holes wanted to be filled with beads.

The next problem is how to turn it into a cover. I have some ideas but I’m not convinced by any of them.

Thinking about books reminded me about a book made by Una Smith, which I saw at the Tangent Textiles exhibition in Llanidloes. She’d made two embroidered concertinas and slotted one inside the other so that the back of the stitching was hidden. I’ve been meaning to make a paper sample and this week I finally got round to it, albeit with minimal stitching. The light areas are where I punched out hand shaped holes in the sheet at the back.

And the knitting goes on.

and a new approach for a new season – it is getting a bit autumnal around here, so time for a change.

For several years now, in June and July I’ve followed Tammy Garcia’s ICAD – a daily creation on an index card. Some of mine were good, some were atrocious , but it’s an enjoyable process and a learning experience, and good practice at sitting down and being creative. This year, for some reason, I felt very flat after it finished. I work best with deadlines, preferably set by someone else. When I haven’t got deadlines I’m very good at procrastinating, for example by collecting information about ideas, techniques, images etc. and then not doing anything with them.

So when Tammy suggested on her Facebook group that we take 30 minutes to go through all the stuff we’d collected, select two to follow up in the next two weeks, and 12 to delete, I decided it was a very good idea.

Over the years I’ve collected far too much stuff in my Notes app, so much that I was overwhelmed and stopped using it. (I didn’t stop collecting stuff, of course. I just resurrected my Pinterest account and made a redundant blog private so I could park stuff there.) But I decided to start with Notes. I would find 2 ideas about drawing I wanted to follow up, and delete 12 others.

I paused only to procrastinate about finding a sketchbook to work in. I have no shortage of sketchbooks, you understand. I have made several of all shapes and sizes over the years, in addition to the 3 kilos I bought in Pink Pig’s sale some years ago. But I picked a lightly used one, found an idea to try, and got going.

At this point I went away for a few days. I had intended to take a sketchbook with me – no, not the one I’d started in, don’t be silly! That would be too simple for a champion procrastinator. I would have looked for a smaller one, and a carefully selected bag full of drawing tools. But I forgot.

All was not lost, however. I had the iPad, so I could continue to clear out Notes. In fact, I got a bit obsessional about it. I tackled every one of the umpteen categories I had in there. I have no idea how much I’ve deleted, but there was a lot to delete. I have no idea why a lot of it was there. Why was I interested in witch marks? Or cones? I do remember why I’d collected information on voodoo dolls – it was related to the research on divorce, but I no longer need either. (I didn’t make a voodoo doll but I was sorely tempted. I don’t believe sticking pins in a doll would hurt the object of my antipathy, but at the time it would have been good for my mental health to do it.)

I haven’t just deleted – I have followed Tammy’s other suggestion and done some drawing. Nothing that I would show in public, but I’ve enjoyed it. I’ve found that if I can let go of the idea that it has to look realistic, I actually find it restful rather than stressful.

I’ve also thought about why I’ve been in a creative slump for such a long time. It’s partly due to the family problems we’ve had over the last few years, partly due to my problem with procrastination, but also because I haven’t had any ideas that actually motivated me.

But while we were away we visited two exhibitions where I found a number of things to inspired me. One was a piece in the Tabernacle Art Competition at MOMA in Machynlleth, a painting by Pete Monaghan called ‘Dad’s Shed’. I can’t find it on his website, but his nostalgic image of a handful of tools got me thinking about tools as a topic.

The other was an exhibition at the Minerva Arts Centre by Tangent Textiles. Several of the embroideries used sheers, which I have used a lot in the past, but not in such imaginagive ways. Somehow the idea of tools and sheers resonated with me, so some of my drawing and experimental stitch has been of tools and on sheers.

Finally, going through what I’d saved led to the conclusion that what I like best is knitting clothing.

Ongoing shawl using a ‘Bobble’ from Yarn Mixology.

I also like making bags and books, so I’d probably be more motivated by sticking to those.

Tea bags. Notice the sheers.

But the tea bags, which were not preplanned, reminded me that I’d played around before with making things which were puns. Like tea bags, tool bags, hand bags, hand books, face books … You get the picture. And that’s been quite motivating too.