Junk

Train drawing

Snatched moments for drawing (when not gazing out of the train window).

Drawing

Feltbug workshop

Bag by Livvy

Pleated pot by Violet

Pleated pot by Becky

The next day we made these.

Ribbons and bows

Felt by Becky

Felt by Violet

Felt by Livvy

Here is the felt, before and after felting. Violet came up with the idea of making bows from the felt fibres.

Feltbug workshop

During the Summer I held a felt-making workshop with 3 friends, Livvy, Becky and Violet. This is a picture of the wool fibres, ready for hot water and soap to make the felt.

Amor

In the studio

I have hired this studio space for 4 weeks. No distractions, no clutter, no music - just me and some paper and drawing materials with a few bits of memorabilia for company. I spent the first day here feeling very tearful, the last time I had a workspace like this was in 1990. It is so light! I am already in my 3rd week and today was my first really productive day.

Baltic flower

Felt pods

Felt pods - a work in progress. I have been busy making felt for the fair on Sunday, but I think these will be for another project later in the year. I have been working on this piece for a year off and on. It keeps changing - its form and function !

Grey felt vessel with flowers

Natural resource

' April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.'

excerpt from The Waste Land by TS Eliot

My Mum brought me lilac from her garden - it smells sensational !

Walking through the local park on Tuesday, I spotted this lovely big branch and could not help but drag it home and up the stairs (getting stuck half-way) - it was twice as long as this and I had to saw the branches off before I could go any further. I do have a tendency to pick stuff up from the street - small twigs and abandoned chairs are some of my regular finds !! When my Mum came over to see me with the lilac she didn't spot the tree in my room straight away but when she did I think it made her jump ! I love trees and stuff made of wood - always have. I am not sure what I am going to use it for yet - I do like to work on a grand scale and may continue my theme of papier-mache and drawing onto it - or maybe make some wire and paper hybrids growing from it ....

Material resource

The quilt is coming together nicely and everything is much brighter today (except the weather !). Thankyou again to everyone who left such lovely comments yesterday - this is the main reason to have a blog - to connect and share with people. We live in such a fragile environment in all senses, ecologically and emotionally and I am a 60s child (old hippy) at heart - love and peace and all that jazz - so I thought I would share one of the best fabric shops I know. I have been visiting Nasseri fabrics for the last 25 years - they started as a stall in Brixton market and then opened a shop round the corner at 38 Atlantic Lane. Most of their materials are Dutch wax resist fabrics produced for the West African market. And not only are they the most gorgeous designs and colours - they are really cheap ! They only sell them in 5 metre batches, starting at around £10 for 5 metres. And the selection is vast ! Most of the fabrics in the quilt I am making came from there.

Felt cuff

I re-stuffed the Shibori felt with scraps of felt and tied the balls with wool.

Symbiotic associations.

Twig, covered with pages from the yearbook of the US Dept. of Agriculture 1904, glued and drawn on with ink pen.

Lichen on the dead gooseberry bush.

Twig, book pages glue and ink.

Apple tree with lichen.

I have been visiting my sister's allotment this month and it has been a huge source of new ideas, with everything starting to bloom and even the dead wood has life growing still. I have been taking photographs of the amazing forms of the lichen on the branches, it has a symbiotic relationship with the plant that it grows on.

Then this week I started a new project with twigs, papier-mache and drawing combined. I had not seen the relationship with what I had been studying intently on the allotment until I started constructing this post for the blog - then I suddenly saw the symbiotic relationship of this new work with the natural forms I had been taking pictures of. In the last 2 years my work has become more spontaneous, the materials suggest the form and as I construct new work I begin to find associations within it. Making art has become such an integral part of my life that I don't even think about it - the art just evolves. Meanings reveal themselves as part of the process.

In the studio (today)

In the studio

Heart triptych

Heart triptych (back)

Reconditioned (detail)

I had an intensive night finishing off work that I had to take to Milton Keynes today for a group show that I have had work selected for. The exhibition is called Stitch and I am thrilled that Shelly Wyn-De-Bank is also showing work there. The show is on from the 6 April until 5 May. The venue is Artworks-MK. It is in a very beautiful setting on the outskirts of the city. I will post some more information about the show soon.

Amoeba felt

Here is something I am working on at the moment. I started making the felt amoeba a while ago, now they are moving around the studio looking for somewhere to reside, they had started off on one of my ink drawings - now they are trying out this felt frame I made. They are still being embellished with thread, one of my projects I like to carry around with me when sitting on the bus or in cafes with friends.

5'o clock shadow

The sun came streaming in at 5' o clock this afternoon, a good time to photograph work in progress. I always prefer photos taken without an artificial flash.

Reconstruction begins

Reconstructed sculpture 2007 (detail)

Reconstructed sculpture 2007 (wip)

And here is the new work in progress - I have been working all day in the studio and carried on this evening and I am looking forward to waking up to this new piece of work - it is a long time since I felt that mixture of enjoyment and unfamiliarity with an art work that I have made - to have that feeling of anticipation when you return to the studio to see a new creation. So much has gone into this piece - I have been absorbing all the amazing art and craft I have been looking at on blogs and on flickr. So many encouraging comments from friends and fellow artists over the last couple of months. Thankyou ALL !