Thoughts from the swimming pool no 7

Today I swam 1250m - my thoughts while swimming were so interesting I did two extra lengths in my warm-up!

We had a lecture on Art Therapy, which was most interesting, and I am considering what to do once I have completed my degree in 2014.  Art Therapy MA is 2 or 3 years, and about £10,000 fees in total. This is a lot of money, and once I have my degree, I want to spend time with Jim. Alternatively, they do a £1,200 one year certificate course (which does not licence you to practice as an art therapist), one evening a week for a thorough introduction prior to deciding whether to do the MA.  Food for thought.

We had another session refining our artist statements.  This is where I had some profound thoughts in the pool this morning.  My second draft artist statement had feedback centering around: subjective -v- objective; key words of heritage, strong women, traditional and digital, of my age.   So this morning's swim got me thinking about the title of the statement, and I was ruminating about using traditional hand drawn illustrative techniques, combined with digital print.  Traditional and Digital.  Or Contemporary and Traditional.  I have this huge need to use my hands, to achieve the state of flow when hand and brain are at one, but I am also a modern woman who uses the technology of my age - but only as a tool to my stated purpose and no more.  I expect to get to draft 12 before the Artist Statement is complete.  But I'm getting there.

Yesterday I went to class and all the full-timers were saying they had their essay results.  I had gone on line before coming out, and mine were not listed.  I queried this with the tutors, and discovered that although I had followed the full-timers programe for the essay, as a part-timer my essay result would be published next semester.  However, Antje, our programme leader, made enquiries and gave me the result.  78%!!!!  I was so stunned I could not be jubilant!  But how good is that!  I had been a bit worried about the conclusion that I had written because it seemed very long and somewhat verbose.  Obviously not as bad as I had thought.  Some of the youngsters were quite disappointed with their results, so I tried to be supportive to them, and saved my joy for when I got home to share with Jim.

Thoughts from the Swimming Pool No 6

I had a good swim today, and during my 1200m swim, I drew the following conclusions:

My latest work on kitchen implements is good, especially whe I associate the amount of work that my Mum did, with the implement.  For example the caption for the wooden jam spoon is 2,800 lbs of jam, and for the potato peeler it is 140,000 lbs of potatoes.  My work always has a high emotional content, but I need to be selective about which emotions I portray.  When I think of the work my Mum did, it is also associated with the fact that my Dad never said thank you, which I think is very sad.  But this is not what I want to portray.  I want to recognise the amount of work done by women, and be pleased to give thanks for it. 

This fits with my interest in motivation theory.  There are many theories of motivation, but one that sticks in my mind, is the one that says there are 8 forms of motivation.  I can't remember them all, but they include money, status, power, and recognition.  I know I respond to recognition above all other motivational factors.  I also feel very strongly about the role of women, the role of carers and the lack of respect given to these people.

I thought about some lovely finely woven sheer wool fabric I saw yesterday.  It is prepared for digital printing, but I was not sure what would make a suitable application for it.  It would make a lovely soft warm scarf.  Then I thought about printing a potato peeler on one end, and the caption 140,000 lb on the other.  Would this make a good gift for an aunt or granny, recognising the unseen value of their manual labour?  Or an art installation with a row of scarves hanging up, with various implements on one end, and the weight of the output on the other - wooden spoons, potato mashers; irons.  Also if the scarf fabric were folded, what about the implement on one side, and the product on the other - the jam spoon and the jam; the iron and the perfectly ironed shirt etc. 

I have also been thinking about the positioning of the images.  At the moment my work is simplifying.  Whereas my work used to be very busy, I am now reducing the amount of detail all over, and focussing on a single detailed image, and its positioning.  I like quite a lot of space around the image.  I also like the image touching one or two edges.

High Quality Feedback from Vanda

After my exhausting day at the NEC, I had a full day at uni yesterday.  I had had a selection of my hand drawn kitchen tools printed on hemp/ramie fabric.  Vanda and I discussed it, and the following are the key points:

- Small and delicate marks work really well, at the small and delicate scale.
- My marks work at actual size.  They do not magnify well.
- Therefore enlarging the object needs to be done manually by me - small marks over a bigger object will work equally well. Enlarging the object and the mark in Photoshop does not work as well.
- Avoid outlines all the way round the object.  Where my drawn object did not have a hard edge (I had used the magnetic lasso tool and it had skipped the fainter marks), the image read better.
- To get an even edge on a hard outline without using a drawn line, use a mask. What a useful tip!!!!
- Draw large scale with a fine pen. 
- Don't restrict thinking by considering end product.  Just draw.
- My work is only as strong as my drawing.  QED: my drawing needs to improve.
- Draw + print = end product, at this stage.  Don't try to find applications
- Just photoshop to crop out selected bits of drawings eg just the scale pan or just the weight end of the balance scales
- Research gender history with cloth. Subversive Stitch by Rosika Parker. Ring my family.
- Stitch jam labels. 
- Make own jam labels.  Caren Garfen. 
- Luggage labels - with significant phrases.
- Use feedback phrases and attach labels to printed cloth
- Round buttonholes. 
- Explore labels.
- Explore pockets.

Thank you Vanda.  I think I'm going to fly.

A lovely day out

Yesterday I was out of the house for 14  hours.  I went to the Sewing for Pleasure show at the NEC - 3.5 hours travelling each way by train.  I met my friend Esther, a keen needlewoman, who travelled from Lincoln and we had a lovely, inspirational day together.  

There were two things that made the show worthwhile to me.  The first was that Linda & Laura Kemshall were at the show, and I had the chance to look at Laura's sketchbooks in detail.  Proper artists sketchbooks - exploring themes, different techniques, working up design ideas, imperfect and uncompleted pages, themes changing suddenly.  So, so inspirational.  Beautiful.  The ticket price was repaid just seeing these sketchbooks.

The other item of interest was when we learned how to fit LED lights to textiles.  There is a special little battery unit that you sew on to fabric using copper-lined thread, insert the battery and the LED lights up when the switch is engaged.  Very interesting with all sorts of potential.

Esther had a bargain show, buying lots of novelty fabrics (carrot and asparagus prints for salsa dresses, bright frog fleece prints for childrens sweatshirts) and I had a subscription to Embroidery magazine plus a lovely thread goody bag.  Neither of us were short of conversation, or suffered from rigor mortis of the tongue!  It was lovely to see her again, after about 2 years since we worked together.

The story behind the object

Yesterday, my sister-in-law Shirley, lent me an old wooden spoon that was my Mum's.  It was a wooden spoon with an extra long handle, and my Mum used it when she was making jam.  Mum was married for 42 years and only gave up jam making in the last few years before she died, because during the heat in the summer, as she put it "standing draws my legs".  I think she made around 70lbs of jam and marmalade every year, and over about 40 years, the jam spoon probably stirred 2,800 lbs of jam!  The jam spoon is no longer straight - the stem arcs gently, and the lip of the spoon has a flat edge worn into it, at the angle where it would meet the bottom of the maslin pan.

I have feelings of tremendous affection for this spoon, as it shows the amount of labour given by my Mum, to make tasty nutritious food for her family.  However, it is also tinged with sadness, because for all her hard work and dedication to us, my Dad was not the type of man who ever noticed how hard she worked, and it certainly never occurred to him to say thank you.  Another small example of the repetitive tasks carried out by women, being unrecognised.

A helpful tutorial

Today I had an unexpected tutorial with a visiting lecturer, Laura Milligan.  Laura is a textile artist who works in print on textile and paper and applies her art to domestic products (wallpaper, cushions, lavender bags, coasters, greetings cards etc).   Key points from my tutorial are:

My art is not about the object I draw, but rather the skill that went into the drawing
The detail is what makes it work
The interest is in the meaning behind the object - the lines and detail of how it is drawn form the outcome. 
The lines that go into the drawing are mine.  I own them.
Keep the back ground mild/subtle. 
Stick to cream.  Let the drawing speak.
Things that are hand made have idiosyncracies - white is too perfect.
Details are about women - the time they take - behind the making
Work up ideas - worry about the form later.
Consider cheap tiles and ceramic marker pen.  (Esther Coombs)
Digitally print - then stitch to embellish
Manually print - then stitch to embellish
Consider tiling designs, then using individual tiles for cushion series.
Then change the background colours for the fabric
Consider the front and back of cushions.
Use double tile section so design (eg draining spoon) wraps round cushion
Labels on your work - Cash's name tapes
Women theme - apply single motifs to aprons and other domestic items for women.

A very helpful discussion.

I am starting to realise my design style is changing.  My work used to be very busy and very high colour.  Feedback from a previous tutor looking at my work was that it was obvious I had had a very busy life - which surprised me, albeit totally true.  Now my life has slowed down and simplified, my work is simplifying.  I am very content to sit and draw manually.  To sit and observe, working in monochrome.  To enjoy the detail without needing to overwork it.  Just simple lines used to create shape, form and tone. 

Long may this continue.

Hand or Machine

I have been thinking further about the importance of the hand.  As I have been hand drawing, I have looked at artists who I admire, who have used lines to create form.  I have focussed on Henry Moore, and Giorgio Morandi.  I'm not into Henry Moore's sculpture, but I LOVE his drawing.  He uses line to create form, by curving lines around limbs, as well as drawing along the limb. His lines are very freely drawn.  Sometimes scribbled to create form, as shown in his Sheep Sketchbook.  Giorgio Morandi uses straight lines to cross hatch to create form, varying the weight and intensity of the line. 

I have enjoyed drawing in black fine liner pen and have been experimenting with the different styles of the two artists above.  I have had a lovely time hand drawing, but have had to stop as my neck is giving me pain in my left arm.

Henry Moore had some lovely images of hand drawn hands on the Tate website.  This brought me back to thinking about the hand and the importance of the hand.  Given my work is about the domestic and mundane, family and objects, maybe I should ask my cousin Allison to sit and knit, and I will observe the hands in position.  Can I draw the hands?  In Henry Moore's Grey Tube Shelter, an image he created in his role as War Artist, there is a tiny person on one side, knitting while others slept.  maybe there is a family story in here.

In the meantime I need to do more print sampling.  I feel constrained by the need to use photoshop to get my hand drawn images prepped for digital printing.  This means I need to use a scanner, then the computer. Increasingly I want to use just the simple hand drawn image without digital manipulation or repeat, but quite a few of my drawings are bigger then A4, which is the biggest I can scan on  my printer at home.  Last time I looked, the A3 scanner at class was broken.  I am frustrated by using technology when I have such an interest in the hand and hand techniques, but digital print is the most efficient and effective technique at present.  At this sampling stage, when I am trying out lots of different images, it would be uneconomic to be using hand print screens (on eco-friendly, time and cost basis).  I don't want to spend a lot of time on a computer because it aggravates my neck problems which restricts how much I can work.  If I were a horse, they would shoot me - so it's a good job I am not a horse!

Thoughts from the swimming pool no 5 - Textiles or Print

It was a poor swim today (I was tired) but I had some good thoughts about my work. 

Yesterday I was drawing kitchen utensils, in black fine liner, feeling ok about my drawing style, having looked at Giorgio Morandi.  I also thought about class feedback regarding making small marks and making them larger, and large marks and making them smaller.  My drawing of the potato masher was particularly satisfying and I wondered about considerably enlarging it, to see how the small marks turned out.  Then I thought about the New Designers exhibition where I saw a wallpaper hanging with a huge hand drawn plant on the 8' long drop.  So I wondered about:

a. doing a 6' long potato masher.  Printed on fabric or paper?
b. doing a 6'long potato masher overlaid on a 4" repeat print of kitchen utensils
c. doing a 6' long potato masher printed on 8" tiles using decals
d. applications for posh kitchens/restaurants
e. prints for furniture/floor coverings/curtains

Last week Vanda challenged me about why I was applying print to textiles.  And I suppose I am not sure.  I like fabric, but really I want to draw familiar, mundane objects, and then use them somehow.  Maybe the fabric is not really important.  Is it the drawing or the story behind the object that is important?  I like the domestic kitchen object, and I particularly like the potato masher, because (again) indirectly, it is about Jim.  He is definitely a potato man (does not really like pasta or rice)  and the potato masher is a utensil I use a lot, for his benefit.

Giorgio Morandi exhibition

I had a wonderful day out on Saturday.  I started by going to the Giorgio Morandi exhibition at the Catterick Gallery in Highbury & Islington.  Brilliant etchings, done very simply, using tonal value by intensity of lines or cross hatching.  It was the same as one of my drawing styles, but better!  Morandi's use of line was very interesting.  Very carefully drawn, but still with the mark of the hand where some lines had just gone a fraction too far, so it looked hand drawn and not mechanical.  He was drawing in the inter-war and post war years, mostly still life but with some landscapes.  He had toned the backgrounds with linear marks, but covered small areas at a time, not lines across the whole background.  Very, very inspirational.

Then I went to the British Museum, to look at a penny defaced by the Suffragettes, with Votes For Women stamped into it.  This made me think about how stories can be told by objects, as in the BBC radio series, A History of the World in 100 Objects.  This made me come home, dig out an old sketchbook with my drawings of Uncle Les's camera, and look up the story that Aunt Lily told me about Uncle Les and his photography hobby. 

Then I went to meet a friend, Matt, at work and we planned to book the Manet exhibition, but when I went home, it was fully booked.  Still, I had had a very profitable day.

Yippee for Vanda

Yesterday I had my first tutorial with Vanda, my new tutor, who has taken over now Sara has left.  It was a revelation.  She is very skillful at giving feedback on what a student has done well/badly, and then asking questions in a way that enables me to articulate things I already knew, but was not using, and that are critical to my work at its best.

We had a bit of a discussion about 3 charcoal images I had printed on fabric.  Vanda probed the relevance why I was printing these images on fabric.  Really, they are technical samples.  There is no particular reason why they are printed on fabric.  Vanda questioned what printing on fabric, allows that paper does not.  For example print on different fabrics then piece, or piece then print, in order to validate why I am working on fabric. 

Vanda said my "legs" drawing might look quite good and quirky if printed as a border print on the bottom of curtains, so they were walking along the hem. 

I said I had been looking at textile artists like Paddy Killer and Laura Kemshall. Vanda advied me to look at fine artists, like Manet, Cezanne, Rembrandt because I like the representational drawing.  Also try the Giorgio Monardi exhibition in Islington.  This was because when Vanda looked at my sketchbook where I have been trying to draw more objects, she saw the last drawing I had done of my favourite ceramic jug.  I had had my usual first few disastrous drawings where I was getting my eye in, then I had reverted to my favourite style - black fine liner - using cross hatching and tonal value to get the form defined.  "Considered, well observed, exquisite line".  This feedback was a considerable relief, as I still struggle to differentiate between a good drawing and a tight drawing.  So later this morning I am off to the Monardi Exhibition at the Estorick Gallery. 

Vanda suggested I start a new small exhibitions book. A5.  On facing pages note the exhibition data, what I like, and a postcard on the left page, and on the right a sketch by me of anything I like at the exhibition, plus notes on stitches or techniques.  Everything stuck in has to be attached in a different way.  Be imaginative.

- Look at more textile makers.
- Consider titling and impact.  Sometimes the title indicates a stronger story behind a drawing of an object.  This might be critical to me as I like to draw objects but the emotional content is important to me and brings a greater significance to the object.
- Powerful.  I come from a family of strong women.  This is significant to my work.
- Textiles of strong women
- Women's library
- Suffragettes
- Louise Bourgoise
- Caren Garfen
- Macular degeneration.  My aunts have MD.  They were all keen needlewomen and are very supportive of me in my textile studies.  How do I incorporate this into my work?
- Clarissa Pinkels.  Women who run with the wolves
- Work in a larger book.  (A3 is the biggest I can carry easily)
- Make the pages bigger - fold-outs - so I can draw in a bigger area.

So last night, I went to bed with my head buzzing.  My work is much stronger and more powerful when I work with a theme with strong emotional content.  Viewers might not understand the emotional content of the object, but I can use the titling to get this over.  I thought of conversations with Aunt Lily (in her 90s with macular degeneration).   A couple of years ago she was telling me about Uncle Les, and his hobby of photography, and I remember drawing his camera and case.  I was fascinated by drawing the stitching on the camera case. (Now I'm linking family, hobbies, affection, drawing and stitch - all the same stuff as usual - maybe I have a theme coming out here!) I wonder if I could go back to her and this time, record the conversation about Uncle Les and his photography?  What about drawing the camera, printing onto fabric, sewing in the drawn stitches around the case, and displaying the print, together with the camera and case, and having an audio track of the conversation, triggered by a movement sensor when people stand in front of the imagery.  And what about printing the image on one of Uncle Les's old shirts?  This validates why I am printing on fabric.  This incorporates lots of positive feelings and emotions about family.  Also, I would be quite happy for visually impaired people (VIP) to touch the print so that VIP needlewomen could feel the stitch, even if they can't see it very well.  This also fits with my desire to enable VIPs to enjoy visual artwork.  I am keen to include people who otherwise might miss out.

I need to find those drawings of the camera.  But first I am off to the Estorick collection.

Thoughts from the swimming pool No4

I felt strong and powerful in the swimming pool today.  Light levels are improving as we head towards spring and I am feeling positive because of it. 

I have been thinking about how to use the hemp fabric print samples.  I definitely want to make the legs print into a bag.  Just a bit bigger than A3.  Simple rectangular shape.  Zipped top.  Sturdy.  I think it would make a stunning art bag.

I have found the Missenden Abbey summer school prospectus, and like the look of a couple of courses on it.  One is 5 days of life drawing, and the other a 2 day mixed media sketchbook class.   I went to see my sister-in-law, Shirley, to discuss our holiday together.  Shirley cares for her Mum who has dementia.  When Shirley puts her Mum in a fortnight's respite care, we go away and do interesting things.  So the plan is for us to go to Durham for a short break, then go to stay with Aunt Joan for a week while we do a week's summer school at Missenden.  Shirley wanted to do the life class, so I have come home to get our names down for it!  I am really keen to do this class, because I know I just need to get on and draw a lot.  And when we are at Missenden, we get to spend 5 solid days drawing.  How good is that!

And I might make up the legs print into an art bag for Shirley.  Then she can have a new bag to take to art class, and it might make her feel like a proper art student!!