Somehow this new year feels far more like part of a continuum rather than a fresh start, or even a reboot.  I am still more positive than negative; but I must admit to some evening out.  This extra blog was started in a fit of enthusiasm and optimism, and often I have thought of shutting it down – goodness, one blog should be enough, surely!  But, not exactly inertia, but something close to it perhaps, keeps me hanging on, – hoping….

The final couple of months of last year found me oppressed and depressed because of personal circumstances as well as the political ones here in the UK.  In order to distract myself with work rather than simply sinking into detective novels (although I did that too) I used a book-making offer from Photobox to spur myself into putting something together from my mass of sea and shore-related image files.  And just in case anyone is interested, I am outlining my progress below.

I wanted to see what a Lay Flat book would be like at displaying a full double page spread – to show one continuous horizontal image, with no hiccup in the middle, and no surrounding border.  The sizes on offer were not really what I would have chosen, in that the A template is not a very dynamic one – but given I did not want a huge book, I went for the A4 horizontal.  At least the open double page spread would provide a more interesting format.

Depression can seep negative thoughts into planning, and so I did not want to spent too much time thinking about the process.  It would be too easy simply to give up – and indeed that is why I had pre-bought the book production: I had to design the book within a set time, or lose the money.  I wanted the design to suggest itself to me, and instinct to take over.  There was to be no pressure other than time, and that was not too onerous in that I had a month from the company, and also I knew that my husband would be away for five days within that month.   This was an opportunity for serious play.

My idea was to make composite images, digital collages to incorporate every piece of work inspired by sea or strand.  The work would comprise not only finished stitched pieces, but also digital sketches and designs.  The size of each piece of work would vary according to how I wanted to incorporate it in the collage, and thus large quilts would not necessarily be large on the page, etc.  So, I reckoned that I needed:

• a selection of sea backgrounds
• a selection of strand backgrounds
• my digital images
• a range of abstract elements
• words

Of those ingredients the digital images and the sea backgrounds were the easiest to provide.  For the latter I cropped horizontal elements from scanned prints of an etching I’d made years ago inspired by elements of plankton.

That was fine as far the sea background was concerned, but I did not already have a similar source for the strand backgrounds, so I decided to make those using soft pastels.  Taking pebbles which I’d picked up at Hunstanton as my starting point, I made several horizontal strips which I then scanned and cropped to the same size as the sea backgrounds.

These two were not sufficient.  The images of my work were from necessity in rectangles, so I needed random shapes to provide dynamic in the compositions.  My obsession with the sea provided a solution.

From time to time I worry that my not having a sketchbook is detrimental to my progress, and I will make a huge effort.  A friend had given me a concertina sketchbook, and I’d filled it with collage and scribbles inspired by the sea.  This was just what I needed, so I scanned it.   Fortunately I had also added words to my concertina collage, so that provided the final ingredient.

The rest was fairly straightforward – hard work in some senses, because the scanned concertina collage as you can see above was full of unruly elements – folds, shadows, bulges, etc. because of the nature of the sketchbook – but the digital collaging process is a fundamental tool for me.  It was particularly satisfying to be able to use images which had not progressed beyond digital design, or even doodle.  The latter (such as the one below), even though in only preliminary stages of design, and perhaps will never progress further, could be used within a larger collage.

On the whole I was pleased with the experiment – you can see more double page spreads on my Threading thoughts blog – but I’m kicking myself for making the text too big.  The lay flat format works – except if like me you add double page spreads so that the book is too wide for its spine!  My determination to include all my sea work made 17 double page spreads in the end, and I guess that about nine to eleven spreads would have been ideal for this process – I had to add extra pages to the ones offered.  Nonetheless, I am so glad that I did it – and the whole process achieved its purpose on so many levels.

This was supposedly the year of the big think about where, why, what, etc.  Well, it’s almost next year and it feels as if I’m not really that much further forward.  Just as when I clear out a cupboard or a room, there seems to be an upheaval and more chaos before order is imposed, I seem to be in that chaos stage – but with no inkling of the order to be imposed.

Perhaps I will be able to sort it out in the new year.  It’s lucky – I suppose – that I still generate ideas for stitching, so meantime I shall carry on carrying on.

This is the year of the big think for me.  I’m using my completion of  three score years and ten to start seriously putting my house in order – both literally and metaphorically.  I have accumulated so much possibly useful but probably never used stuff that it has begun to oppress me, and it is an ongoing liberation to find useful outlets for its disposal.

In order to make decisions about what should go of course, I have to decide what must stay.  And for that I have to think about what I want to make and do.  I rather fell into quilt making through serendipitous encounters, not through conscious purpose.  I enjoyed the making of the work, and have been successful when I’ve applied to enter prestigious quilt exhibitions.  Of late, however, I feel out of step with current trends – and as it is the subject matter of the work which drives me I have not applied to compete any more.

I have been fortunate this year in having been asked to judge the SAQA Europe and Middle East Wide Horizons VI exhibition, and as such will have a piece in that show.  Also I was delighted to be asked to contribute three quilts to the upcoming exhibition at Wisconsin Museum of Quilt and Fiber Art: Fiber Arts in the Digital Age.  But although I do and doubtless will continue to use the quilt form, I do not feel or think myself to be a quilt artist.

At the end of Spring I finished my most recent quilt form piece: Soliloquy (seen below).  This piece grew out of thinking about old age – not necessarily my own, but maybe also.  There has been so much on the news these days about how little adequate care there is in the community for older people, how they are neglected, how lonely they can be etc.  The ideas for Soliloquy developed around the commonly held to be traits of the older person: fading into the background so that they are almost part of the wallpaper, repetition, going on about their youth, talking when no-one is listening – or when no-one is there, ….  I wanted to portray these elements, but with a strong, humorous character who emerged from the background trying to engulf her, despite being fixed in her armchair – and with the repetition being a dynamic pattern rather than a monotonous drone.

I have satisfied myself with the result.  And this work has reinforced for me the direction I want to take.  I want to be driven by the work which speaks insistently to be made – the work must make its own direction.  I do not want to be guided by technique to follow subjects.  This decision was finally clarifying after I attended the excellent workshop on 3D fibre work taught by Debbie Lyddon early this year.  (As I described in Threading thoughts.)  I very much enjoyed the experience, and perhaps one day I shall be impelled to make a work which needs to use a technique covered then.  But I do not want to try to fit a subject to the technique.

Of course there are core techniques which I use, and will continue to use.  Digital collage from ingredients including photography, drawing, and printmaking, and other scans.  Digital printing onto cloth – because cloth is the basis of the things I make.  And of course stitching – the vital meditative ingredient.  Although I took up fabric as my medium because it fitted practically with my life – an activity with which I could be absent and present at the same time; it was also even then a perfect fit for how I wanted to express myself.

So I am getting rid of all the stuff which I have just accumulated over the years through temptation to acquire, or accepting gifts of what might possibly be useful one day, or just somehow arrived I can’t remember how.   The local hospice charity shop’s craft corner has suddenly burgeoned into a craft department as my cupboards empty!

One big stumbling block I found in my journey to this point was my anxiety about not having gone to art college – about not being able adequately to judge my work, and thus not knowing where I/it might fit.  I realise now that this does not matter, and that realisation has been reinforced in my recent reading of a book about postwar London artists: Modernists and Mavericks by Martin Gayford.  In it I encountered the perfect quote from Howard Hodgkin:

‘What is important,…is that what I feel, think and see turns into something.  I mean, ideally, it starts off in my head, and ends up a thing.’