In the Company of Women.
Three posts ago, in Comfort Marks I mentioned being invited to a workshop by Clare Smith and Rosie James however, unable to attend, held my own solo workshop. Well happily Clare and Rosie invited me to the next one, the Paper part of Thread, Cloth, Paper. I looked forward to this immensely and then on the day felt rather nervous, assailed by ridiculous doubts of the socially inadequate variety. It is so easy not to do things like this. Once there though, all negative thoughts cleared off, when I was warmly welcomed in.
First there was a talk about paper from a man called Ron, who had worked in the industry and retains passionate enthusiasm for his subject. Listening to him and letting his esoteric paper-language sift through my thoughts, began a softening-up process, a narrowing of focus and shedding of the outside world. Looking around at my peers I recognised in their unfamiliar faces, the familiar traits of a tribe or clan where I fit. I found myself breathing out.
Finding out that paper was once made from rags, not trees, illuminated the relationships between Thread, Paper, Cloth and the idea of intimate textiles being transformed into text was inspiring in itself.
After the talk, people began to organise themselves, some worked on the floor some on tables, some, set to, with a sense of purpose. I felt restless, on the edge of something, so drifted around until I got talking to Nicholette Goff, who like me had come with a private stash of paper, of intimate and treasured leftovers, experiments, cut offs and impossible to discard stuff. We talked easily, like new school friends and agreed to collaborate by swapping two pieces each and letting those be the starting point for new work.
I chose two scraps of watercolour paper, one mulberry coloured the other a sandy yellow, not paint but organic material connected to Nicholette’s practice. Swapping the scraps released a flood of ideas and I began to invent some rules to work with. Seeing Nicholette’s similar collecting behaviour helped me understand and frame my own. I am an obsessive collector of any surface material that connects me emotionally to the world. From ancient scraps of Formica to the cover of Iris Murdoch’s book The Sea, The Sea. to a particular paper towel and even my dead-dog’s fur kept in a matchbox.
I decided to make a mosaic out of the stuff of my life. I gave myself some rules; each square would be hand-cut, with only two (precious) squares of related material allowed and I also chose to work on grided paper as a structure. Selection of colour and tone was where I let go and just enjoyed aesthetic play.
While working, small conversations spontaneously erupted between participants, ideas were expounded upon, added to and exchanged. There was such a good, conducive-to-work atmosphere, a kind of relaxed concentration. One participant, Gwen Hedley was working with oiled paper stitching and layering and she told me about a Boro Exhibition on at Somerset House in London, I could see she had been inspired by what she saw there and as she talked I felt a shiver of recognition which made me determined to see it. And so mind-blowing was it, I have given it its own post. (To follow)
During another conversation floating around me about the nature of collecting/hoarding I heard Clare say “I just wait for the materials to speak to me.” This seemed exactly right and explains that gut-felt resistance if I try to throw any of my collected materials away…their time will come.
By the end of the day I had completed only a small section of “mosaic” but my brain was charging ahead with infinite possibilities. Clare and Rosie led a gentle round-up in the spacious sun-filed room and it was clear that people had naturally found innovative, witty, lateral-thinking-type ways of working outside the box as well as forging new, and strengthening existing, relationships with their peers. Brilliant day-it ought to be on prescription.
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