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.

Sheds and working places

Fair Trade Material Matters is installed at Shed and a Half Gallery, in London. The web site is relaunched, a really significant step for the work it is able to grow without me, an entity in it's own right. Being involved with developing the site I have considered it more as an exhibition space, more than just an information hub. This has made the process seem visual and physical. The sheds at Shed and a Half have taken on the character of the work as a whole, comments already about the atmosphere being calm and spacious, while still full of work
I like the way people respond to the invitation to draw their self portrait, there have been some very strong, unexpected reactions to the process.
There will be a mid show event, so if you are looking at this before June 5th 2009 get in touch to find out more!

Walks and conversations

Developing a work pattern and walks with Liz.
Salt Trails website published conversations about land and places. We chose Hapisburgh - pronounced Haze-br-e as our first practice walk with participants. Dramatic and unsettling, difficult to comprehend what it might be like to live there.

Again links with people and places, the ones that amaze me are the ones who are already so busy and knowledgeable and have given the ideas and work so much respect. It is very special to share walks and conversations with them.
Littleport Field Theatre and Landline Arts are also exploring ways to express the significant and meaningful sense of places which make them special to communities. Values of property and people are so different on the coast, especially a moving and unstable one. like the East Anglian one. Coming across a Ringed Plover's nest on the beach was also very moving. How delicate and 'on the edge' is that existence!

Spring 2009

I am aware that I have been too pre-occupied with cultivating and maintaining the garden and allotment, as always I get far too over focused. This may be because there has been no rain for three weeks, but before that it was because I want to re-establish my relationship with growing food as well as providing a better environment for the cultivated plants to grow in.
I saw the willow structure made earlier in the year in Ely today, it is developing happily, with only a few straggling parts not showing new shoots. It was good to see it in use by small children

I feel as though the crossing paths are making links and bridges between people and places which I have not been relaxed enough to do previously, working more locally is sometimes harder. But now is the right time for me.
I have also had time at Welney Wildfowl Centre one of the first places I used willow and made a large structure, so this year I have been restoring the shape of the Swan Shelter, now eight years old. The sound of bees all over the willow flowers was quite overwhelming, especially as there is such bad news internationally about bees dying of mysterious disease.

FACT

Being visiting artist at Fact, Foundation for Arts and Creative Technologies, Liverpool for a few days, was busy, inspiring, thought provoking and provided me with a place to see responses to Waterways maps as they happened.

I always had the idea that they would extend my walking relationships. Conversations with audience, visitors and participants in workshop sessions revealed the power maps have to aid conversation and relationships between people and places. I will now be able to develop the work further and more effectively.
For more images see GaiiaL@tE project

Haddenham

Installing exhibition with Landline Arts, at Haddenham Gallery
Gave me the chance to hang Waterway maps in a different way and response from other artists was very affirming. From general visitors it seemed to be they were somewhat mystified. The venue is not one for 'Slow' art perhaps and as always I am learning that the relationship between the work and the host is crucial.
It was a good place to move the shelter from Holt, especially as it snowed and gave it new character. Inland it is a different being.

Crossing pathways: materials, people and places

A new phase in Slow Making, a new relationship to work with. Accepted for Salthouse 09, I am working with Liz McGowan on Salt Trails. A joy to be thinking about this work with the knowledge that I will not be building or creating a structure, no materials to be manipulated. Quite strange to be in a place time where I feel that this is a good way to work. Salt Trails will be a series of conversations and walks along the North Norfolk coast. A piece I have been weaving in the studio will also come to conclusion this year. Originally made to help my thought processes when I started to think about Slow Making, it is also used in an animation by Tim Drake.
I think the nature of this year will be reflective and Slow, but who knows what people and places my path will cross and what will be made from them.