Needlework and the Universe

Success! My scale-model of the work is no longer an endeavour: it is a reality. Albeit a kind of half-baked reality, but for someone who doesn’t like to make copies of the work unless it is, actually, part of the work, this feat is rather impressive. I failed in the antechamber department thanks to the fact a) it is already made in wood and b) I ran out of card, but making the cylinder itself enabled me to estimate how the antechamber might look upon it, and also meant I could puncture some holes in the cardboard ceiling for a lighting test, so it served its purpose.

I probably should have gone for black card instead of white card, as whenever I did try to do a lighting test the white card was not adequate enough to show me the full scale of the effect. It was all bright. Still, with a jumper and some cut-offs I managed to work against this problem, and feel relatively confident that it may all go according to plan.

But who knew that curtains were so expensive? Blackout curtains of course: thick, heavy, velvety curtains that are close to fifty pounds. I am feeling my pockets shrivel up like dried prunes, but am determined to see this piece through as I pictured it – if only because I know that nothing ever ends up how it was imagined. Therefore I need to condition the work as much as possible into functioning vaguely like the ‘imagined’ piece in my head.

I want to buy a solid curtain rail too, once I get paid, and perhaps – if I’m feeling really reckless – some thick, velvety fabric to prevent the floor from reflecting light too much and to muffle sound. Tomorrow I begin the task of jig-sawing out the two whopping great circles we drew out in pencil last week – I’m feeling giddy and nervous about that one – I can’t wait to start the actual cylinder structure, but if I cut one wrong line it’ll be an extra sheet of MDF.

With that and work tomorrow, and with writing a cheque for the dearer-than gold flexi-ply, this week looks to be expensive, but productive. I have also a vague idea of where my space will be for the final degree show. I’m hoping I can clear it out once my structure is ready to be erected – it’ll need a lot of work once it’s in the space, and I’ll need it put together to figure out the best way of manipulating light.

Currently however I am rather slowly working on my theory module – attempting to write an MA proposal and polish off the bibliography for my creative text. I feel it is lacking in poets and all my favoured poetry books are sitting at home. Pawing through all of them and typing out book titles will therefore be another job for the weekend.

This weekend I managed to finish the latest embroidery in my – now – series of eight. Of course this is still not enough for me to stop. I feel I should have at least ten to work with by the time the degree show comes around, and today I found myself subconsciously bumping that number up to an ambitious twelve in a quick conversation about my work to my boyfriend.

I should mention here the average time it takes to create one of these small, 9cm by 9cm pieces of work, if only to highlight how unlikely my proposed mental targets are. Two weeks is the general completion-time, and that’s with several five-hour sessions each day. My eyes are going to be ruined. The long hours required to do the making does not seem too problematic to me, as they shoot by. My progress, however, fools me quite often into thinking I have achieved a lot in half an hour, until I check the time and discover that the small 3cm section I have so swiftly sewn actually took several hours.

It is, however, very exciting to untwist the screw in the embroidery hoop when that last stich is laid, to pop out the inner-hoop from the outer support to be left with a fine, flat disk of sublime texture. The colours also excite me deeply. I have just set up my next aim, the bloodied crevasses of Europa, and laid the first tentative stitches that always so neat. It is already too late in the day to do much else tonight thanks to an unwelcome cold, but with just one tutorial tomorrow to discuss my progress with my creative writing task, I am looking forward to several hours of embroidery-related labour on Monday.

This week I will also be sawing out the circular base and roof of my final piece. A prospect I am slightly nervous about as it requires a steady hand, (one thing I do not possess, apart from when it comes to drawing, sewing and painting [but of nothing else, especially not the painting of nails]), and lots of heavy lifting. My rough estimate to get the whole thing made in three weeks however seems to be about right, and I am currently waiting with baited breath to see if my course leader will let me move my final piece into my given gallery space a few weeks early so that I can ‘decorate’ it and work into it with research. I have curtains to make and paint to buy, as well as brass to engrave and vinyl to use. Art, I think, is the most expensive subject to undertake at university.

With this post I have decided not to show my latest work, but rather one of my earlier ones as Enceladus is currently being cleaned. The piece is Volcano on Venus, and is one of my favourites, if only for the Mayan-like design and the bold, boiling colours. All of the images I have been working with are either from Hubble or Cassini, so I am aware that they may not be completely true to their natural colours. But after my investigations into ‘scopic regimes’ I quite like that fact, that the disintegration of the raw image information is to be reconstructed by an isolated view, my view. Much of our interaction with the cosmos is broken down and reconstructed in similar circumstances. Through examining space through optics, the image of what we see can perhaps never be a completely true representation, or be entirely universal among us. This ‘loss’ of information in order to record and digest our interactions is visible through all of art’s attempts to engage with celestial bodies throughout history.

I am aiming to stock up on card tomorrow for my scale-model of the work. I hope it will highlight any issues before I make any mistakes in wood format, so watch this space. I am sure you will know if it has all gone horribly wrong: for there will be a silence on here for quite some time.

After an intense day at work I have attempted to unwind by drawing intense lines. This is for a series of ‘maps’ I have been creating from the deep field photograph of the Hubble Telescope, intended to somehow be a significant piece of my final work. I am not sure how this interplay will function, as I will be working with a whopping great piece that will probably look out of place wherever it goes. But then again that’s what I like about it: the sheer weirdness of the shape of the imagined final piece that I have in my head.

I do of course keep reminding myself of the links and bridges that have formed out of my research. The most prominent concept (apart from the feminine/masculine interplay between science and stitch) is currently the notion of the ‘sublime’. For those who don’t know, in aesthetics the ‘sublime’ (sublimis) is the quality of greatness, whether physical, moral, intellectual, metaphorical, metaphysical, aesthetic, spiritual or artistic. This term especially applies to greatness beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement or imitation, for example, the greatness of space.

Part of my project is attempting to digest the indigestible into a readable, familiar, yet captivating format (in this case, small-scale and gem-like embroideries). I have also discovered the undersides of the embroideries to be particularly captivating. The messy, random, connecting of thread in lines seemed to relate to the jagged, random map I had drawn of the universe, and also echoed my work in my first year, an installation entitled Wire in Woods (2010) where I wound washing wire (and other string-based materials) into my varying environments.

This correlation of obsessive methods is in no way conscious. It seems to be ingrained into my psyche and keeps creeping up. For some reason I do find it to be a particularly fruitful way to work: to sew, to animate by hand, or to obsessively wrap things. The practicalities of embroidering quickly got me thinking about ideas of ordered chaos, the theory that one may create order by introducing disorder.

Another main engagement with this project has been the irony in the futile method of working: the almost ‘ineffective’ attempt to capture the ‘sublime’ in the domestic stitch. I am not quite sure yet how my pieces will resolve themselves in the space I will create, but am very eager to find out. It may be that it’s perfect, or that nothing works at all. I’m booked into the workshop again tomorrow. I’m hoping to get some walls built and a ceiling made.

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.