So why haven’t I blogged recently? I’ve been too busy swamped in the making and the doing that always becomes so intensive at this time of year. Testing my (and my boyfriend’s) limits, I’ve been splattering myself in paint, inhaling fumes and brass dust. I’ve also been scraping my hands raw on linen to stretch and pad embroideries on disks that now have no frames, spending too much on materials, ruining my jeans and scaring myself senseless with all that’s still left to do.
At least I am half (well, quarter-way through) my eleventh embroidery, with self-made floppy business cards because I was too principled to spend £30 on a printing ‘deal’ that was initially advertised as £2.99 (they add on the pounds in the details, the details!). The Structure as I call it, is now white with wood primer, awaiting a good sanding and fresh top few coats over Friday and this weekend. My sketchbook is grinding to a halt (my diary is my new best friend) and at some point I’ll have to self-evaluate prematurely before the real interesting stuff begins: the setting up of the degree show.
And oh my stars! There is so much that could go wrong. It all rides in the lighting, the display, the work – all of which I have yet to figure out and discover thanks to the sheer scale of the task. What if it’s dark by seven-thirty? What if it’s (and let’s face it, it probably will be) overcast and chucking it down? What then, when the skylight I am so reliant on is blanketed in dusk, or snow?
Spotlights, is probably the answer, but I don’t know how to work those. Or where to put them, or how much it will destroy the atmosphere when switched on. Not to mention that The Structure is already an oven-like experience, though perhaps that is just due to the exercise I’m getting whenever I lunge – up and down, side to side – to push enough paint into the super-absorbent flexi-ply. There are so many problems to which I keep coming up with wild solutions – yes, extra lighting might not seem so extreme, but the guts of a fridge-freezer system around the bottom of the wall to keep things cool? Please.
The ceiling is going to be made on Monday, which is when the ‘natural spotlights’ will be cut, which is when it could all go horribly wrong. But who knows? Maybe the embroideries will look fascinating in dim, half-light. I’ll have to camp out in my small oven-structure with a sleeping bag and sandwich to see how long it takes to get too dark to see anything at all.
