Taking A Step Back.

Yet another one.  It seems my life is composed of lots of steps backward, followed by a few forwards, and then back again.  Interestingly, this seems to have led to the creation of Rather A Lot Of Work.  I'm going through it now, as you know, partly because I'm working towards a new website. That has meant trawling through the work to see what there is to photograph.  To my surprise, I've found that most of the work is related, even when it didn't feel that way at the time.  There are several main headings for the work I've done over the past fifteen or so years.  Most of it is abstract, or semi abstract, much of it it textile, but the paintings and mixed media also seem to fit fairly well into these categories, also.  A lot of it could sit in more than one category; I'll talk about that as we go along.  I'm still working in all five categories, I've discovered, to my surprise.  If there is an underlying theme, I think it is change, and the creation of meaning within constant change.

It started with work 'about' gardens, all abstract, with incredibly simple structures, but packed with meaning.  There is a complete series, unrecorded, called 'Dawn In The Healer's Garden', which is still ongoing.  Each piece has been made for a friend who was struggling with something at a particular point in their lives.  I continue to make and release these pieces, as a response to what they are going through.  I have no photographs of them, and mention them here for completeness. Here is an image of a small piece in the gardens series; I see from the blog post that it was made for a trade, but I still have it... so it clearly didn't happen...

Most of the garden quilts take a similar format to this, though the Healer's Garden quilts vary enormously.  The garden paintings, though are more like this ;

This is Spring Garden, oil on canvas.  I think that what the series has in common, regardless of medium, is the concept of a riot of colour.  When I think about gardens, I always imagine a gentle breeze through flower beds, making them move and intertwine... a riot of colour.  

Chronologically, the next work to be made is the 'Texture Of Memory' series.  These are almost all quilts, and they are 'about' depression.  This was the first of them, made about sixteen years ago, just after the breakdown from hell, recording the process of burnout which resulted in my illness.  

In a similar vein, this mixed media piece is called 'Losing My Religion', and is also about that time of my life.  

So...that gives you a feeling for the first couple of themes in my work; more tomorrow.

Running Around In Circles...

seems to be what I'm doing best at the moment. Stuff is still wandering out to the shudio, and I'm also trying to tidy up the spaces that I'm taking it from. That is no mean feat! I have a conservatory, now, or at least half of one, and I'm unearthing bits of work that I'd forgotten about (duh...). Everything is suffering as a result, fewer blog posts, fewer etsy visits, fewer everything except sneezes; it's either the dust or I've caught the cold that my friend Jill had at the weekend. My money is on the cold, as I started sneezing before I started dusting!

Tomorrow, though, I will get some work done. I've started a couple of pieces; this one I've mentioned before, I think. It is distressed lutradur in layers over a backing of pelmet vilene. It needs some stitch, I think and possibly more colour...I might print over it. This is the new Texture of Memory piece that I was talking about here. Click on the image to enlarge it; see if you can see the writing through the lutradur layers. I can in the original, though it's not easy to make it out if you're not used to my appalling writing!

Another Dose of Tranquillity...

I painted again this morning, despite the phone ringing four times in quick succession. I was expecting a call, so each time I leapt to answer, and each time it wasn't the call I was expecting. Despite that, though, I painted happily, and have produced several more paintings...so much so that I'm going to have to stop; I've run out of space for them to dry in. This will not be a problem with the shudio, of course, but in the attic, it gets a bit...busy... The image here is 'Somewhere', another of the gentle paintings I began yesterday.

So, this afternoon, since painting wasn't an option, I began a textile sketch of a new Texture Of Memory piece. The Texture Of Memory series is an old one, relatively speaking, pre lutradur, and it focusses on the way in which our minds tamper with our memories. This piece is an experiment that uses both lutradur and evolon; pictures when it is finished. I think it has potential, though. It's wonderful to be back to working productively again. It feels as if I've not done anything really interesting in a long time, like walking down a long corridor past all sorts of doors, until I found the 'right' one to open and walk through. Long may it continue.

It is interesting to restart a series that has been dormant for several years. Just as the theme suggests, I have moved on, and my mind sees new ways of approaching the same material. I wonder what will come out of this exploration.