I had another art-visit last week, yeah! Miranda Vane, who heard about me and my work from Julia Vogl, came to informally interview me for rookiecreative.
So lovely to talk about my work with another artist, and how much I’ve missed it. How good to show physical work, not just pix (the folds of LR’s girl’s skirt spring away from the wall like bouncy curls on a child’s head, which doesn’t quite come over on the photo). How good to share ideas, processes, inspirations. Although I ended up lying on the floor I enjoyed every minute of it. Such gifts of enquiry, curiosity, enthusiasm. Sensations were scrutinised, artists who might interest me mentioned, a book too (W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz, which I’ve ordered and can’t wait to get into). It’s the kind of easy-going but committed communication I remember from art-college and imagine taking place wherever artists share studio-spaces. And of course I’ve explored Miranda’s work too, in fact I keep going back to look at my favourite diminutive little piece of two nails forming a tender relationship…
Maybe I should strive to have more art-visits. Two people have expressed an interest: Kate Murdoch and Rosalind Davis. Ha! And thinking about it now, I’d love to see them come with a small piece of work, a sketch, an idea.
Some nights ago when I couldn’t sleep I longed to creep into the garden and howl at the full moon, but my limbs were heavy with fatigue and the bed warm and while I lay immobile my foundlings woke up and made a din in my head: make us, make us, make us… Time to go back to them. It’s too easy to fall from one idea to the next when my brain revels rollicks ruminates rouses and reveals new directions.
Miranda asked me how I arrive at my shapes and I showed her a few of my tiny sketches, no bigger than the print of my index-finger, through which I let forms subtly mutate until I find something that interests me. Then I start crocheting and just before I get to a more complicated shape, a special curve, say, I cut out a template from any old paper I’ve got lying around and measure my stitches against it. It doesn’t always work though: I may have an outline in mind, but that doesn’t mean I stick with it and unraveling and trying again until it feels right is part of the process. That’s exactly when new ideas jostle for space…
Will let you know when Miranda’s post is up.
