Changing The Approach.

I would like to think I'm an innovator.  I would like to think that I do unusual things, change things around, try things out...  Yesterday, though, I realised just how conditioned I am to doing things a certain way.  Perhaps we all are. 

I'm still struggling with stamina, but I wanted to do something with my hands, so raked out an unfinished piece. It's a piece of hand dyed cotton, to which I'd embellished a piece of patterned silk, and a scrap of velveteen, with a couple of smaller pieces of  fabric added.  It makes me think of a boat at sail in a high wind, somehow, although the 'sail' looks like a landscape, with fields and flowers.   I decided to add stitch to it, and fished out some hand dyed perle for the upper area.  Here it is so far.  You can see the stitch in the upper right hand corner.

I chose irregular crosses; at the time, I wasn't sure why.  My intention, though, was to fill the whole of that upper area with these stitches.  And then, suddenly, I wasn't so sure. 

Those stitches, to me, looked like a flock of birds, swirling around in that area.  I didn't want to lose that sense of movement, though I admit it would be better in a stronger contrasting colour, but I don't have anything better to hand, and the contrast is stronger in real life than in the image.  Why, I wondered, did I feel that it was important to fill the whole of the area with stitch?  I think it has to do with traditional quilting, perhaps, which is where I started out.  Lots of small, even stitches, covering the whole of the piece.  I've never done small and even, in art, because I believe in the power of the random mark, though the few traditional quilts I have made over the years follow that basis...and for good, technical reasons.  There are no good technical reasons to fill this piece with stitch, however.  I don't need to hold layers together.  It will never be washed.  I don't need to concern myself with wrinkling or creasing.  This is about a message, the creation of meaning, not about structure or technique or anything else. 

And at that point, I was reminded of one of the women I worked with at Dereham Hub.  She took to stitch like a duck to water.  I'm not naming her to respect her privacy.  She gifted me with some of her work before we left Norfolk: here is an example.

I love this little square.  I think it's spontaneous, well balanced and joyful.  Instinctual. She took pieces of fabric that spoke to her, cut bits off and stitched them on using a series of cross stitches.  She hasn't worried about what side to start or finish the thread: there are little bits sticking out on both sides.  Some of the crosses, are real crosses, others are close, but not quite there.  I don't know if anyone showed her cross stitch, or if she invented it for herself, incidentally.  I like the way the stitches lie.  I suspect she used the first thread that came to hand.  I know that she had no real sense of utility in stitching; when she stitched a bag, she stitched through both layers, making the functionality of the bag useless...it was, though, a very attractive bag shaped, reversible hanging. 

I'd like to make work that is much closer to this piece, than to what I make at present.  Genuine mark making, without worrying about anything at all.  Doing what seems right, with no thought of functionality or even of practical consequence.  If I can do it... I can also work through any technical issues that that deed creates....though in truth, I can't imagine that any would arise.  How interesting that, in the end, this becomes a question of self belief, of letting go, of pure creativity. 

So...what of the piece?  I think that I've added enough crosses.  I don't feel the need to add any more.  I'd like to add some stitch lower down, in a darker colour, to reflect this idea of sea... might couch, might embellish... might do nothing at all.  At this moment, my money's on nothing at all.  The level of discomfort I have with it as it is, is less than I suspect it would be if I added more stitch.  Leaving it as it is ensures maximum ambiguity.  If you want to read it as a ship, you can.  If you want to read it as fields and a loch, you can.  Or anything else you see in it.  I'm not going to impose my map on the world on the piece.  I want the same, instinctual feel as the green piece has.  And now I need to find something else to do....