Threads

An opportunity has arisen, about 5 miles from my front door, for me to “register interest” in occupying a studio. I think I have said here, early on in my blogging, that I didn’t want a studio away from home, that I enjoyed being at home, able to mix and muddle the two parts of my life. There are certainly advantages in that. But things change don’t they?

I have found it increasingly difficult to follow a train of thought at home lately… there are many distractions, the greatest of which, infuriatingly, is the now senile cat who squawks every time you move your foot, thinking she will be fed (again) having forgotten that she was fed 20 minutes ago, or even that her bowl is still full from the last time she squawked. If you stay sat in one chair in one room, she is fine, and will nod off in front of the fire.

My husband is also home more, due to a change in his working life. I would like to state here, for the record, that he is NOT “under-my-feet”, but merely present. And it is fun to be able to pop out for lunch together occasionally! But an artist, engaged in thought, looks like someone doing sod all… someone perhaps, to chat to. So, the possibility of a different space that I can go to work in, separate, will make for a happier home life, where I do not snap and tut and get irritated just because someone asks if I want a cup of tea. I can still work at home, but it can be the sort of work that I can chat happily through.

So, just on a casual research expedition to the neighbouring town, I contemplate the possibility of a studio. It is cheap. It is in an area hard hit by recession, one remaining store in the run of empty shops due to close any day now, rendering the passage to the shop/studio a bit of a derelict space. Having visited artist studios all over the place though, this is by no means the worst area, and certainly not the worst building!

There are two shared exhibition spaces, up and downstairs, and two studios upstairs, one too small, the other just right. It is well lit, has a decent window overlooking historical monument and bus station in one fell swoop. It is heated, carpeted, has hot and cold running water and a choice of loo – one labelled GIRLS, the other GENTLEMEN – a curious combination.

In return for this, I would have to undertake various community duties, none of which are out of my range. Seems a good deal to me. So I have Registered My Interest. I now have to wait until January to see if I have been shortlisted for consideration and interview…

But… it is in my head now… I NEED it, this space… NEEEEEEEEDD it I tell you!!!

(and if not this one, then I shall seek out another)

Pants then.

I’ve been working with clothes and household linens for years, doing all manner of things with them. The last two or three years I have been using old children’s clothes, the sort I would have worn as a child. I have mulled over parental relationships, particularly that of my mother, me and my two sons… with the occasional visit by my mother-in-law.

I stripped everything back for the collaborative work with Bo for ONE. Looked at what I was doing with these stitches, what they meant to me. I examined the process rather than the product. I was quite pleased with it, but was happier when that process and the thoughts engendered by it started to seep into the rest of my work. Making the dress out of “nothing” felt initially like a full stop to ONE, but was actually more of a capital letter for the next chapter. Perhaps a colon then. Stretch that analogy!

A dress. It linked this work to what had gone before… visually, materially… but also pushed it along, opened up a new pathway. While I sat invigilating the exhibition, the leftovers from the dress suggested the shape of the vest… so I made that. The armholes cut from the vest suggested the shoes. The scale of these items suggest my own children, both of whom were born prematurely and small. Back to parenthood.

But you can’t have a vest without pants can you?

So I am making the pants. I have cut the shape of the leg holes, and have put those pieces on one side to examine after. But making pants is different. Pants might take me somewhere I don’t want to go.

As I stitch through the newly constructed old fabric scrap material to form the shape of this garment, I will think some more about the implications of making these pants.

They are probably just pants.

I have been busy since the exhibition at half term, but I haven’t actually made anything. I went to London. I went to the Art Party Conference. I’ve fannied about on facebook and twitter, and drummed up support for our Kickstarter campaign to set us on our way to New York hopefully via some other funding pot…

(there are still a few days left if you want to join in – yes, you too can come to NY!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/scibasecolonize/scibase-colonize

and you might even have the chance to own one of my works as a reward!)

I’ve even been at home for a week, and have lacked the motivation to do anything but stare at one screen or another. I was feeling slumpy and flumpy and frumpy.

But now, I’m at it again. I have finished making a little vest I started making while the exhibition was going on… and today I started making a little pair of baby shoes out of the same nothings I’ve been working with. Strangely, the pile of things made gets bigger, but the pile of things I’m making from doesn’t seem to get any smaller. Is it because I am constantly aerating it like the compost heap? I turn it over, de-tangle it and fluff it up a bit each time… or is it part of the same narrative, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts?

It is nice to be stitching again.

Art Party Conference then…

A bit of a jolly? Yes. Definitely.

A meeting of like minded folk? Of course.

A day of great conversations mainly.

The highlight for me, was the witnessing of the conversation between Stephen Deuchar, Cornelia Parker, Jeremy Deller and Pavel Büchler.

In my time I have listened to an awful lot of pretentious, idiotic dross talked about art. But not here. These four were extraordinary in their ordinariness. They said things that made me nod my head in agreement, laugh, sympathise. I came away with deeper admiration, a little starstruck, but also heartened…. These four successful people, unbelievably, are a little bit like me! They have had parents, tutors, teachers telling them they shouldn’t/can’t do things. They did it anyway.

I wrote little notes in my book…

“Theory is not the job of the artist, it is the job of the work. The artist can ignore theory. The work changes/affects perceptions and it is that that speaks to theory”

Halle-bloody-luyah!

I think I might be a little in love with Pavel.

I’ll leave all that to someone else then, and just keep making what I want to make.

Any theory I did when I was writing essays for my MA was dragged out of me kicking and screaming. Partly because I am lazy, but mostly because I didn’t see how I could possibly understand most of it without doing a degree in philosophy beforehand… if I had wanted to do that I would have done that! I felt all the time that I was cheating, jumping through a hoop that I couldn’t really see the reason for… that I was pretending to “get” but didn’t. In quiet corners, with selected fellow students I would confess.

Now, I am out and proud.

This event will stay with me for quite some time. I suspect it will have ripples that go on spreading. It was great to be there. Thank you to everyone involved in making it happen.

As Franny said, we had a good time.

(www.a-n.co.uk/p/564556/)

(do pop over and look at the lovely photos we took of each other)

She was just as I had imagined. We laughed, chatted, discussed and pondered… there were no awkward pauses or anything. I suppose we had had enough online correspondence to know stuff about each other’s lives and work to talk about. It was wonderful to see pieces of her work in the flesh too!

We have had very different lives, but there were enough points of accord to make the conversation easy. I think this may be an artist thing. I have seen a poster somewhere that says artists are dangerous because they mix with all classes of society. Isn’t that a marvellous thing? The thing that holds us together, whatever we make and however we make it, wherever we are from, there is a commonality in the most basic part of us – our brains – the most human thing, our thoughts and dreams and aspirations.

The trappings and accessories are really immaterial. Franny and I could have been sat at any table, in any surroundings and the conversation would quite probably have been the same.

The table thing fascinates me. I might do some drawings…

Whenever my friends and I get together, there is nearly always a table between us, and mugs. There’s the possibility that art could break out at any moment, some spark of creativity could leap at us and we would be prepared. We lean forward earnestly, conspiratorially, cheekily, flirtatiously, confessionally, comforting, teasing, sympathising and taking the piss. We lean back, ponder, relax, yawn and sigh, cry or laugh and snort sometimes to the point of hysteria, we consider, remember, and grasp at straws.

The table provides a platform, a safety net, a barrier, something to put our elbows on when our chin is in our hands, our fingers raking through our hair. The stuff on it a distraction, diversion or focus, something to play with, or throw in exasperation.

But I will tell you this… if I have someone here, and I put the kettle on… we don’t head for “the comfy seats”, without fail, we head for the table.

I expect Franny had “comfy seats” too. But her table was better.

However, the state of her crayon box was bloody shocking.

I expect she is grateful that I put them all in the right order before I left.