I have had a wonderful, non-monarch-related afternoon in the studio with my friend and fellow artist Helen Garbett, otherwise known on Instagram as @LimpetWoman. We sat alongside each other, each doing our own thing, mindlessly, while we talked. It was lovely, heartwarming, relaxing and fun. And I got quite a few twigs wrapped.
In some ways, this part of the cycle of work is my favourite. Because I have made certain decisions and made some experiments, I have the materials in front of me to just get on with it. I have plenty of twigs to wrap, I know how to do do it and can just get on, either listening to the radio, to music, or chatting.
I think I enjoyed this afternoon because although I’m not doing the same sort of work as Helen, there is a camaraderie between two women working together as there might have been if we were sat around the same quilt, stitching. I feel a history of generations of women before us, just getting on with stuff.
The twigs have become part of a larger more wide-ranging project, (more of which later when it’s sorted out) and in order for it to work how I want it to, I need hundreds of them, possibly thousands? But for now and the foreseeable future, I will be found either picking up sticks, or laying them straight. And wrapping them. Then playing with them, and with a variety of boxes, or hanging methods. Each iteration holds them in a different light… at some point I will need to make more decisions.
But not yet.
