Threads

Bras.

Suddenly, overwhelmingly, to the point of putting aside for now all other work, I am besotted with old bras. This has sort of come from nowhere… although I am sure once I get going, I will be able to think and more clearly map the thought process that got me here.

I suppose it started with the bra I found in the Cambridge junk shop. There’s a photo on here somewhere. I might re-post it. It has been hung on the studio wall looking at me. I have done a little bit of embroidery on it, but I don’t think anywhere near enough. This garment needs to be obsessed over.

I am sure it also has something to do with my age… 52… I toyed with coyness, but what’s the point in that? I am watching the women around me deal with this age, stage in their lives. I find it fascinating. There is a fine line between relaxing into who you are, and letting yourself go. Also a fine line between living life to the full and being desperate to prove yourself younger than you are. Internally, it basically comes down to personality which way you go, but others put the label on it… and there are so many variables.

I leave other people to decide which way I am headed (I suspect towards the desperate frantic, “youth vampire” thing).

I want to deal with then, the bra as a way of illustrating my point. I buy ever more expensive underwear for myself to make me feel better, even though few people see it, the hope is they might see the effect it has. In contrast, I am on the hunt for decrepit, derelict bras from jumble sales and charity shops (although what I really want are the charity shop rejects, the sort they could never put on the racks).

I’m not even sure about the extent of the sexual aspect here. It appears at first to be more about self esteem, but you can’t strip out the sexual from an issue that involves a woman no longer being unable to bear children can you?

And this is where the blogging might get tricky. I do not intend to map my menopausal journey for all to be horrified by… you will be relieved to read! But as I have written before, the highly personal work is the work that is human and universal. Art about life. Do let me know when it gets uncomfortable won’t you? Because those are the bits I like!

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….

“The Discipline of Writing” is a phrase I came across while reading Kate Murdoch’s latest blog post on “Keeping it Going”.

www.a-n.co.uk/p/2295372

I commented that I don’t think of it like that.

Over the last week I’ve been prompted to look at the beginnings of my own blog – partly because I’m coming up to its second anniversary, and partly due to other more personal reasons. I’ve also looked at the beginnings of other people’s blogs. Some people are indeed more disciplined than I am, and title their blog with their intentions, and maintain a rhythm and theme quite happily, making the reading of it focussed and sharp. Some blogs peter out, and some start, and then don’t go anywhere, good intentions falling by the wayside.

Having been persuaded to start a blog I loved it right from the first post. I knew it would become part of what I do. I see it as the opposite of discipline. Writing assignments for my MA was a discipline, one I found extraordinarily difficult… every mark gained felt like a drop of blood squeezed from a stone. Blogging is like drawing. Breathing. Thinking. Every few days, enough thoughts have accumulated to make me think it is time to blog. Some are more meaty than others. Some, I am clearly talking to myself, others elicit a response from a reader or two. I don’t need a reference to back up what I say. It is emotional, honest and probably over the word count. I know I ramble on. If you were to meet me I would ramble on too. I go all over the place. I have no discipline. That is the point. My thoughts crash about and bump into each other. Blogging is part of the method for keeping track of the threads. (Ooh, maybe by calling it “Threads” I am sharp and focussed in a woolly and blurry kind of way?)

You are getting me though, when you read this. I’m not trying to be some intellectual that reads stuff. The amount of reading I have done since they marched me up on stage and put the certificate in my hand should make me ashamed, but it hasn’t. I have loads of really interesting unopened books on my overloaded shelves. I’ll get round to it one day. Or not.

I also have ideas above my station occasionally, and think I should do something more “Worthy” (definition required). I start, and then falter. Partly through lack of confidence that I could pull it off, because I have set myself up as this not-serious, non-intellectual perhaps. Partly because I can’t be arsed.

What I do write, I think, for what it is, is “Successful” (another definition required). I’ve been asked to write a couple of things by other people. I have only recently realised that they have asked me, because of the way that I write, not in spite of the way I write.

I have discovered about myself all sorts of things through this blog over the last couple of years. And I’ve probably let loose a few things I shouldn’t have too. “Ah well… There y’are” as my mother would have said. Too late now. I do suffer from letting things out of my mouth before the brain has really finished processing it. It appears I do the same with the “publish” button.

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.