Finally getting some time in the studio I have been working on some new ideas. Based on some initial research I did at Sunny Bank Mills earlier this year I have been exploring patchwork, stitch, drawing and composition. I am allowing my making to help with thinking, and for thinking to inform my making. That might sound obvious but I am enjoying allowing things to unfold organically.

Today I spent some time in the garden, clearing an overgrown path. As I worked at clearing the weeds and grass my mind went back to something I remembered watching, something about a gardening principle. I forget now the name of the garden designer and the details of the concept, apart from it being described as weeding 'like a cow'. The gardener demonstrated, slowly pulling handfuls of foliage, seemingly randomly from the border. I suppose a way of thinning, making space for growth but without being overly selective about which plants are removed. I wish I could remember more about it. While I steadily pulled at the dead grass, moss and weeds it gave me time to think, chew things over... ruminating I suppose.

Yesterday I started the day in despair. My work was awful and I had no time to start again. By the end of the day I was feeling really positive. Pinning the work up and stepping back it wasn't really as bad as I thought. John helped me to see there were some small alterations I could make.

On reflection I realised there are some simple little elements of studio discipline that are crucial to my creative process; making a cup of tea, putting on my linen apron, switching on my favourite radio station. Without these I am all 'at sea' and struggle to settle. This routine helps me to switch over to studio time.

I also find the rhythm of hand stitch a calming element of my practice, although I haven't the patience for large amounts of it. Small areas of stitch work well for me, as a way of blending together disparate elements.

from the other side

Trying to make decisions about my method for this project. Should I make while ideas are still fresh or wait til colours have developed and memory chrystalised?

Last weekend I went 'home' to Buckinghamshire to attend a conference in London. While I was there I wanted to do some research, walking in familiar woodland. I walked with Mum, and she wanted to know what I was looking for, but I don't think that's how it works. I walk and sometimes I work something out, sometimes I just walk. Walking and looking I absorb, I ponder, I collect experiences.

We all know that taking a walk in the woods makes you feel better and this is something that is really important to my practice. I recently read a fascinating article in the Ecologist which refers to a recent study by A UK research team from Herriot-Watt University. They measured how the brain responds to walking in different environments and found clear proof that...

Walking in nature and spending time under leafy shade trees causes electrochemical changes in the brain that can lead people to enter a highly beneficial state of “effortless attention.”

The article also draws parallels with the work of Rachel Kaplan and Steven Kaplan in discussing the restorative mental benefits of being immersed in the natural environment;

When you enter a green space of natural light and shadows containing the colors of nature, you can also enter a particularly reflective mode at the same time in which you are able to comprehend more than one thing at a time, a state in which stresses and pressures are reduced...All in all, being in nature produces a fully restorative experience.

So although it is what I already knew this somehow serves to emphasise the importance of our green spaces and making time to immerse ourselves in the natural world. I was also fascinated to note that particular reference was made to the benefits of play and exploration in nature; all my mucking about along the river or in the woods takes on a different meaning.

For final year students up and down the country now is a stressful time as they hang their work for degree shows. For lecturers it is easy to become complacent when this becomes an annual round of white paint and plinths. This year because I have been busy making and hanging work this has given me a healthy perspective.

'Putting on a show twice a year is like going for a thorough check-up at the doctor's. I think it does me a lot of good... Sometimes it goes well, sometimes it doesn't, and in that case you have to tear everything down and begin again. But in any case we have to carry on moving forward, continuing our research, doing new experiments. That's how innovation happens, with us confronting real life...' Issey Miyake: Making Things by Kazuko Sato and Herve Chandes (1999) 

So I try to keep in mind that hanging an exhibition, however big or small is not the end of something, it is merely a place to pause, step back and reflect on the journey ahead. So be brave, put the work on the wall (window, floor...) admire your achievements and invite criticism.


... and good luck to my lovely third year students; you're nearly there!

The frustration of struggling to visualise complex organisations of ideas and things has caused me many struggles through the years but it is only very recently I have realised the connections between these various challenges and how I choose to overcome them.

Recently someone asked me about the direction of my practice, how and why it was that I had moved away from working with historical textiles to work with ideas around landscape and whether I planned to ever go back to this. A timely question I thought, and one that raises plenty more.

When I think about the different directions my practice has taken through my short career so far it makes me feel fickle. I dare say I have a short attention span. But perhaps in another way I am just interested in a lot of different things, and those are the things that make me, me.

So Visible Mending just finished in the War exhibition, I have the Prince's Shirt research project ongoing and I had a wonderful day on Sunday at the Antique Textile Fair in Manchester; my passions for historical textile are certainly still strong. On the other hand my interests in walking, observation landscape and sense of place are also constant. My compass needle is constantly changing; my interests change from day to day, I do not have a single way of working, a particular process or material that defines my practice.

So I don't really know what defines my work, other than it is mine. But in responding quickly to the question I realised something crucial, the thing that is most important is that I respond to a project or idea with integrity and honesty.

Here are some little experiments with from the studio today.

This has been a strange year for me, with lots of new changes, challenges, frustrations and opportunities. It is perhaps notable that the things that I am most grateful for, when I really give it some thought, are the things that have remained constant. All the same I know that life is all about changes; all I hope for is the wisdom to realise when to embrace change and when to enjoy what I already have.

Thank you so much for your insightful comments throughout 2012 despite the sporadic posting in recent months. I look forward to updating you with a couple of interesting projects I have been quietly working on in the gaps between.

Wishing you all a happy and peaceful New Year.

"And often when I wake at night, and listen to the silence, or wander far from people, in the greyness of the evening, or stand and look at quiet water having shadows over it, some vague image seems to hover on the skirt of vision, ever changing place and outline, ever flitting as I follow. This so moves me and hurries me in the eagerness and longing, that straightway all my chance is lost; and memory, scared like a wild bird, flies."

Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore

Despite a cold blue sky today, as the sun lit the landscape it warmed everything with a sepia glow. The colours I see inside my magic box reminded me of vintage film as I was watching True Grit (original version) snuggled up on the sofa this afternoon. It made an interesting contrast with a snatch of BBC news about the latest developments in new digital film and media. It made me wonder if by trying to make everything appear so real this looses something else that film and photography captures? I love the old Technicolour films, with their saturated colour that seems to create something beyond reality, or perhaps something straight from the imagination. In the last few years I have discovered just how much qualities of light effect me both emotionally and physically, I wonder if this is something I should explore further in my own practice?

This time of year delicate structures start to reveal themselves after the fullness of autumn fades. I am aware of missing the change in seasons, wrapped up in a world of work.  While I have busied myself, in another world muted greys and greens and lengthening shadows have been developing a soft palette of botanical patterning.

Returning to some old work I am reminded that my practice has gone full circle, returning to themes and processes I explored as a student.

Just after I took the last photo my battery died and I spotted the perfect shot. Although slightly disappointing, it made me realise that while I am walking around viewing the world through a little screen I am missing out on a large part of the experience. Being without a camera I was suddenly more aware of textures, scents and sounds. I found myself looking around at my direct surroundings on a more human scale, rather than 'viewing' and framing the landscape as an image.

This is a timely observation as this morning I made a note to myself to consider the scale of my work. Throughout my MA research I was constantly trying to capture the experience of landscape and the enormity of emotional response, but recent works have returned to a much smaller, human scale. Perhaps I am finally realising that landscape / nature / places can only ever really be understood on a small, human scale. Leaf by leaf and step by step.

Pale narcissus in the garden look eerie and ethereal in the dark, early hours, but with a cosy blanket on the sofa, it proved the ideal backdrop for night-time brainstorming. Last night was a restless one, with tangles of thoughts and ideas congesting my head. I resorted to scribbling everything down on scraps of paper, as I seem to have finished the last of my stash of favourite journals. Still, scraps work just as well when trying to decant the contents of a rambling, worried mind.

In just one night I have developed a collaborative project, devised two workshops, planned what I need to do for the Bradford Open and have thought through the direction of my practice for the near future. If only I could be this productive AND sleep!

I have always found narcissus seen in the dead of night a haunting yet beautiful sight, and this, in combination with the heightened state of awareness when you get up in the middle of the night is a really  unusual sensation. It reminded me of two books that were dramatised for TV when I was a kid; Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce and the Moondial by Helen Cresswell. I think I have always found the subtleties of a nightime landscape washed with light deeply affecting, I wonder why?

I had a really productive day yesterday, clearing space on the kitchen wall to finally pin up some ideas that have been whirring around my head. It is quite stunning the difference it makes just having the space to put things out and step back. I felt this unfolding of ideas as I tested out different forms and shapes on the wall; pinning, re-arranging, stepping back, scribbling, applying shapes and stencils.

Paper pieces

Having the physical space to work really helped me find some mental space to zone out and allow thoughts to drift in as I worked. Words of wisdom from all kinds of people seemed to bubble up and connect me with different times and places, a good feeling to have the presence of some brilliant, creative minds with me as I worked.