Old Years Night

It's olde years night already, and in between preparing a buffet and moving furniture for a dance floor for a party/gathering I've decided to throw, I've been contemplating the old year and where I want to go and what I want to do for the year coming. It is time for resolutions and the like, in the past I have never bothered with such things but this year, I'm prepared to come over all life coachy for the first time ever. I've rediscovered how useful lists are and the importance of ticking things off. Bulletpoints are introduced, giving me some therapeutic satisfaction of hitting the bullet icon in Word.

This year I've written many things, not poems but accounts of goals and things I've done. I've spent the whole year cursing myself for not sitting down and writing 'that novel' or finishing those poems or reading that book, but in fact I have been writing lots of things about studying and well being and art auctions, I've subscribed to design and art journals, read other peoples goals on life and Plato, listened to obscure folk music, read poems as a treegirl, eaten foreign food, learnt Pilates and how to blog, how to make books, how to fold paper, how to be a better listener. But what I have been pondering most in a year where I have been more settled than ever, is what to do next, after university. How silly I thought that being a perpetual student was my goal. I have learnt how to be a teacher, a curator, an arts administrator, but I want one thing above all those things, and that is to make, and that is the sole purpose of this blog I suppose, to make and do, not to just talk about it, but to actually do it. I have learnt fascinating skills, taken on too much, taken on everything in a bid to learn more, and for the first time two weeks ago I sat back and decided to stop and look what I can do, and see how I can use that to make and do.

I am however, in my final year of university, the one that counts. But to put the making off until after I have finished seems to me to be another excuse not to do something now. There is nothing to stop me starting something now, even a list with bulletpoints, finding something like sourcing fabrics, looking in trend magazines, relearning how to hem, it doesn't take much. I realise my degree must come first, I think the first thing would be to prioritise my work and life, so that I can keep on top of things.

So I have started a very tiny collective. It's called Arts and Crafts Friday, that no matter what I do I must do at least one creative thing on that day. Friday is a good day, because I'm not at work and the studio is very quiet. John Holler founded the club with me and now he's doing bigger and better things. This is my goal.

Greetings Cards 2006

Here are this years christmas cards. I think I've remembered everyone, well let's hope so. Happy Yule everybody.

Handmade Books

These Folding books were made following a book art course I went on in Hexham. Inside, printed with fragments of poetry.

These two books were auctioned off recently at an event ran by students in my year at University. They sold for £30 for the pair.

Leaving New York

Drawing Vegetables

Wall Poetry

These are some things I like.

subtlety
the idea of something
unfinished books
fonts
mystery
the notion of never knowing the end of something
things that are unexpected
discovery
the art of describing

We all live in a world where it is increasingly harder to suprise. Everything has been done, and if it hasn't then it will be soon. The Wall Poetry series, looks at these issues of impatience, expecting something, the illusions of pattern, distinction and subtlety.

The poem used here is about trees... well one tree in particular, it lives in Yorkshire and it looks rather scary.

Napkin Poem

Jar Poem

The Poem Walking was hand screenprinted onto handmade paper, cut up and bound with red ribbon and given away to people who attended The Butterfly Cabinet where Treegirl performed the poem in 2006.

Walking has taken many forms ever since it was written. It is a poem that has been perfomed nationwide, taken the form of a dance track and has been featured in a variety of textile forms including the Urban Life paper bag series. This performance was a way of moving away from one phase of artistic development and onto another. Currently this image is being used for the flyer for the memory project, another one of my hairbrained schemes.

Tradition with a Twist 2003

Some designs for One-off Neckpieces, combining traditional lacemaking and weaving techniques with the use of unconventional materials including paper, string, bandages and wire mesh. Researching into Elizabethan fashion some of the finished pieces had sonnets printed onto handmade paper and hidden inside the neckpieces and ties.

Inspiration was also taken from Japanese textiles and particularly the Through the Surface and Textural Space exhibitions.

Pleating, papermaking, knitting.










Wire on wire

Eternal Winter

Embroidered pictures inspired by winter fairytales The Snow Queen and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. These pictures were sold in a textiles exhibition at the Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead as part of the Christmas Present Exhibition 2002.

This was when I began using poetry and words alongside the textiles, short captions and phrases were used as a way to evoke a moment in time. The words give the pieces direction, without revealing too much.

Assorted thread, fabric, screenprinted and embroidered. Words typed onto tracing paper using a manual typewriter.

Sample designs for embroidered pictures

Some designs for large wallhanging

Cosmetic Bag Print designs

Some designs for cosmetic bags inspired by Retro Flowers.
Handpainted, collage relief. 2003

Paper Bag

The paper bag was freehand machine embroidered from studies of drawings made in train stations, street cafes and windows of buildings of Newcastle Upon Tyne in a bitter winter until my hands went numb.

Pages from Sketchbook 2002

Urban Life

Graingermarket study

Kitchen Suicide 2003 Images

Kitchen Suicide 2003

My obsession with Sylvia Plath reached it's height during this work. Kitchen Suicide 2003. A series of kitchen textiles inspired by Plaths baking, when she was supposed to be working on her first collection. She probably spent more time cooking than writing. Quite ironic really that she felt she was living in the shadow of a well established male poet, yet she still embraced her role as housewife, poet and mother, even if it did eventually kill her. This was my final project on my HND Textiles course studied at Newcastle College. The work featured in an exhibition in Poole, Dorset called The Word Art, an exhibition of artworks inspired by literature. The installation was designed like a kitchen in minature form to give the feeling of isolation and lonliness. A sound piece was added to the exhibtion which consisted of a series of poems called the kitchen suicide poems written in response to Plaths work.

Here is an extract from one of the poems from the installation

Serendipity Sweethearts

I said we were supposed to meet that day
not like the fete at the fair
but the other kind

Serendipity sweethearts
but I was still high from
camping in a field for a week

living off other peoples matresses
and emergency underwear

You were high too
nearly 6ft I'd say
me being only 5'3 and a quarter
it made all the difference

You had your ryvita with brie
and I'd bought my sandwich from Boots
and you'd make dresses from old curtains
and I'd knit wire for a purse

and then I'd curse when the sharp edge scraped my skin
and you said
cotton was practical.