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I can be quite sweary…

I am currently stitching “Why don’t you just fuck off?” repeatedly over this knackered old bra.

My finger hovers over the delete key, because I am cautious of my audience…

As I get to know people, I get swearier, if I think they will be ok with it. I like these words, all of them. Even the REALLY bad one. I do use the full extent of my vocabulary in my songs too, should the need arise.

There are tensions and balances in my work, ambiguity, confusions… I like that too. I like it when people are drawn in by the children’s clothes, or the very nicely stitched embroidery… and the best bit is when, they have been lulled into a false sense of security, that they think they know what they are looking at, and then go “Oh!” or even “Urgh!” and take a step back again.

(Curiously, I don’t think my greatcoat has this quality… others, but not this)

The bra is stitched with angry obscenity, but in white, on white. You have to get up really close for the opportunity to be offended by it.

I think about this as I stitch. Is this part of the work and/or part of me? Is this fictitious mythical woman I stitch for the sort of woman who would say these words? Does she just think them? Are they repressed and hidden. I wonder if, in wearing this bra for a long day, whether “Why don’t you just fuck off?” would become embossed onto the skin of the wearer, to be read later by the one that is being asked to fuck off?

Is it just me being a bit scared of offending the viewer? Or is the choice I make more about how the work is literally read?  I don’t want to shout it… FUCK OFF! stitched large and red would be a different message wouldn’t it? Far more violent. White on white is a wish, a mantra, a prayer… that is far more frightening I think, than a woman who isn’t scared to shout it, be direct and open. A muttering under the breath… a snide look out of the corner of the eye… Maybe one of the bras I stitch will be more blatant, brash and bold… but not this one. This one is a little bit scared of herself.

A while back, after the open studio day I had, I wrote about the studio being my space, and not a social space. My studio at home (dining room) had always been social as well, and the stuff of art frequently moved aside to cater for family and friends. This was never begrudged, it was just how it was. Having a separate studio, away from home made a big difference to how I work. Even this space, I wrote, occasionally gets invaded by people who don’t understand the boundaries… some people still just walk in unannounced without even knocking… some people knock and politely wait to be called in. Occasionally, I have started to hang a sign on the door so I am not disturbed. It doesn’t say “sod off”, it says “please do not disturb, recording may be in progress” – and this isn’t always a lie.

The business of being an artist isn’t always visible. The work I do doesn’t always involve me doing something with my hands. Sometimes the most creative bits are when I have a mug of tea nestled in my hands on my lap, my eyes gazing unfocussed in the middle distance. This is hard for the non-artist to understand… hence the sign.

Also, the timetable of the newly self employed artist isn’t always predictable, if there aren’t teaching sessions or workshops booked. It is sometimes difficult to convey the need to work. THIS is my job now. I have to do things, I am highly motivated to get my work into the world, get it earning its keep. So no, I don’t have to be at work at times set by other people, but it doesn’t mean I am free.

At the moment I have a lot in my head. I need a good stretch of time to deal with some of it. Some of it is making, yes, of course, thank goodness! Some of it is the form filling. Some is record keeping and financial planning (doesn’t take long if you have no money). Some of it is the abstract thought… this is the one that takes the time and needs the space.

Yesterday I was thwarted. Yesterday I was angry that the time and space I need wasn’t respected.

This morning, less emotional, I understand that this transition isn’t just mine, that others are finding it difficult too. All I can do is be patient and explain what I need and why.

So… this morning I am off to the studio earlier than ever. A proper working day even. I intend to stay as long as it takes, not time limit, not limited by me or anyone else. Going with the flow, getting engrossed, letting it make me tired.

I have often joked over the years that I don’t have a very strong work ethic. I now think this was wrong… I think I was just doing the wrong work for it to apply!

I will be hanging the sign up… it might not be a lie.

Right then.

Yesterday I watched some of my Songwriting Circle buddies perform as part of the mac birmingham (their lower case trendy insistence, not mine) open day for the new term’s courses. I could have joined in, but chose not to. My relationship with performance is a rocky one, that I haven’t quite pinned down yet. So subjecting myself to singing in a barn-like, clattery cafe didn’t seem like a good idea. I felt it would have perhaps have done more damage than good. I’m not looking to be a rock star baby. I am looking to build my confidence so that I am eventually able to sing in a gallery, in front of people I know without my lip sticking to my teeth and needing to throw up on the front row. This occasion would not have been the right one to do that, so I sat at the side like some group stalker, and cheered.

A week today we start the new term. I felt a bit guilty that I hadn’t done much to further my song writing since we broke up for the summer. So yesterday I got out my notebook. When I started out, the words were in amongst other stuff in my sketchbook, but that became impractical as I couldn’t easily find stuff, so now I have a special book. I’m nearly at the end of the second one! In this, everything I write has a title, a date, and a number. In the back there is an index. I have astonished myself with my organisation in this respect. I write in ink, not in pencil, because pencil is too tempting to rub out. Don’t rub anything out. I put one straight line through discarded phrases, so I can go back to them, either because I’ve changed my mind, or to use elsewhere. There are snippets I have used over and over, because I like them, but have yet to find the right context for them.

So, in looking at my book, I find I haven’t been lazy after all, I have 8 sets of lyrics dated since the end of term, and I have 3 GarageBand files full of sounds to work with.

Not quite sure how that happened, but I’m off to the studio now to do something with them.

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so… studio is besieged by power tools, diggers buses and the like, way too noisy to record anything. I look to the internet in the hope of revising my latest application, no luck there, internet down and out. The bacon butty van has run out of bacon. Sod it. I’m going home.

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Hour and a half later, I’ve sort of finished a song….

Strange day today at ArtSpace… not a single person walked through the door… the town was very quiet, and not many even walked past, let alone looked through the window. I usually get in about an hour before opening, to think about what to take downstairs from my studio, to work on during the day.

Bra number one needed some attention. There will be more than one, that has been decided, but more news of that at a later date. I finished the embroidery yesterday, but today needed to work on the next bit, wiring it, to see if it stood independently. Of course the sensible artist would have worked out this crucial matter first wouldn’t they? But Noooo…. not me, I spend weeks embroidering this garment, possibly to find out my whole idea doesn’t work and it falls down round my ears!

So I spent the whole day, from 10:30 – 6:00 doing just that. I stitched milliners’ wire around structural seams. Note: milliners’ wire is great, it comes covered in cotton (assorted colours), can be bent easily with hands and basic tools, and can be cut with stout scissors, but is firm, and holds shape really well.

By the end of the day, It is standing up. It’s not great, it needs additional cup seam support, and some up the rows of hooks at the front, but it will work. The garment, while not exactly comfortable, could still be worn…It is transformed now into something sculptural. It wraps around the ghost of a woman. The flaws, repairs and tears in the garment show, inside and out, and so do the backs of my stitches and the knots….. hmmm…. David Riley, on Facebook, said that the wires and knots would leave interesting marks on the skin. I think I may need to have a chat to my life model…

I like it. It is a warts and all item. It is obviously a bit old and a bit rubbish, but time has been spent on its adornment. It show signs of neglect, pragmatism, hope, and pride. It is, I think, a perfect middle aged woman. I can see this work drawing me in, enveloping me for months and months to come. I have great affection for these bras, these women… and wonder to how large an extent they are me?

I was asked on Facebook to list the ten books that had had the biggest effect on me… As I read other people’s lists I became more and more intimidated, weighty tomes were peppered among worthy novels. There were the classics, and some contemporary fiction, and philosophical heavy weights. There was no way I could stand up to this. All the really “important” stuff I have read has always been for the purposes of writing assignments, and while thinking at the time “yes this is interesting” nothing stays with me… it just falls out through my ears when I lie down. So, having decided just not to compete, I started to think about the books that really have stayed with me. And, to be honest, the list now seems obvious, but was a bit of a revelation… my past caught up with me…

Winnie the Pooh… I think Pooh and Christopher Robin pretty much taught me to read – precociously- before getting to school, on my mother’s knee….”Christopher Robin had measles and sneezles, they bundled him into his bed…” The rhythm of it tripped over my tongue as a child, and as I read it to my own children. As I got older, if the weather was bad and I couldn’t get out to make my own adventures, I read and re-read Enid Blyton’s Famous Five series. Also in the list were The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, P G Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories… read over and over again…. I had a book of Irish Folk tales (Mum was Irish) that were full of magic and words of power. At primary school I remember learning “The Owl and the Pussycat”, and since then have loved the nonsensical words, and later on some great poems by Spike Milligan. I read Roald Dahl to my children, and my mum used to read the BFG to my eldest son – we would giggle at the silly words – Mum loved them too. She even sent a postcard from her holiday in Ireland once, telling us all about the awful amount of whizzpopping that was going on! My eldest son, as a teenager, introduced me to Terry Pratchett, his book “Night Watch” is on my list. I love how he wrangles the words and plays with them, the look of them on the page, the typography, and also the way they sound different out loud, to when you read them silently.

So having written this list of mine, I realised it could only be mine.

My work is always about mums and children and words and rhymes and silliness and childhood, and that little bit of the sinister and macabre you get in a really good folk tale or fairy story.

The last book on my list is a proper adult book “Reclaiming Childhood” by Dr Helene Guldberg. This is the one book I read from cover to cover, twice, whilst doing my MA. This was the one that made me say “Yes! I think that too!”

So I make no apologies for my list of silly books…*blows raspberry*