Needlework and the Universe

Today was surprisingly productive. Not only did I manage to get through a substantial amount of construction work (with help and without injury, avoiding circular-shaped saws), but I also chopped my brass to size (it no longer warbles) and ‘self published’ a creative text for my theory module. I will of course have to wait a few weeks before I see the result of my attempt at book-production, but am hoping all words will be spelt correctly, with no errors, and that it will all look professional and as if it were made by a proper publisher. I’ll wait with recommending the website I used until I see the outcome.

With plans to continue building my antechamber on Friday, and to engrave my brass on Monday, everything seems as if it is going full steam ahead. However, it also appears to not be going fast enough. I still have embroideries to sew, I still have a bibliography to tweak, and I still have a proposal to write (and another one, but I have no idea what’s going on about that). And let’s not forget the complicated issue of attaching brass and embroideries to flexi-ply. I still haven’t had a moment to buy card to make a model, and I’m building already!

Apart from all this, and a long day of work tomorrow, there are still other projects I have nagging at the back of my mind. My online bracelet shop is grinding to a halt purely due to the fact I have no time at the moment, and my other book is still rather eagerly waiting to be published (any literary agents out there?) and has been now for what feels like several months.

I was correct about building, however, I do feel accomplished. And so does my boyfriend who very kindly helped me out on the construction line. The photography for the Brookes catalogue all happened today too: very exciting. I think we’re all holding our breath at the moment, desperate to see what the finished product will look like. Fantastic, I’m sure.

Most of tonight has been eaten up by a book-building tool that made my computer revolt, so I’m going to cut this entry short. My next move however? Trying to build a maquette, dusting off Enceladus and then stitching Europa. In this case, the sky has no limit.

And now it is time for my second blogging attempt. I shall start with where I am at the moment. It just so happens that I am about to commence construction for my final piece, the great plan that will eventually amount to: the work.

Firstly, I have never built anything larger or more complicated than a 1.5 x 1.5 meter canvas; and secondly, I am particularly terrified of anything that looks like it could potentially maim, kill, or rob someone of a limb (for this I have Walk the Line to thank, with the exceptionally gruesome scene at the start of the film that involves a circular saw). So far I have managed to avoid using the circular saw at Brookes, thanks to a smaller and friendlier-looking machine, but I highly doubt I will be able to avoid it once putting together a whopping great cylinder structure that will be (just) over two meters in diameter. Watch this space.

It is, however, very exciting to be attempting such a mammoth task, and I am sure that after several crucial moments and drill-related mistakes, I will probably feel very accomplished. There is a small thought nagging at me, trying to tell me that the building will be the easy part. It is the lighting that poses the biggest problem, as I am using natural light, therefore linking the ‘sublime’ of the embroideries to sunlight, and ultimately space and the cosmos. Having explored every possibility, as well as very expensive sun-tubes, I decided on natural spotlights, for which I have yet to make a model to see if my theory of how the light will behave is correct.

The rest of this week has also been rather exciting. I have, today, been wasting a lot of time playing with a small sheet of brass that makes a delightful warbling noise whenever I wobble it. Not just any brass, but the brass that I will be chopping up and engraving to accompany my several embroideries. I have also gathered a meter roll of black, matt vinyl (for which I have great plans), have started to create a ‘creative text’ and am hoping to make a book involving images of my work thus far. All of these goodies are going to be developed over the next few weeks as I continue to strive for the final piece.

So how is it progressing? Well, I am very enthusiastic about the embroidery that I am sewing at the moment, though that probably has something to do with the thread being blue (it’s a nice break from orange and brown for the two embroideries of volcanoes on Venus). There is thread everywhere. This is quite an issue as it likes taking the clumped up form of a knot of smaller strings, which from a distance always makes it look like a spider, especially if it is one of the darker colours. They always stick to the bed.

I plan to investigate Europa next as I’ve developed a particular interest in the surfaces of moons, as they are visually (and chemically) much more interesting to me than any of the main planets, apart from Jupiter.

Right this moment, however, amongst phone calls left right and centre dealing with a rather problematic letting agency I have the misfortune of renting under, I am drawing maps again of deep space and plotting out routes between the stars. I will post one of these crude blueprints up, as long as you remember it’s the design for something grander. I’m thinking vinyl.

My starting point for last semester was somewhat confused. Firstly, I wasn’t sure what I was doing after the long summer break, and secondly, I found myself caught up in the symbolism of birds, a concept I struggled with in a determined fashion to translate it into painting. Not just any painting, however, but the type of painting that was predominant in the Renaissance – oh yes – I was going to explore the techniques and skills displayed by the masters through the imagery of: magpies.

I soon however hit a wall and decided this was not the way to proceed, mostly due to the rather pathetic-looking half-baked magpie-painting that sat in a solitary fashion on my studio wall.

There was another logical option of course, embroidery. I had, over the summer and in my boredom, attempted to stitch an image into a thin fabric that vaguely looked like the linen from the Bayeux Tapestry, and thus came back to university with a very confused rendition of a – you guessed it – magpie in knots and wobbly lines that resembled a jay more than anything else. Suffice to say my tutor and I soon decided that this, whatever ‘this’ was, wasn’t working, and that wouldn’t it be a splendid idea to try working with needlework and the universe.

As out of the blue as this sounds, it was not a spur of the moment thing. In fact I had over the summer been reading up on theories of our cosmos in Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow’s The Grand Design. It was my own words that led me to stitching ideas of the universe, the words that I started with in my first tutorial, the words ‘I’ve been looking at needlework and the universe’.

And magpies, of course, but for the sake of narrative we shall omit that fact. That weekend I then found myself – during a lovely visit to my aunt’s house – frantically being antisocial in my attempt to create some sort of rendition of the Jupiter’s Great Red spot in stitch. I suppose now is when I say: I haven’t looked back since.

Well, I haven’t. Sixty-three needle injuries and eight embroideries later, I’m still steaming ahead (as fast as one can steam ahead with such a medium) with embroidering more. I have of course found that my crude-knot-type attempts on flimsy fabric have improved: I am now working with linen and the stitches and number of colours present in the Bayeux Tapestry. Why? Because it is an early example of an interaction with a celestial being in ‘pre-telescopic’ art.

Though I am not very good at keeping blogs and, well, anything for that matter, I am going to attempt to use this space as an area to think, develop, and problem-solve. Who knows? The posts may end here, this may be as far as I get. But I thought it a good starting point to set off with the words that I set off with in my blank sketchbook at the start of last semester. It’s rather ominous, so bear with me. But it is the point from which my work this term has evolved.

I. Our Location in Space Time

II. The Universe

III. The Multiverse

IV. The Metaverse

V. The Xenoverse

VI. The Hyperverse

VII. The Omniverse

Everything that is ordered must come to disorder.

Well, there we have it, my starting point to my final year at university. The aim of this project is now clear to me: to explore the universe through needlework. The challenge now is to see how it develops.