I've been thinking, wouldn't it be a great to link up with an artist who works with light or sound and see what creations we could produce?
I'm trying to work out what is the connection to the knitting compared to other works that I make - is this a red herring or a creative side track to something else? But I can see connections between the fishing wire knitting and my mud drawings, pen and ink works and bubble paintings of the past.
And I like the cotton thread that I have pulled out of the shirt, all curly and 'wiggly', a 3 dimensional line drawing. I would like to unpick the fishing wire once it is knitted to capture all it's kinks and curls, the visual of it's first making process.
Mud Drawing
Pen and Ink Drawing - detail
Bubble Painting
I want to continue making my paper yarn out of dress - making pattern paper, collecting the colours of the paper together ready to cut into strips. I found a complete paper kit for a dressing gown and cut it out as a template liking the shapes that it formed and the markings (directions) on the paper.
It then got me thinking and I decided to deconstruct a man's white shirt which I purchased at our local charity shop. It's about the shapes that the unpicking of the shirt forms and I particularly like the holes left visible where the cotton stitching once was, a neat uniformed line, a trace.
I like the shapes of the cuffs with the slit of the button hole at one end and the puckered mark where the button once sat, and the thick part of the rectangle where there is extra material for reinforcement and the thin part where there is no reinforcement, it's parallel partner. The cuffs in particular are very like canvases.
And I like the cotton thread that I have pulled out of the shirt, all curly and 'wiggly', a 3 dimensional line drawing. I would like to unpick the fishing wire once it is knitted to capture all it's kinks and curls, the visual of it's first making process.
I am on the look out for a second - hand sewing machine so I can stitch (and unstitch) into paper...
Taking reference from the work I saw in Edinburgh recently of David Batchelor's sculptural drawings, I have been trying to draw the 3 dimensional work that I make, but I am struggling with this, it is not something I find easy. To pursue, or not to pursue? I guess I should.
Stephen Hurrel who I worked with last year on my solo show has edited a version of the film that we presented in the gallery - I have put a link to it at the bottom of this blog. Having played the film a few times there is a real sense of calm which perhaps I am not quite feeling at the moment? The simplicity of the work I produced and presented last year makes what I am doing at the moment seem cluttered, too busy - perhaps I am going off at a tangent? Sometimes this is necessary in order to work things out. Often unexpected surprises occur which can inform your current work or help you decide what you should do next. Sometimes it is just a happy detournement!
Next week I head off to Amsterdam to set up for a show with the group Plastic Propaganda. There is so much to be done besides the work that the viewer sees in the gallery space. From packing up the artwork securly in crates (made for me especially, thank you), to sourcing couriers to deliver it, arranging insurances, flights, accommodation, labelling and costing the artwork, providing information for catalogues, updating website etc. The list goes on... It is all part of the bigger picture of exhibiting your artwork and these last few weeks particularly have left less time for practical making.
I am looking forward to meeting the team at Plastic Propaganda and I love the process of installing artwork for show. For me it is still part of the creative process, the act of making, and the work can take on a new nuance and come alive in it's new setting.