I have spent the last couple of days working on my new theme of "marmalade". It took me a long time to realise that my work may be about the domestic and mundane, but it is also about the expression of emotion. It took ages for me to realise that my emotion coming home, of contentment, joy and peace, is expressed by the domestic routines that "I" carry out. (I don't do washing up, cleaning, ironing etc!). I do baking, preserving, and sewing, usually to the benefit of my husband. And how I feel about my husband (much affection) comes out in my work. So if I want to express joy, peace and contentment, then what I depict, needs to be about him. And I make pounds and pounds of preserves for him.
Whereas previously I was working on the theme of pomegranates, which I quite like as a fruit, and a domestic object, there was no emotional link with my husband, or anything else that made me feel joy, peace and contentment. This is why I have so, so struggled to make anything likeable.
So today, I made another batch of marmalade. In the process, I have done line drawings of the utensils and ingredients, wrote out a recipe, and photographed all stages of the process. And yet again, I have realised that the process is all about the hand. It is a manual, repetitive, process. Cutting, squeezing, chopping and slicing, boiling, stirring, ladling and labelling. Time intensive hand processes to produce a superior product to what can be shop bought.
I have happily dabbled with paint, pens and stencils. I have produced a few colour designs, but am most happy with the black and white sketches of oranges and sugar bags. I was particularly amused with a caption on the sugar bag, where the manufacturers are playing on the "local" production of sugar beet (rather than sugar cane from Jamaica) with the slogan "beet that!".
The fabric designs could be used for tea towels, aprons, table furnishings etc. All light, bright and fun. Just my thing. So I feel a lot happier about my progress review tomorrow.
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