Under the weather

I had all intention to write at least once week, but I haven't been feeling all that great in the last few weeks. First a tummy bug and then some problems with my eyes. Anyway I don't want to talk about my ailments and there has been enough talk about the weather lately, especially with my mother-in-law in Guernsey. For having been snowed in on a island that far south is a bit more unusual then snowed in sheep in Cumbria and Scotland. Although I do feel genuine sorry for all those sheep and people affected by this cold and snowy weather.

 A view of the park near our house.

The good news is it will not stay forever like this, because nothing stays the same, as everything is always in the process of change, which brings me to some textile talk.

I am in a small group of textile artists, which comes together once a month, rotating at each others house.
We haven't got a name, although I call it the Wednesday Stitch group. We stitch, chat and network, drink coffee and tea, eat biscuits and cake and set ourselves some challenges every now and then.
One of our current challenges is to make an unfinished piece of work about the weather, which is then passed on to the next person who changes it by adding, taking away, cutting up, reassemble and so on. It will then move on to another member and so on until it comes back to the one who started it. The idea is to become more flexible and 'let go' of what we consider to be our creation. Accept the change, go with the flow and be not so precious about what we think we own.
It's a damn good exercise, even more so if you take it further into your life and apply it to other aspects of your existence......

Anyway for my piece I wanted to create some fabric design which not only evoke the weather but also uses the weather in creating it. So I decided to use the Cyanotype, a photographic print method using the sun. I had a packet of already impregnated fabric, so all I needed was a sunny day, work out a design, lay it on the fabric under a glass plate and leave it outside for the recommended time. Rinse and voila.

I used plastic snowflakes from a cut up Christmas tree decoration ( I use to rummage in stores after Christmas for any possible 'finds'), feathers to present the wind, small wooden shapes of the sun, moon, and stars - think sunny days and clear starry nights, wooden cloud shapes and a raindrop, a carton leaf stencil to indicate autumn and some starry sequins for seeds blowing in the wind.

I had no idea what the next person could do with it and although curious I didn't really care what would happen to this piece of fabric, possibly because I didn't spend much time on it, so I didn't feel a strong connection to it.

But then I passed it on to Gina and this is what she did with it:

The weather (vane) pigeon

I know it is not finished but I absolutely love it and because of my love for the bird as a symbol I felt immediately strongly connected to it - which means, I know, I have to 'let it go' one day.
Gina obviously knew about my interest in the symbol of birds and wanted to honour that. It did however strike me that she told me beforehand what she wanted to do with the fabric as she wanted to be sure that I was OK with it. I experienced a similar  hesitation working on her weather piece, a beautiful winter veil.

For much better pictures look at her blog here.

I didn't want to cut it up, certainly not after reading the comments on her blog. I also didn't want to alter or add to it directly as it felt like I would dishonour her work by doing so. So I took the very safe option of creating a 'new' piece as a background and attached it to the back of her veil.
I used a bit of commercial dyed fabric, which looks like sky, a piece of hand dyed linen and some commercially dyed purple.

It was all a bit boring and not very creative but I didn't know what to add, so I left it for a few days. By then I had bought the Stitch magazine, which had a project article to make this wall hanging with a tree by Sam Packer. I know it is cheating, not drawing my own tree, but why spend more time when someone created a perfect tree template which fitted exactly on my piece of fabric?

As it was (and apparently still is) winter, I left out the leaves and the birds, which had not flown back yet from warmer climates.

But I had seen the first snowdrops, little white bells ringing the message that Spring it on its way. It was just before my birthday when I was out with my daughter, Ilana, for a museum visit, lunch and a spot of retail therapy in Great Missenden. She told me that she remembered that her dad used to tell her when she was very young that when the snowdrops were out it would be mummy's birthday soon. So I thought the snowdrops would present a bit of me and a message of new beginnings for Gina, waiting beneath her Winter's veil.

 
The single buttonhole stitch in a thick white thread seemed to lend itself well for these little bells.
The temptation was great to keep on adding things to it, but I was mindful that there there are 3 more people who need to put their mark to this work. So here it is:

 

Now, go and visit Gina's blog, read her side of the story and enjoy some better photographs.

'The Enlightenment of a Housewife' explained

Several people have asked me about the title of my Blog, so here is the story behind the title.

In December 2002 I received a letter that I was selected as a finalist in the Charles Henry Foyle Trust Award for Stitched Textiles. I was invited to create a textile work on the theme of 'Metamorphosis', which would then be exhibited in Forge Mill Needle Museum in Redditch and further at the Royal Society of Artists in Birmingham.

The theme of  'Metamorphosis' as a subject couldn't have been closer to me, then right at that time, as I was going to do a special meditation retreat, involving a major shift of consciousness and expansion.
I have been meditating on a daily basis since 1983 and have discovered a wealth of inspiration and insights which changed my life for the better, in many different ways. Without it, I wouldn't be who I am today. Whenever I can, and is appropriate, I like to express some of my insights into my textile work. So this is what I decided to do for the 'Metamorphosis' exhibition.

An old laundry drying rack, left in the airing cupboard by the previous owners of our house, was the starting point. It brought back memories and associations of the recurrent job of 'doing the laundry' from the 'cradle to the grave'. According to brand advertisers, a job, in which we would aspire to get the 'perfect white wash' if we would use the right detergent.  Ambiguity galore!

'Doing the laundry', and any other forms of cleaning, are some of the typical tasks of a housewife. They are part of her identity. Meditation is like a cleaning process in which we undo ourselves of all the different identities we tend to take on, in order to realise who we really are. Traditionally this is thought to be a goal realised by very few men, often monks who devote their whole lives to this and submit themselves to extreme measures of discipline and meditation. With this installation, 'The Enlightenment of a Housewife', I wanted to challenge this tradition and any other beliefs that the viewer might hold. Each transparent cloth is inspired by traditional towels and cleaning cloths, all expressing symbolically different aspects of a personal account of metamorphosis.

This is the original clothes airers with the original cleaning cloths.

There are 9 different cloths/towels to do with different aspects of cleaning: Baby towel/cotton nappy,  Bath towel, Tea towel, Dust cloth, Flannel, Dish cloth, Floor cloth, Cleaning rag and a Hand towel.
 

And this is how it looked after the symbolic metamorphosis.

The old laundry rack was wrapped with strips of calico and gold thread. The cloths were all made in a different way. I used transparent and semi-transparent silk, cotton and synthetic fabrics in white and gold, presenting spirituality for me. Other materials were silk and Angelina fibres, pelmet Vilene, hot water soluble fabric, HP iron on transfers, hand and machine embroidery threads in white and gold metallic and bonda web.

I wanted to use a variety of techniques to exercise and demonstrate the skills learnt in the 4 year of having done the City & Guild Creative Embroidery Studies. The techniques I used were: wrapping, reverse applique, cutwork, pulled work, shadow quilting, kantha quilting, piecing, bonding, weaving, laminating, computer transfer print on textiles, machine embroidery on water soluble fabric, painting and machine and hand stitch.

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of good photographs of every single cloth, as I didn't have a digital camera at the time. Although I did get the whole installation out of storage a few years ago to make some better photo's, I didn't make enough close ups to have a good record. It's another thing on my 'to do' list. Anyway here follow some more pics.

The long cloth was inspired by a bath towel which my sister gave me as a present when I left home at the age of 17 to go to work and study for a nursing qualification.

My star sign. I kept the towel out of sentiment for a very long time, but I had to get rid of it a few years ago as it was eventually completely disintegrated.

Here is the page of my sketchbook, as you can see I am not one of those exciting sketchbook workers. Note it was my birthday yesterday (I am right on the cusp of being a Piscean). I was going to post something yesterday about snowdrops, birthdays and new beginnings, but I was a bit overcome with emotions, as it was my first birthday without hearing Kiama's 'happy birthday, mum'.

Anyway moving on.

This was my favourite Dutch tea towel, bought on one of these family-visiting holidays to the Netherlands. The butterflies being of course highly appropriate for the theme of 'metamorphosis' and spiritual transformation.

As far as more symbolism is concerned. There were 45 butterflies in the tea towel and I had just turned 46 when I finished the making of this installation! And if you wonder, yes I did suffer from repetitive strain injury after cutting all these butterflies with a curved nail scissor because I didn't invest in the right tool for the job.

This cloth is inspired by the traditional English dish cloth. As the original cloth is knitted I couldn't use the same technique, as in my mind it then wouldn't be a metamorphosis.

So the cloth is completely created from machining threads on solvable fabric. The repeated gold lettering reads: 'metamorphoses of what appears to be'

This unusual clothes peg bag was made from painted pelmet vilene trapped in between 2 layers of sheer fabric.

A photo of the original one in my sketchbook.

Last but not least I want to show my interpretation of the English Face Cloth, which brings me back to the symbolism of birds, which I blogged about before.

In 1974 I read the book 'Jonathan Livingstone Seagull' by Richard Bach. From then on I was determined to find true Freedom. I even started collecting images of seagulls as a constant reminder of my search. One year I made a Christmas card with a cut-out seagull  and the in Dutch translated line from a song by Janis Joplin: "freedom is another word for nothing left to lose." After many years of experimentation, alcohol addiction, depression and feelings of 'losing my mind' (almost ending up like Janis Joplin) I came across the meditation I still practise today. More importantly it gave me that true Freedom and with it the realisation that there is absolutely nothing to lose, nor to gain, as everything exists within me.

I still kept that Christmas card and the design of this flannel is inspired by this. The movement of lines of the Kantha-quilting symbolises the realisation that everything, ultimately, is just pure energy.

Well you probably wonder how my house looks like with all that meditating, blogging, and textile work? I promise you, you don't want to know... Having said that, my washing machine is just finished and I need to hang out my laundry... forgive the pun.

Catching birds and 'letting go'

I haven't done any 'meaningful' textile work since Kiama passed away, my head was just not in the right place for it. I did however felt the need to do some creative therapy. Something 'textily' which doesn't involve much of my brain. So over the summer I started to do some crochet. I love doing crochet. Well you would do, wouldn't you, if you like me managed to crochet about 10 metres of café curtains during night shifts as a nurse in the 70's? 

I can't show the curtains any more, but I still have the booklet with the pattern in it.

 

 And this gives an idea of how they looked.

Anyway I wanted to do something more modern and trailed the internet and found this lovely bird pattern  by Lucy on her colourful blog Attic24.

So I made several of these little birdies with cute dangly legs and buttons.

They are hanging now from some wrapped and decorated branches from another, earlier project, which I will tell about another time. The branches are in a vase on the diner table and give a continues happy and colourful display, especially during those dark days and when we don't have real flowers in the house.

Initially I wasn't aware of why I chose to make birds, apart from the fact that they looked cute, but then I realised that somehow they symbolised a kind of ascension. Kiama 'flying up and away', to other realms perhaps...  Interestingly Ilana, my eldest, had started to doodle birds at the same time, so we also wondered if these birds were symbolising a part of our grieving process. Another layer of 'letting go'.

This brings me to another story. Just a couple of weeks before Kiama fell ill she phoned me one day with the question: "Mum, do you have any suggestions on how to catch a bird? I want to catch a bird and then let it go." She told me that it was for a short film, she wanted to make for an art competition, in which she wanted to present the concept of 'letting go'.  Oh the irony of this, as we keep on seeing the signs.... with hind-sight!

Anyway, I never heard anything more about this project until after her death, when one of her friends posted a very short video on her Facebook wall. It showed Kiama laughing and cautiously trying to catch some pigeons at the market place in Norwich. We later also found some journal writing about it and some sketches of birds flying of bicycles.

Responding to her half-Dutch roots Kiama had a love for bicycles and cycling. Many of her art, social and uni projects had to do with bikes. So the sketch on the right is there for even more striking, with the fallen bike and the bird flying up to the sky, especially when you know that it is the last proper sketch in her latest sketchbook!