Threads

It’s been a thoughtful week.

I played with my lullaby in a huge project space in Margaret St on Wednesday. I fiddled with speakers, volume, balance, position, channels. I sat, stood and wandered about. I listened to different edits and mixes and made some decisions I was happy with. This was how I wanted it to sound. Smiles and cups of tea all round. Nodding occurred.

Then I had a tutorial.

Humph.

Then I was grumpy. I left the building feeling all the decisions I had made about my work were not valid, or strong enough. If you’ve followed this story of music as art you will know I was a bit wobbly about it anyway, so this knocked me a bit. I have written lists of comments and questions made, and tried to answer them. I know that’s what I signed up for, so I’m not really whinging about the process.

I think the main issue for people (other than musicians apparently) is the fact that it is a song. I make no apology for this. It is fairly polished in its production, and it is musical. I make no apology for those things either. That’s what I wanted. I wanted a contemporary lullaby. Older tunes and older words didn’t fit for me. I tried them, that’s why I ended up writing my own. I want it to sound like a “proper song”. I want people to hear it as such. The successful display / playing of it with the other work was the issue for me.

No, I don’t want it sung by a “younger” voice. Mothers are mothers. My voice has just as much validity as any other mother. More, in fact, because aspects of the work are personal to me.

No, I don’t want to make it rougher, just so it can be more comfortably fitted into the “Sound Piece” category and be less of a song… in fact, I have quite a problem making something complete sound rougher by taking things away from it and effecting a false roughness. I like the fact that the sounds I recorded are hidden and woven into the song.

The embroidery that I do is subtle within the garments… the match works for me.

And alongside all this that I’ve had to think about, I am STILL no closer to answering the display / play questions.

Now, I find I’m wrestling with an almost moral issue: do I fight for my song to be how it is, or do I just make another edit, rough it up a bit and jump through the hoop. (I have made this edit, and it’s crap, and I hope it never sees the light of day). If I wasn’t doing an MA, I wouldn’t even be contemplating making these changes.

I have spent some time thinking about whether these two aspects of my work, the audio and the visual, have different audiences. The conclusion I have come to is that the song is happy to sit on its own, but now, without the song, the textile pieces are less.

What does that say about where I take my work in the future?

I heard this week that a friend is very ill and has a long stretch of surgery, treatment and recovery in front of him. This arty bollocks pales into insignificance.

Sometimes it can be hard to let go can’t it? The lullaby is now finished (other than the matter of how it is heard/shown/received). What I’m finding is that I can’t stop thinking about it, and its process, and the changes i have experienced while it has developed. A little self-analysis is useful I think. This “child” of mine has coincidentally taken about 9 months from conception to birth. How I feel about it echoes the research I’m doing about the over-protection of children. I wanted to keep it to myself until it was perfect, I want to keep tinkering with it, I want to protect it from harsh criticism and misuse or abuse. But it’s out there now and has to fend for itself.

A friend said to me that he’d not seen me get this excited about my textile work. We had a conversation about how I still see it as part of the textile. It is textured, has layers, is stitched together from pieces that make a whole thing that is more than the sum of its parts.

I think I have empty nest syndrome.

Perhaps I should make another one?

Well here we are then, the moment of truth and courage!

This is my Lullaby. Called, imaginatively, “Lullaby”

I hope you like it. Whether you do or don’t, for whatever reason, please feel free to comment and let me know. This is a real departure for me, and it’s hard to judge. It has been an amazing experience to make it. And I have already started thinking of another piece…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmo4KSz3Nsw

(The video isn’t great for this, it’s the sound that is important, but the limits of the blog mean I can only play you music if it’s on a you tube video, so please forgive the visual element, I just wanted to get it up here quickly before I changed my mind!)

Today is a not-art day. I’ve got a busy week coming up, so need to do all the other stuff today, to enable me to get on with it all without guilt or panic that I need to be doing something else.

So, thank goodness I’m feeling well again, but I’m still somewhat hampered by the hot clammy weather here in the Midlands today, I’m one of those delicate(?!) creatures that hates hot sunny weather. This isn’t helped by the fact I’ve been doing all the things I usually avoid in the heat… baking, cooking meals, ironing. I wish someone would invent linen that I didn’t need to iron.

To relieve that sticky feeling then, I’m now sat in the shade of my shed in the garden, with a big mug of Lady Grey,writing an artist’s blog that’s nothing to do with art. Well it makes a change from the usual self-conscious arty-bollocks whingeing that usually goes on here doesn’t it?

I’m feeling rubbish today. I’ve picked up some horrible bug from somewhere or someone. But in between the really rubbish bits I’m managing to do a bit more reading, and nail down the concept of Quilt-As-Essay. I think I now have it sorted in my head, thanks to Deleuze, Bachelard and more recently and more usefully, Umberto Eco’s “The Open Work” – which I think I’ll come back to again and again.

I’m also thinking about a pre-proposal meeting for my Big Idea (I’m afraid it’ll have to remain a secret till I hopefully get the go-ahead). What to take, just in case, but not so much as to frighten them off!

I have made a list of things I’d like to achieve during next week’s Lullaby recording session – one of which is a one-minute mix to put up here for you to listen to. This is a scary prospect, and I may need something tasty in a bottle to help me press the publish button.

Still wringing my hands over the display of the bonnet and dress (they wont fit the same doll, bugger!) (but actually, changed my mind after anyway, as the doll adds a dimension I don’t want). The drawer idea would be ok, if I had lots of things in lots of drawers, but at the moment I don’t.

…and anyway, I think I’d quite like people to be able to handle them, which is always a thorny gallery problem isn’t it? Any ideas?

been looking at: Lucy Orta, Susan Collis, Cleo Mussi, Freddie Robins

been listening to: Elbow (Asleep in the back), Ella Guru (The First Album), Jose Gonzales (Veneer), The Miserable Rich (12 Ways to Count) (particularly the Boat Song, but I’ve talked about that little obsession before)

Just added photos of clothes in drawers, I’m liking this better now, think it’ll go on some sort of pedestal (visual pun intended).