I have been thinking about the work I do, whether that is textiles, drawing, songwriting… and trying to pin down a little tighter the themes that drive me to make. Relationships, reactions, cause and effect, influence, family, similarity and difference… the space between people and the lines that connect them. The presence and the absence and the effects of that… it’s all a bit swimmy and I could really do with having a sentence or two that really expresses it clearly, to myself, and to others.
After making and showing Five, Six, Pick up Sticks, my thoughts are with the family group and that intimacy and closeness. I have started binding the individual twigs into family groups.
Coincidentally, or possibly not at all coincidentally (can’t find the right word for that) I have just become a grandmother for the first time. My connection to this small baby is unbelievably strong. There’s a whole new level of love that I never knew existed. People tell you that grandchildren are special, but no one has really expressed this to me in a manner that tallies with what I am feeling.
So having spent a week with the little one and his parents, I’m now back home, thinking about him. I am now very keen to get back to my large drawings, and to my twigs. I want to revisit those individual metaphorical children and bind them into family groups. I want to explore the closeness and the connections and lines.
I also feel an urge to revisit the lullaby I wrote during lockdown, with a view to rewriting the lyrics so they fit him.
