Threads

I have been wondering whether to write about this.

As a general rule it’s not a good idea to write about my health in an art blog. But when it has a particular impact on my art practice I think I can do it without too much squirming. I’ll not go into any gory details, so it’s safe to read if you’re squeamish!

I think it speaks as much to my post(?)-pandemic, post-menopausal self as to my particular state of health, so here goes.

I have osteoarthritis, particularly in my knees, and last week I had a steroid injection. It’s the second time I have had it. The first time (four years ago) didn’t last very long – about six weeks – so I have debated long and hard about whether I should bother. But the eventual knee replacement surgery is probably a few years off just yet, so I thought I’d go for it. I had got to the stage where I was thinking even two weeks respite from the pain was worth the effort.

Pain shrinks your world. In the last 10 years I’ve gone from flying to the USA and Sweden on my own, to planning a trip into Birmingham as if it was a military exercise. Train or car? Where’s the nearest car park? How far will I have to walk? Is it uphill? Are there any stairs? Is there a lift/escalator?

The biggest issue is confidence. This has been affected by the menopause, and also the pandemic. The fear of many things outside the home has become commonplace. Thank god for the internet eh?

This week I was invited, with some of my fellow RBSA artists, to Birmingham Conservatoire, to draw at a rehearsal in the jazz club. What a great opportunity. I said yes, of course… knowing that it would be after my injection. Thinking that the injection would change everything. As the day approached I was getting more and more apprehensive and asking myself all the above questions. I did not feel up to it. I kept coming out in a sweat thinking about it. Thing is… if I don’t do it, I’m consigned to an ever-shrinking art world. I felt I had to MAKE myself do it. My husband offered to come with me, but that’s no answer is it?

As I write this, I am still wondering whether I will post it. I sound like a miserable old bat with no strength or determination! This blog is supposed to be about how the art bit goes…

Anyway… I went. It felt like such a huge effort of will to drive ten miles to park next door to the building where the club was. But I went. I went with my walking stick folded up in my bag, but didn’t take it out, and I did it on half the amount of painkillers I’d been taking in the YEARS in between the injections. I approached a group of people I didn’t know, in a place that was crowded with students. I spent two hours doing some mediocre drawings, absorbed in the processes before us. Being allowed in to other people’s rehearsal space is a real privilege and I am so glad I went. The mediocre drawings aren’t really the issue. The issue is the confidence gained from actually doing it.

Today, back in the studio, without my walking stick and still on less painkillers, I am caring for these brittle and fragile twigs, completely aware of the irony that as I wrap them and hang them on the wall, they are also reminding me of my own fragile joints, temporarily shored up.

I am aware that the post-menopausal artist is not a fashionable thing. The voice of the 60 year old isn’t loud. It is not confident. Especially after two years of enforced isolation.

I must keep the confidence, and build on it. I must keep making myself go out and do things like this. Because the alternative is very depressing. I have a voice and things to say. The only way to get heard is to get out there and say it. So however long this dose of steroids lasts, I will be forcing myself out into the world, because once it wears off, I’ll wish I had done everything.

I have these muslin squares, saved for 37 years. They were bought from Mothercare in Birmingham (alongside all the other trappings of a new baby) when the birth of my first son was imminent. So much fabric, clothing, other household and child related textiles have passed through my hands and been passed on to be used by others, but not these. They have an unbelievable softness. Daniel used to scrunch them up in his hand and rub them against his cheek. I can remember having one over my shoulder and draped across my breast me as he slept against me. 

I thought I would just keep hold of them, they didn’t take up much space. I couldn’t see what I would ever use them for. Until today.

I’ve used up pretty much every suitable piece of fabric in my studio for this twig wrapping. This ritualistic twisting and tightening and stitching in. I comfort the “child” as I wrap. I hold them close and look after them, protect them. 

So, before I go looking elsewhere, in charity shops etc for other fabric, I have one more delve into my supplies. 

And there they are.

Soft.

Not quite white.

I hold them to my face to smell them. 

I can smell all of the smells, in one great rush.

Their time has come it seems.

I tear a few strips off the edge of one, just to try it out… and I know. 

I don’t know how many twigs I have wrapped so far, but I think these might be the last. Enough.

I think I might have entered a more settled phase of making. I am keen to wrap as many twigs as I can with the suitable fabric I have to hand… I really don’t want to buy, although I think I may have to take a trip to the charity shops if I want to keep the majority of them cream or white… which I do… I try very hard to not buy new fabric. There’s plenty out in the world and plenty getting sent to landfill without me adding to it. Occasionally though, I can’t find something that functions the way I want it to, in the quantity I need, so I relent. But I don’t like it. Hence the impending charity shop haul.

The last few days in the studio I have sat with a tray of twigs to the left, a basket of fabric strips to the front, and a box of completed, wrapped twigs to my right. I then spend the day being the conveyor belt, select twig from left, wrap, add to the box to the right. Each evening I go home satisfied that I have added to my selection.

Now I have lots of twigs, several hundred I think, possibly not into the four figures quite yet, I have enough to start playing with them. 

I have plain cream silk (wedding dress remnants) some muslin (old curtain and baby cloths) some scrim (hospital loose-weave swabs) some cotton lawn (Liberty and otherwise, old clothes, reclaimed) linen, blue and green (old table linens) and plain white frayed cotton (old pillow cases)

I have to say, aesthetically, the silk are the best, they are a creamy ivory colour, they hug the contours of the twigs beautifully and together they look like old bleached bones. But each “family” have their own character… the pinkish lawn ones look like sweeties, rock sucked until the colour fades and shape distorts… the muslin looks like bandages… so of course now I have loads I can play with how to display them to convey different narratives, and make some decisions.

I have in my head a sound piece to go with this, but I need to think and play a bit more before I start on that in earnest. I am not quite sure what I want it to say yet.

But these twigs, these children, have personality, they have a life beyond what I am doing with them, I feel it in my bones.

I have had a wonderful, non-monarch-related afternoon in the studio with my friend and fellow artist Helen Garbett, otherwise known on Instagram as @LimpetWoman. We sat alongside each other, each doing our own thing, mindlessly, while we talked. It was lovely, heartwarming, relaxing and fun. And I got quite a few twigs wrapped.

In some ways, this part of the cycle of work is my favourite. Because I have made certain decisions and made some experiments, I have the materials in front of me to just get on with it. I have plenty of twigs to wrap, I know how to do do it and can just get on, either listening to the radio, to music, or chatting.

I think I enjoyed this afternoon because although I’m not doing the same sort of work as Helen, there is a camaraderie between two women working together as there might have been if we were sat around the same quilt, stitching. I feel a history of generations of women before us, just getting on with stuff.

The twigs have become part of a larger more wide-ranging project, (more of which later when it’s sorted out) and in order for it to work how I want it to, I need hundreds of them, possibly thousands? But for now and the foreseeable future, I will be found either picking up sticks, or laying them straight. And wrapping them. Then playing with them, and with a variety of boxes, or hanging methods. Each iteration holds them in a different light… at some point I will need to make more decisions.

But not yet.

Restriction > Dilemma > Problem Solving > Development?

I’ve occasionally pondered what my work would be like (or even if I’d make anything) if money was no object. I’d have a bigger studio for sure. I’d exhibit in “posh” galleries. I’d possibly employ someone young to trot up ladders and hang paper… 

Dream on! Haha! 

What actually happens is that restriction and limitation are the prompts for development. I have on my table at the moment a large drawing on the very last piece of expensive paper. I really enjoy working on this scale, and given the studio and the ladder-trotting assistant, I would probably go even bigger. (There are ways I can do this… so maybe I should explore those. But there would still be an inherent cost that at the moment I can’t afford.)

The knock-on dilemma with large drawings is what the hell do I do with them when they are finished? Pile them up in the corner until I’ve fallen out of love with them and chop them up to make a book? Possibly. Get them mounted or framed to exhibit? Costs an absolute fortune and then takes up space to store. In thinking about a price for these two drawings, I’m probably, for the first time, breaking into four figure sums. Which is completely hypothetical because who on earth would buy them? I’ve yet to sell any of these drawings larger than about A3 size. But then I do feel I should feel free to make without the pressure of having to make work that sells. This thinking is problematic as I know that I don’t have to make a living from this. I have the luxury of alternative income. That’s a whole different argument and blog post. Maybe I’ll tackle that one when I’m feeling a bit more robust.

So what happens then when I’ve finished this drawing? I’m probably a couple of sessions away from finishing this one… but my mind is already looking to the next, and alternative strategies.

The answer lies I think in drawing on alternative surfaces. If I drew on prepared board I wouldn’t need to frame… I could varnish and screw it straight to the wall… maybe that’s the answer…

… in terms of material, there’s a physical link to the work with twigs, possibly a surface for them to be mounted on and with. Food for thought, brought about by necessity that wouldn’t exist without financial restrictions..