Revelation

ink and clay drawing 2004

This post is really to Erin, who has a blog full of beautiful work. She is making work that often explores 'tangles,' the chaotic and beautiful marks made by yarn. And I am so excited because I did loads of work on this at Uni and infact at one point considered doing an MA on the edges of torn fabric. But, like a lot of my ideas, I didn't think anyone else was doing this stuff and so I thought it was invalid.
Seeing the work that Erin is producing is such a joy; like finding an 'idea sister,' someone in whom an Idea (a non-sentient, non-material entity travels the Universe looking for sentient life in which to breed - it's why the same idea comes to different people around the same time. What! you didn't think inspiration was the genius of the individual did you?! Ah, I'll post about this some other time...) also has taken root. Except in Erin's case she has allowed the Idea to blossom.
So, here are the images of my work from 2004/5: (Apologies to old blogging friends who have seen this stuff already

copper and steel wire drawing 2004

sewing thread and wax tangle
2004

sewing thread and wax tangle
2005
(the tangles were soaked in wax in an attempt to preserve them. I suppose I could have also tried resin or something, but I was skint (broke) and the wax was cheap!)
copper wire drawing 2004

Close up of thread and wax tangles from 'Shelter.'

'Shelter'
Thread, wax, carbon fiber, steel tacks, silk, polyester, steel wire 2005

Ink and clay drawing 2004

Okay, so tonight, while sorting those images for this post I came upon these ink and clay drawings done around the same time. And I suddenly noticed the connection! I mean talk about dense! I just hadn't put together my drawings, the tangles, my rain paintings or the stained fabric work that I have done. I always have felt a bit of a fraud art-wise because I have felt that I didn't have a coherent 'voice,' a sense of what I was trying to say. Everything felt so separate from everything else. Then I look at these drawings and the tangles and even my felt nestbooks and the doodles; and I get it.

It's like I have been invisible to myself, which is weird. It also dosen't say much for my tutors, quite frankly, who also never made any of these connections and certainly did not encourage the drawing expression that I am showing here.

I just never believed that this stuff was valid, that it was okay for me to make work like this. But know I see that being okay is irrelevant because it's what I do.

Phew! This is really exciting for me! Thanks, Erin!!

ink drawing 2004

ink clay and gold leaf drawing 2004

ink drawing 2004

ink drawing 2004

So, ho...
Last summer I did some textile experimentation to see if I could make yarn out of nettles. It was quite hard to get info about the process, but I knew that nettle yarn had been produced in this country before flax. Also the Germans experimented with nettle fiber production during WWII.
The only info I could find was this, this and this YouTube video, here.
I had two goes at making the yarn. Firstly, in the early part of the year, late May I think, I harvested young nettle and dried it, soaked it (called retting) and managed to get this beautiful soft fiber.


It was baby soft and lovely, but not much of it! Later in the year, late July, I did the process again for a public demonstration:

This shows the bundled nettle which has to be dried. Then it is soaked, or 'retted' in a pond, on wet ground, or in this case in a tin bath.

Rotting nettles...yummy. They smell BAD.
Well then this rotting process means that the hard core of the plant is separated from the soft fibre. I then carded it although it is supposed to be beaten before combing, but I just had to make do with what I had. My carding combs can just be seen at the edge of this picture and are used for combing sheeps wool.

I spun the yarn with my homemade drop spindle (stick, cardboard, three 2pence pieces and gaffer tape! I am still using this spindle and have spun enough sheeps wool on it to have made a pair of mittens, two scarves and a pair of mens socks!)

And here is the finished, slightly scratchy yarn.

The first batch was better than this batch, so it is probably better to use younger nettle. Perhaps once it has grown to full height, but before flowering. Also, there was not much fiber made from this small batch, but it was quite strong and would make great garden twine.
Fun to do though and as free as the day is long. Which is good!

This is an old drawing, (probably about 10 years!) that I did of my daughter. It was executed quite quickly with biro because she was just on her way out and I thought she looked stunning.
This is one of my favorite drawings. So Anna, here's to you!

Aquired Collective Image

Catherine did a rather nifty bit of artwork for online group, Aquired Collective ("Formation of a brand new collective. Based predominantly on the scavenging of found object... collaboration... communication... and fundamentally the creation of publications showcasing contemporary illustrators and artists in new mediums. Online plus paper based archive of results. ")

So I thought I would have a go to and this is the image that has been swimming around in my brain for the last couple of weeks

Found photographs, pen and ink drawing, scanned and put together in Photoshop

Aquired Collective had sent me the photograph of the old man to do whatever I wanted with. I thought he looked very stoical and dignified, but also lonely. I kept getting a very strong image of him sitting in a ruined house. Then I began to think about all the people, mostly women probably, who cooked and cleaned and shopped for him, all the busyness that went into the creation of this patriarchal image.

So there it is.

(BTW I think that he should perhaps have been slightly smaller, more lost in the building and perhaps I should have made the linking arrows bolder. Ho hum)