Threads

Dilemma

I now only use materials I already have, or old clothing/textiles sourced and donated and pinched. I have loads. Thread too. A whole cupboard and a half of threads. People have given me their grandma’s button tins, sewing boxes etc. I have a huge historical stash that is like treasure to me. I sit on top of it like a dragon on gold.

So… I find myself on Boxing Day, ferreting through this hoard, becoming increasingly frustrated.

I want to start stitching the greatcoat this week. I have a picture in my head of how it should look, but can’t find anything in my stash that is quite right. So I have this pile of “nearly” threads, I will try them out, but they are either not quite the right colour, not quite the right thickness, or not quite the right texture.

Do I compromise my principles and go out and buy new?

Or do I compromise the finished article and use what I have?

Which hurts least?

The Practice of Everyday Life…

I haven’t done much since finishing that pair of pants. I don’t intend to now until after Christmas. I know I said in a previous post I was going to start on the greatcoat, but I had forgotten one crucial factor… Everyday Life.

I moan about decorations being up too early and Christmas music in shops, and enforced jolliness… Why does Christmas have to be brightly lit, gaudy and jolly? Can’t Christmas be peaceful, thoughtful, reflective? Some people hate Christmas, and have good reasons to. This senseless commercial overkill must be physically painful, heartbreaking, sickening.

I actually love Christmas… I love decorations, and trees inside the house and food and drink and family and friends, but I like it to start just the week before (about now) and I like to take it all away on January 2nd. And I like to remember people who aren’t with me to celebrate any more. I like to get sentimental and cry a little too. Christmas isn’t just one tone.

So, The Practice of Everyday Life (title borrowed from Michel de Certeau)…

I have dusted as an artist, vacuumed as an artist, made pastry for mince pies, made The Legendary Elena Thomas Lemon Shortbread, cranberry sauce and printed labels for parcels, all as an artist… which means I am doing it all consciously instead of resentfully, enjoying the feel of it all, and that feeling of satisfaction, the haptic reward of physical jobs, completed.

I had my hair cut as an artist and in a fit of festive whimsy, allowed the hairdresser to colour a small amount of it green. It is making me laugh. People either think it is stupid (which makes me laugh) or they think it is cool (which makes me laugh) or they think I think it’s cool (which makes me laugh). It’ll wash out in a week or so. But I did buy a bottle… so it might appear again for my birthday or somesuch occasion! I am resisting the urge to brighten up my husbands eyebrows while he sleeps (which makes me laugh).

Have a happy Christmas if you can dear readers… and if you can’t, my thoughts are with you.

I know I only posted yesterday, but I wanted to get this photo up.

I made the pants.

I’m really pleased with these items.

They do lots of things… they make me smile for one. I like the feel of them. I like the scrappiness, the something out of nothingness about them. That makes them a little bit tragic. I like the scale of them. The vest measures about 16” all around the chest. The shoes are just under 4” long. I can imagine a real baby that would fit into them, because of my own very small babies. So they are fragile too. However, they are stitched and stitched and stitched into strength. I have nurtured them into a health and a robustness that wasn’t there before.

I was concerned that making pants would be problematic. Had they stood or sat alone they might have been. But they complete this set of things. They needed to be there.

I now have these, and the dress.

I suspect there may be more. There is enough fabric left in the pile to make something else. Using this pile up is as much part of the work as what I make of it. But I don’t know why really…

Maybe it will just make a quilt or a sheet or a blanket… just all of the leftover leftovers together… to be shared by the two invisible children.

I don’t really know any more about these things yet. I expect the meaning of them will carry on growing. But they feel right. I have to trust that for now.

A comment by Franny Swann about studio space being all my own has really got me thinking, and stupidly excited really, especially as I may not get the space I have applied for.

What the process of applying has done though, has made me realise that I do want a space that is my own. I’ve never had it. NEVER! Any work space I have had has always been shared, or has been a room that holds another function. I work at home in the “dining room” that my husband has put the inverted commas around. At school my space is shared by the children, but also another teacher who does proper teaching in the mornings, so I am restricted there too in what I can fill the space with. At home, Christmas is approaching fast, so the table and floor space will need to be cleared until after the new year.

I am starting to think about how I will use a space that is totally mine. How will I display work complete, and work in progress? What will I put on the walls to inspire me? What equipment and materials will go there, and what will stay at home? How will I divide my work? Will I still want things to do at home? Will I spend every spare minute there? I have absolutely no idea! I do intend though to celebrate it happening, wherever it might be. I will have an open studio day/weekend/week. Undoubtedly there will be cake. There will be a bit of a laugh. And I expect I will be told off by someone for being overly precious and territorial. Then I will throw everyone out, lock myself in, and get on with it.

I haven’t got this mythical space yet, but it is already putting a smile on my face.

Poetry then…

The words that I write, sometimes become poems, and sometimes become songs, sometimes they are just strings of thoughts, pertaining to my life, my work and so on.

I find it comfortable to write and speak the words that have an association with my visual work, it’s a different way of saying something, and often throws light on what I’m trying to get at.

I have started writing songs starting with sounds, rather than words, and I quite like that too, the words can become almost abstract, I just like the patterns they make.

Occasionally, one word, a pair of words or a short phrase comes into my head, or is overheard, or misheard. It throws an instant picture into my head, and must be expanded to create the missing narrative…. This is a tricky one, because if read or performed, I don’t want people to think this is about my life, a verbal illustration of something experienced. They are almost doodles… a “what if…” experiment with words.

I have worked with scissors all my life… for paper and fabric and thread… they are extensions of my fingers… I look at Edward Scissorhands and think “How handy!”

Scissors have also been used as my rhythm instrument of choice on several occasions.

These words appeared on my page, almost unbidden, a few days ago. The word scissory has been bouncing around in my head for weeks. It isn’t a proper word I know. But it feels nice in my mouth when I say it.

Tonight, this will have its first airing in front of an audience at an event called Mouth and Music, at the Boar’s Head in Kidderminster… great pub with a gallery and a performance space… an unexpected, unlikely gem of a venue.

You sniped at me with scissory words

Escaping sideways through your lips

Sibilance and steam pushed them out

Until they hurt

You grimaced at me with your face of clay

Pugged and wedged into ugly shapes

Groans and growling drove them into my sight

Until I was gone.