Last weekend

There were a lot of people for the last weekend of Fair Trade Material Matters, either they were just happened to be in Ely that day or they came before take down.

Good conversations and images,  good memories to take away. One of the most interesting experiences has been of providing private space in a public place.

A change of scene

At the coast again tomorrow. It is a really good place to be for a change of scene after being in the gallery most of this month.
A kite making workshop 10a.m. - 4p.m. at The  Parish Hall The Londs Overstrand The online booking form is here, and link to the events diary is here

Flying our kites at 12 noon and 3.30p.m.

Half Term workshop

Hat Making workshop Thursday 27th October at Babylon Gallery, Waterside, Ely
This is a family workshop, the online booking is here, all welcome, with children or not!

Moving on - Slowly

The last week of the installation at Babylon Gallery. I had begun to feel settled in the space after five weeks, enjoyed hearing the feedback and conversations. Now I have been looking at the installation for future reference and it's bit like moving house. The studio will change again, how to bring all that furniture to bring back and fit it in the space.

The catch up process of stitching more portraits has got further, but now of course there are fifty plus from this show. Archiving system in place and easier to maintain now, this should mean the online quilt will be easier to add to as well.

In conversation with one visitor I did wonder if I would have to edit some drawings out, I haven't done that before and had previously said I would not. The audience at Babylon Gallery is slightly different from other galleries and events the work has been shown at, some of the drawings are not as intentional. One blanket may have children's faces and become a stand alone 'canvas'.

Comments this week have been very varied and the days visitors really disperate. I found my energy changed, I had a period last week not relating so well and let people 'receive' the work as they were inclined. With hindsight and from a comment Jane Wilson made I would make a sign that encouraged visitors to talk to me and ask questions, then I would not have to initiate those conversations.
A school visit was interesting, having to teach 13 year olds about the conventions of visiting a gallery and respect a shared public space. A conversation with them about how few marks can portray a face, how we recognise someone by those marks was interesting; also about what 'piece work' is and who does that kind of thing. The concept that art could include those considerations was obviously a new idea to the children if not the teachers.
There have been many people comment on how original the idea is and how skillful the work is, perhaps I should believe it. In addition comments about the use of space have been good to hear.
Sunday 23rd tea and cakes 2-4p.m. then take down and move on. I feel a bit like a traveller.

Continuing the process

This week I have found it harder to relate to visitors and have been more involved with my work process. Something changes  in my approach while I do this work, in my mind stitching and drawing feel more similar. Sometimes it is the same hand action.

I have related with those who come in and want to get involved with the work, drawing themselves and each other and understanding the relationship between a personal and communal action.

Donations of blankets from some, offers of paper and carbon paper from others all help sustain the project.

Five weeks have gone very fast, only one more left before this version of Fair Trade: Material Matters is taken down and takes on another form. Many new portraits to scan and stitch, new relationships and networks to develop.

Encouraging comments

I wrote something yesterday, then lost it in the ether so tomorrow will have to try and remember what it was. I had started to think about the way this project is like piece work, like so many other jobs and how it might give me more to write about Slow Making.
Today was quiet but because of that productive. While stitching faces I was able to think more about the nature of the process, the relationship with other people doing boring repetitive jobs. 

It seems to me that many artists are doing that, tho' the work may not seem boring if there is a good relationship with the materials used or the end product, but the process has a lot in common with many repetitive factory jobs.

Two Portuguese sisters came and spent a long time making their portraits, more than one each. I found their response to the project refreshing - one had even started to pin her portrait onto  blanket, assuming she would be involved with the stitching. Perhaps that is another stage for some venues. They really enjoyed perfecting the use of carbon paper and have promised to bring some back from Portugal, where it is both available and cheaper than in UK!
I have enjoyed the interaction in the gallery this week.

Slow Making: planning, use of space and archiving

Is there something about Slow Making that is also about sustainable and efficient use of space? 

While working in the Babylon Gallery I have a chance to refresh my studio. I have a chance to look at the space and try to store tools, materials and finished work in a different way.

Almost everything came out over the weekend, a shock to my system and the rest of the house. Too much stuff in too small a space perhaps, but seeing it clearer should help. The plan is to put things back slowly, throw away or give away everything that I will not use in the foreseeable future.  Time will tell if this means new and better work.
Today the archiving of Fair Trade: Material Matters finished work was completed, now to start stitching again, this time archiving as I go which means keeping good records of people, places and events.

Exhibition response and conversations

Feedback so far has been good from people ready to engage with the finished and interactive work. A few overheard conversations have proved that the term Fair Trade is powerful and has possibly confused a few. I heard one visitor say 'It wasn't what I was expecting - not sure what is Fair Trade about that". I think they were anticipating work made in the third world by artisan craftspeople, not artists from East Anglia needing their work to be valued on a par with other professionals.

On the other hand some Polish agricultural workers spent a considerable time looking at the work and did very good self portraits. They wanted to know much more than any other visitor so far about the process and people involved. They were surprised when shown the website that there was no fee to take part and gave generously into the donations box.

Visitors from West Yorkshire were intrigued with the use of blankets they had been involved in weaving in the 1950's. The conversations were about an area that used to be fully employed, with two or three generations of families well occupied in the textile industry. Like the Polish workers, they had a depth of understanding about the value and type of work involved.
I get a sense that Slow Making is being added to, while I have conversations and work on archiving the finished work I am beginning to plan a new phase of Slow.

Walking Matters and changes things.

I have spent the last few days developing a way to record the events and exhibition that Fair Trade: Material Matters has been shown at and the people involved. Archiving has now become the focus for the work already made, so that the next stage will be easier to make. There at least fifty more faces to stitch and scan to include in the online work, so having a system in place is now crucial.

Response to the exhibition this week has been interesting, mixed and somewhat different to other venues, probably because it is not used solely for contemporary visual arts. Meeting with other artist and makers have been good.

Tomorrow a walk is planned, with Liz McGowan and myself. We will respond and play with the place and people we find using all our senses to experience the riverside walk.

images from previous walk in Bergapton, Norfolk.

Material Matters

I have been thinking about writing more on the blog  for months but not had time. My time has been completely taken up with working on a Story Quilt project and preparing work for exhibition, and of course in the summer the allotment and garden take up any time that is left. Being involved with the slow physical processes of making has been good.

The Story Quilt was with Eastfield Infant School and Rheola Care Home, in St Ives Cambridgeshire. The best so far I think, and the largest. It took a long time to put together, many more hours than  I had estimated. It was completed at the end of last term it spent the summer in the freezer, to make sure no moth larvae were hiding anywhere in the wool. This one is so special because one grandma is a felt-maker, and provided some beautiful hand made felts. Now I have to write it up and add to FrostArt projects page. Meantime a few images.

 





Exhibition preparation is always admin, sorting out diaries and materials, making sure people are able to help, because of lack of funds it is always a question of help and favours, finding out how generous people are! Fair Trade: Material Matters opened at the Babylon Gallery this weekend and will be there until 23rd October, with a range of events planned.

I am booked to work there as artist in residence three days a week. It feels a bit strange to have a routine in place, but it is good because on the other days I intend to give the studio a really good clean out. What will I find?
An addiion to this post, seems appropriate to have a link to DACS petition about artists rights.

Slow progression, willow, work and gardening

Another slow progression, overlapping work and home life. I was asked to write an article for my local village magazine, Littleport Life, because I advertise workshops there, and now it is also online so the link to that is here.

For workshop calendar go here. and for online bookings go here

I wonder where this will lead, and am intrigued to find myself exploring how my garden has developed and changed over the years. This year the garden has changed more dramatically; with greenhouse and new pathways it takes on a different feel. The slightly wild and unkempt areas are less, these are now on the allotment where there is more space to be wildlife friendly.

For the first time in years I have cut the hedgerow drastically, almost laying it in places. The birds are a bit phased, trying to find places to hide and start making nests, but it will not take long to produce cover again.

The willow fedge is now six years old, and has produced a good crop of poles for garden structures and plant supports. The effect of willow and yew is intriguing every year, and I still wish we had more space for a pathway between.

I am now a facilitator for Learning Through Landscapes, and find myself looking at outdoor spaces in a different way all the time. The use of materials and techniques, largely self taught, is now relevant to more of the work I am able to offer. Weaving is building and community, weaving my walk is also weaving my life with and for others.

New points of reference

A whole new direction. This summer it felt like I was made to look at a map or compass to find out exactly where I am in relation the the world and people in my life. I am now carrying a compass, almost subconsciously referring to it more often and thinking about place, community, and time.
How to value a person's life, whether young or old. Somehow the end of a life lived to the full, for several decades, it does not seem so hard to comprehend. But one cut short that has potential, with promises of a future full of action and positive contribution to the community. I have found almost impossible to take in that it is gone.
Learning about 'Slow Making' and all it implies, the energy and value of a life and how resources are used in living still takes me by surprise.
Working on Wind Mapping on West Runton beach with Liz McGowan was akin to steering an unknown course in a well known boat. Exhilarating and reassuring at the same time.

More colourful stories

The Story Quilt project in Reading proved to be a really inspiring and colourful project all the way through.It demonstrated how inter-generational learning is almost impossible to restrict or restrain in boxes. and preconceptions. Community learning at it's best.

While working on it a friend staying needed to be distracted from everyday and mundane. Stitching colourful, tactile materials and images was exactly the right activity.

Summer and willow acitivities

I have been doing more making, being in the physical and not using my blog to record or comment on work. The result is a gap to be acknowledged or filled. In the time since May I have become more aware of the multiple activities that FrostArt is involved with, they overlap and often take too much time, which does not fit into the Slow Making approach. How to resolve this is always an issue. The glut of fruit and vegetables at this time of year is a bit similar, they take time and energy to tender and maintain during the dry spring and summer, then they are all at once demanding attention!
Images are of willow activities over the last few months, in schools and for the The National Trust's Angelsey Abbey story telling space. 
For willow workshops this season go to this link for the Google calendar and online bookings

Drawing with willow

Aiming for local projects, I had not expected a commission 50 yards from home. The logo of the local school is a heron, and they have new buildings and grounds to renovate. After spending a few weeks making the large heron, I worked with the whole school over two days, drawing birds using one piece of willow. So at the end there were about 400 birds stitched onto a background and displayed on the boundary fence. This proved to be a surprising demonstration of Slow Making, combining fast learning and experience. Using a material both local and traditional for centuries, it is a new experience to these children.

Waterways: Walking: Stitching and conversations

At High Tide Mersey the Waterways Work was really examined and extended by being placed alongside other work addressing climate change, the social and environmental challenges that places on areas like the Mersey Basin. 'Weaving a Walk' Mersey produced responses and opened doors to more events, in June the work went on show in North Yorkshire as part of Chrysalis Arts 'Slow Art' project
 There are more images on Flickr.

A more colourful spring

In this really cold and belated spring, the daffodils are only just coming out and the wind is freezing today. Helpfully I am starting on a project with RISC and have been dyeing recycled blankets a whole range of colours. Colour always cheers me up and seems to provide an energy that nothing else can.
After what seems like months of planning this is the first practical phase of a Generations Together project.
More to follow very soon I hope.

Tide and time

Thinking and working in preparation for High Tide:Mersey began a new phase of Waterways:Walking:Stitching

I have now printed the first of what should be a series of postcards of sites that are significant to individuals or communities, or have environmental importance for research or historic reasons. They are laid out like the most ubiquitous holiday postcards, except the reference is in longitude and latitude, not the name of the place. The first is where the site of 'Sea Henge' was excavated on the North Norfolk coast.

As always I am never sure that what I make and what people really see have anything in common, so the opening at Liverpool John Moore's provided lots of good conversations and feedback.
The selection process to make a clearer and more coherent show is all part of the slow making. Interesting to realise that what is shown is not really what, how or why it is made.

Travelling less, making more

This year seemed to start slower, the marmalade made, the process, colours, smells and resulting rows of filled jars on the shelf very satisfying. The same feeling is produced by completing a good piece of work.
An order for 12 willow plant supports was similarly seasonal, repetitive work on the allotment.
I am possibly growing into the pace that I have thought about for the last few years, at least when I make work. This includes the multiples, the aim for craft skills in each piece. The pace of making multiples is both slow and fast at the same time.
Learning to make exact same forms takes time, the making of each pieces has to be fast, or the work is neither elegant nor cost effective!
However, the pace of working on multiple tasks and commitments still seems to be other than slow and although that is my aim, time does not seem to stretch to fit them all.

Last entry of the year

The last entry of the year. A strange combination of slow and overactive, that happens sometimes. Not a sign of miss-spent time or of nothing done, just not yet evident in practice.
The image of our seasonal garden decorations, made by spiders and we had to do nothing except provide the environment for them! In the nature of Slow Making they are transient and seasonal and use sustainable materials. Contrast to the neighbours' bright lights, fashionable, brilliant and energy thirsty, I thought somehow Christmas decorations should be in harmony with the Creator they promote and celebrate, especially as we are currently trying to promote the Copenhagen agreements and cut down on carbon dioxide emissions.
I have started a Flickr site to collect images of Slow Making with others, the first images are of these spiders' webs.
The New Year promises many things which offer new places and challenges. Looking forward to them always conscious of seasons and timings not of my planning!

Drawing with willow

Planning for a workshop at WWT Welney Swan festival, I planned to set the task of drawing a swan with one piece of willow. Surely a result of the workshop last week, I found myself drawing with willow and these are the first results.

They are almost balletic in form, the beginning of something new perhaps. Just realising the diverse variety of entries there are in this blog, the materials and processes; but the thoughts go along together in very similar ways all the time. The pace of growth, drawing and stitching have so much in common.

Weaving conversation and baskets

Mary Butcher lead a master class at NUCA, a chance to play and reflect; 11 of us were invited. to take part. The opportunity to have conversations about the nature of making, the processes involved and the character of materials; it was both refreshing and hard work. Good to see the variety of work approaches.
I found myself taking more and more and more apart! Learning how to leave stuff out was good. Leaving space for imagination and thoughts, always a good idea. Space to breathe. Again it showed me how vital it is to STOP and work slowly. Slow Making includes the spaces, the time to look, not constructing, just feeling materials and tools. There are images on a Flickr page, so just a taste here.

footprints and impressions of 350 Day of actions

Making simple actions in public, the theme was of footprints and walking in conversation. Sun and rain, together with hot cups of chocolate and generosity of spirit were overwhelmingly the feel of the day.
Most people are aware of the need to do something and want to change their dependence on oil products, I found a real concern but at the same time lack of knowledge about how to do that change. Now is the time to be informed and make a difference!

350 International Day of Action

'Coat to cover the Earth'

This work I made 10 years ago. It has a list of endangered species, many of which are now extinct I fear.
I have brought this out again because the 350 International Day of Cilmate Action is coming up on 24th October and I am going to walk next to the river in Ely, inviting 350 people to join me to take part in an action and making transient work. See the facebook group page to see when and where.
Not easy to photograph, the fragility of fine cotton and copper wire crochet does not show itself well. I made it as a model of a much larger piece, where the space between the two layers would be big enough to walk between. Not yet commissioned but I do have a place in mind, so let me know if you are interested.
Again walking and conversation are the priority.

Stitching and expression in Reading

Stitching and expression of community, cups of tea and cake shared by participants in the workshop and opening event for Fair Trade Material Matters at RISC. the Global Cafe is a hub for all sorts of activities where the work will become part of people's everyday lives for the month.

I found leaving the work in place hard this time, almost as if it had taken on a personality. The more relationships and faces collected, the more powerful the work becomes. I had not anticipated this effect. I need to reflect on Slow Making again, what it signifies and how the power of accumulative, collecting, repetitive work expresses Slow.
More details of the work are on The RISC website.

A month with no rain

This month was so dry, the whole of September with no rain. I don't know the records for previous years, but sure I don't remember any September without rain and so warm. I have been outside most days working on the allotment, cycling has been easy in this weather.

Why so preocupied? Because I presented work at CRASSH seminar 'Vegetable Love' about being an artist who grows edible plants.

The action, my allotment drawn and stitched onto a tablecloth, together with some of the vegetables grown there. Conversation about the process of growing, relationship with human and non-human neighbours, I found myself performing in a way that became poetic, lyrical and characteristic of the place.
Again the pattern is
Allotment
Stitching
Walking
Performing.

Slow to keep up

I have been pre-occupied with trying to keep up with all the different aspects of making work. In the nature of Slow Making this is not always bad and as Salt Trails at Salthouse 09 has been the main reason it has been productive and enjoyable.

The pace of work is not always to do with the making, the spaces in between when no work is physically made is equally important. Finding space and time when no-one interrupts and nothing else has priority on my time is hard. Not easy to explain that sitting, being, listening and watching is part of the work that is not yet apparent.
I need the time to absorb what has happened, what will change and enable the work to form.

From Salt Trails in summer to stitching in winter

Walking at Salthouse with a group from Contemplative Fire was a journey in a different direction, or at least one that took a new path. A progression maybe, crossing pathways and carrying baggage from other events and communities. Do we share the baggage or help each other to let go? Which ever it is I learned that it helps to have the right pack, walking aids and companions, and to know how to carry the load. I enjoyed the fact that this was seasonal work and intend to demonstrate more of this in my work. Seasonal fits with Slow Making.


Making space, clearing surfaces is like making a pathway to walk and work in, so that is what I am doing until September, when not keeping the allotment clear of weeds and picking fruit and vegetables. A similar activity I suppose.
Preparing the studio to do concentrated work includes removing all traces of other activities, they are like background noise, or muddy water!
For me story sharing and stitching go together, indoor activities, so stitching work for Fair Trade Material Matters will start again as the summer disappears, it seems to have taken on the character of autumn and winter activity. This autumn it will go to RISC in Reading and make new relationships and connections.

definitions, words and physical actions

Allotment
Stitching
Walking
Performing.

All coming closer together, having relationship, beginning to form a pattern of making and being.

People and places, exhibitions and walks, allotment sheds, studio and garden, computors and drawings, thinking about the relationship between growing, stitching and weaving patterns, making marks in land, fabric and lives.

Origins of the word stitch come from Old Saxon: stiki Old English: stice Old High German: stih Gothic: stiks
Definitions of the word stitch:(noun) A prick, puncture or stab inflicted by a pointed implement. (verb)Fasten together or join pieces of fabric
Phrases: A good stitch - a considerable distance to walk. A ridge or baulk of land, especially a strip of ploughed land between two water furrows. A narrow ridge in which potatoes grow. To stitch: Set up sheaves of grain in stitches, stooks or shocks.

Field Theatre

Littleport Field Theatre walk is planned for June 27th, a Mid-summer event and an opportunity to make more Green Corridors work and invite others to take part.
Physical textiles are taking second place or are the metaphor for field trips and walks. Interlacing people and places, weaving walks between communities. Salt Trails, Landline Arts and The Field Theatre - here is a strong theme that I hadn't planned.
Well that was the plan, but things change and the walk is not taking place. Summer is hot and apart from keeping the allotment free of weeds and with a succession of crops going, I have been spending time doing more stitching for Fair Trade Material matters. The online quilt is growing and currently has about 160 portraits.