Threads

I’m playing a waiting game.

I have things to do and make, and have written a list, but other things have to happen before I can get at them.

I am up to my ears in organising school arts week. I found myself writing an email containing a list of all the things I do to make this event happen. And I decided I was too cheap, or doing too much myself and not delegating.

The trouble with delegating is, you have to not mind how someone else does the job you’ve given them. I think I am a control freak.

However, when it is all done and the week arrives, I love it. The timetable suspended, the school filled with creativity of all kinds. I have the biggest smile on my face, just from beholding the joy of children playing and making and thinking and getting messy.

I am also organising (but not on my own) LOAF13, my baby arts festival that has grown from small seeds of a life drawing show a few years ago, to a small but diverse collection of arts: life drawing, painting, textiles, ceramics, and a bit of this and that, plus the year’s output from the Rebellious Quilters, plus a few crafty stalls, and my shed installation which houses and comforts a selection of poets and musicians, singer songwriters from all over the place.

There’s more information on my website if you are in the midlands on 6th/7th July and find yourself in need of cake and live music… (if you do, please seek me out and say hello!)

www.elenathomas.co.uk/events

The shed itself is in need of a refurb, which I spoke about in a previous post, but due to my injury, still hasn’t been done, and the weekends are getting eaten up. I can see myself getting up at 5am for a few days just to get the bloody thing done!

However, when this too is all done, and the weekend arrives, I play host to all these gloriously talented musicians and songwriters and poets, and sit and watch them, as if they’d only come to play for me. Another big smile!

So the waiting is going on in the back of my head… I have stuff to make and stuff to work out. Looks like it will be a summer holiday job now.

SIX WEEKS… (but 5 weeks to wait) at this point in the term it becomes a beacon of hope, a holy grail, the light at the end of the tunnel of report writing and box ticking. To be able to start something and work on it solidly, uninterrupted for days. Chewing at it, unravelling the knots of problems, just nibbling and gnawing away at it until it makes sense…. Or you robble it up in a ball and throw it into the corner of the room with bad words. Either way, bliss.

Can’t wait!

I don’t know if it is my crafty roots poking through, but I’ve always had a bit of a thing about art that is only about art. I much prefer to experience and make things that relate to life. I believe it to be stronger, more accessible to the viewer, longer lived.

The things I don’t like about art are the poncy, cliquey, “I am cleverer than thou”. So all the time I am talking about the concepts of touch and not-touch, and the significance of stitch(es) I am conscious of this. I realise that the ponciness is a sliding scale, and that the previous experience of the viewer will have an influence on where they are on this sliding scale. But I like to think that because of the craft, the relationship to the human condition and so on, a viewer with little experience can relate to what I make.

This is why I have struggled making digital images. There’s nothing to grab hold of, and it feels self-indulgent. Far too personal. Too internal. I would use a ruder word if I dared, If I was sure of my audience.

The trick is, to make the work meaningful for me, to have a depth and longevity, it needs to be more than a nicely stitched bit of stuff. So this is where the angst lies, and the little bit of reading or research I do helps me think more deeply. But I’m determined that is only for my own satisfaction. I read an article once about another textile artist, who shall remain nameless (because I have forgotten) who said that her work was intended to educate the poor thick people up North, who didn’t know as much about art as she did. Patronising cow! I wasn’t impressed. Although I was impressed by the vast sum she had wangled out of the Arts Council to do so.

If I make stuff that has a high aesthetic standard, and skill that shows, and that it looks like I’ve thought about it and spent time on it, that’s enough (back to Time+Effort=Worth). I’ll talk to anyone about it, however much “Art Experience” they have or don’t have. I can even do the ponce, if anyone is interested. But for the most part they are not. And neither am I. It doesn’t sound like me if I do, it still doesn’t sit well.

I am an artist teacher who doesn’t really want to educate. Hmmm…..

“I am going to think now about how my writing is or isn’t like my making. For a little while. Until I am distracted by something shiny.”

I did. It isn’t. I don’t think.

Ooh look! Red silk!

I’m starting to wonder if someone up there has something against me being an artist. Having had a month without being able to use my right hand properly, I’ve now woken up with a severe eye infection which has rendered my right eye pretty much useless. This has had a profound effect on my vocabulary too, so apologies if anything untoward should make it as far as the page.

Bugger it.

Sewing then… oh what a joy it is to be able to pick up a needle and just go for it!

I am reminded, and am thankful for the joy I get from the feel of it. I find myself really closely thinking about it. I select a length of scarlet silk thread, and the right needle for it. I have a roughly woven piece of unbleached linen, and a smooth piece of red silk sari scrap. They make different noises in my hands as they pass between my fingers. The needle makes a popping sound as it pushes through the silk, but passes through the linen unnoticed. As the two are pulled together, you can see and feel the texture of the linen through the silk. You can see the colour of the silk through the warp and weft of the linen.

As I go about my touchy-feely business, I feel the need to read more about this sense. In my other current bit of bloggery (pix, joint blog with Bo Jones) I am discussing not-touch, and I’m working with the “unreal” digital images. However much I like them, I find them too transient, they don’t leave much memory behind. When it comes to showing them, I don’t know what to do with them at the moment. I am leaning towards some sort of projection, to keep them untouchable, but want to make something to project onto, perhaps that the viewer is able to touch, in order to manipulate the image further.

I quite like the fact that these bits of work take different forms. I start with a physical piece of fabric, and manipulate it in a physical way, by folding, cutting, pressing, stitching. Then I photograph it from every angle, so I have a variety of images and focuses. Then I manipulate the digital images, make another collage from them. Then projection – something I’ve not done in my work before. It is exciting to combine these methods.

But the thoughts behind the making seem to be heading towards the untouchable… but still sense-able… the movement of air around me, temperature, smell, sound….