Blog 56

Shawn my partner and I have been living in our motorhome 'on the road' for eight weeks now. It is wonderful to be doing this again. Having lived in fair isolation for the past three years coming back onto the mainland of Britain has been a sensory explosion for me. This is both a serious affliction and also a comedy.

The first city we spent time at felt it had every type of product and service a human could wish for, good for employment, but sad, and dare I say it, obscene in my eyes in choice and consumerism. Whether through deliberation or sub consciousness I found myself focussing on the minutiae of life, for example, the signage (we kept saying the names out loud as we went past, ha ha!), the electronic water and soap dispensers in the public toilets that a number of us users didn't know how to work (are they necessary?), the multi-coloured painted toenails of the lady's feet in her sandals... I struggle with the multitude of noises and being in a crowded situation for too long. I'm getting more accustomed as time goes by and we'll see how I get on... It's funny, Shawn was always the 'country lad' and myself the 'townie'.

Resuming van life is both familiar and unfamiliar having done something similar back in 2009 - 11. One of our biggest challenges is internet connection, or lack of it. With four different options for connection in place now, as we move between different locations hopefully this should improve. I know I have got to work differently and have a more flexible approach to getting connected up to the world wide web. 

Having seriously thrown out or sold much of our 'stuff' when we moved from house into our motorhome, I have spent many days since 'de cluttering' our computer and electronic devices, tidying them up and getting rid of historical documents, excess apps, unsubscribing to numerous emailing lists, now with the intention to follow these people via Twitter and other social media platforms instead. I might even talk to these people instead of just staring at a screen and filing their information!

In terms of my art practice it has been a lean year, but I have been making, albeit for our 'new' home or myself. I read a lovely statement recently about making or doing other things you don't normally do. It described these activities as "... a natural extension of your artistic ability... to make things that are useful and beautiful." Yes, I'd go with that.

After many months I have completed our patchwork quilt or 'snuggle' for the settee. Yes, the colours are bright and completely different to what you see within the remit of my artwork. Within an art context I particularly like the back side of the quilt.

Front Side

Back Side

Now the photos above have been taken in my working studio, 'the van'. Please use your imagination to visualise the work hung up on a gallery wall, a different colour, scale, fabric, or material, draping onto floor.
From the back side of the quilt I like the malleable, droopy, soft edged frame, the empty space within this rectangle, and the human hand-made stitching of the grid. It appears that not much is going on until you get up close and realise a lot has or could be going on. What has been left out, and what could be put in? 

Back Side Corner Detail and Stitching

Back Side Stitching Detail - I like the wonky stitches, slightly out of line...

The quilt reminds me of when I made my 10 metre scroll of blackened pierced paper that I presented at An Tobar gallery on the Isle of Mull in 2012, hanging from the ceiling and draping across the floor. This took a year to make, and likewise the patchwork quilt has taken approximately seven months to make. Slow work. It was quite emotional when I finished both things, but for different reasons.

I'm becoming more and more interested in fabric as a material for me to use, and the process of sewing and knitting. I have been much more taking into consideration the source of my materials, perhaps this is something I should think about more so with my artworks? 

It is important for me to find a way to make artwork that fits into my life style, our travelling, 'the blurring of my art and our life' so to speak. I would like to make works that I can 'pick up and put down' as I make them, depending on what we are doing and where we are. Physical space and scale is at a premium and this could be enhanced via artist residency (yes please!), or studio rental.

I found some wool in a shop which reminded me of my watercolour paper that I have used since 2009 to make my pierced paper pieces. In my ever quest to move on from blackened pierced paper, I've knitted a small sample with this wool, blocked, or wetted it, to try and meld the fibres together. I don't actually want to make felt per sae, but like the idea and notion of combining the knitting and felting processes together to create a paper sheet like object. I don't think it's worked quite yet, but we'll see... and again, I think scale is something I should consider too.

Knitted Wool Detail

My blackened pierced paper consists of swathes of thick and thin patches of powdery pigment, highlighting the irregular brushing on and brushing off process of the pigment when I made it. Some of the pierced holes remain visible and some don't. I'm trying to find these qualities through the process of knitting with the uneven thickness wool.

When making things for us and our home there has been a lot more planning, costing and designing, albeit in a very rudimentary manner, before the actual items have been made.

The Patchwork Quilt Plan...

A Woollen Scarf Plan...

An Embroidered Mat Plan...

Having worked in new product development for fifteen years with all it's systems and procedures, when I went to college I was strongly encouraged to let go, just make and see what happens, no planning. Should I re introduce aspects of these planning and design skills at the beginning of making an artwork? Yes or no? Some and some? When piercing paper, I have no idea how it will turn out, I just pierce. Sometimes it seems not enough....

Before I pressed the patchwork quilt with the iron, Shawn 'de fluffed' it for me and we were amazed at all the colours collected on the sticky paper, the residue of a process of making, the passage of time, our environment.

'Fluff' Collected on Sticky Paper

The 'Fluff' in Detail

Likewise, what should I do with the leftover threads that I am collecting each time after I have made something? I think they could be developed further?

Leftover Residue Threads

Very shortly we will be leaving Scotland and I am very sad about this. I know I will have and am very much looking forward to lots of new adventures, but I like it here, a lot, and I hope I will have the opportunity to come back.

We are in the throws of packing up and getting ready to leave this wonderful country. By chance I returned to those public toilets and discovered that the ladies cubicles even have electronic rubbish bins to dispose your used toiletries in. Yes, you hover your hand over the top of the lid and it rises up like a tardis machine for you to dispose of your goods. Then in slow motion the bin closes down again. Incredible. Come on world, there's people out there destitute, what's happened to the good old peddle bin????

Blog 55

In the next few days my partner Shawn and I move back into our RV motorhome after living in a house for 3½ years. Not quite ready to leave the Isle of Mull just yet, Shawn has to do a hand over to the new wardens here at the campsite before we can finally head off on our travels again. It has been a long time coming as we wait patiently and not so patiently for our new adventure to begin.

In my last Blog 54 I wrote about different acts of making, referencing my artist's statement and my questioning of everyday actions. I have been doing a lot of making recently, yet making under the term 'art', less so. "What is Art" anyway? That continuous debate that goes on...

I have been on a Sewing Bee course for the last 15+ weeks, thoroughly enjoying the process of garment making, re-learning skills I haven't used since I left school. I've made a skirt from scratch, and lined it, and a pair of trousers, all materials given to me for free. I have altered four other skirts, a pair of trousers and a shirt, all that can be worn again, just for that bit longer. I am keen on the idea of 'make do and mend', 'recycle', in all areas of our life and how can we sustain ourselves in our new situation? 

In my artist statement I question, "why do we make things, keep things, covet things?". As Shawn and I begin the transition from house to a mobile home you'd think we'd be 'experts' this time, but the de cluttering process has been just as stressful as previous, although we have seriously shifted a lot of no longer wanted belongings this time. There is always room for more de cluttering 'improvement' though and my current motto at the moment is "move the house, not the belongings"! 

So you can see perhaps why I have been a little (perhaps a lot), distracted from making 'art.' 

In between packing up and sewing clothes I have been knitting myself a scarf, mainly because I really like the material (mohair). I am a novice knitter using a simple pattern which instructs the maker to cast 30 stitches onto size 5.5 needles and knit from one end of the ball of wool to the other. That's about the limit of my knitting skills! 

There are two things that have struck me (reminded me) with this little project, firstly, the calming effect the act of knitting has had on me in between my other stresses going on, and secondly, the following of a simple instruction, using a simple tool and one material. This is what my pierced paper is about - piercing holes using a needle on a piece of paper from one end to the other, and then colouring it - needle, paper, pigment, brush. I must not loose sight of this approach, to my making of art. 

As I am knitting, my scarf reminds me of our large roll of bubble wrap we have. There is a visual similarity. My scarf is slow to make, hand crafted, using natural materials. The bubble wrap is quick to make, mechanically created, made with plastic. 

There have been a few articles come up recently about scrolls and scrolling, and it's got me thinking about the idea of scrolls and the act of scrolling in my work. The dictionary describes 'scroll' as a roll of material or coiled form. It may contain information, and is rolled up when not in use. The other meaning of 'scroll' is to move across and around a computer screen, for example, searching, reading information. This can be continuous, even infinite.

In 2008 I saw Jack Kerouac's draft scroll of 'On the Road' 1951, a diary of his journey across America. I had no idea at the time of who he was and the significance and popularity of this work. 

I think there is this sense of scroll and scrolling with my work:

My knitting...

Bubble wrap

Pierced Paper 'Scroll', An Tobar Arts Centre, Isle of Mull 2012

Photo: Stephen Hurrel

Pierced Paper for 'A Given Structure' Exhibition, Fringe Arts Bath Festival FaB, 2014

I have been looking at work from artists who use flannel and felt when stitching and have got some samples of these materials to compare and contrast against my watercolour paper. I am still trying to expand and move forward with my blackened pierced paper works. I have done some small tests using pigment, paint and ink on the fabrics but these current ideas feel too much like the language of print making and not the way I want to go. They are only small samples though and perhaps by repetition and scale I might find a way? 

One more chat about material. I had the pleasure of meeting with a local craftsman this week who is going to make me a belt. Very enthusiastic he told me about his material, leather, showing me a hide, the dyes he uses to colour them, his numerous tools to cut and carve, and finished products. A drawing design was on the workbench and he demonstrated mark making into the leather. It looked like he was cutting into butter. 

So, where do I end here? My last blog referenced making and this text discusses more so materials. 

Firstly I must make the transition from house to van.

Big - Small

Static - Moving

Exciting - Daunting (or is this the other way round??)

Stressful - Relaxing

Let's hope so! 

Shawn and I first time in our van

 East Scotland October 2009

Blog 54

These last few weeks I have been stitching, assembling and constructing. I have very slowly been hand stitching, joining our patchwork quilt together ready to put into our van.

Example of stitching lines at the back of the quilt.

Hand stitches in detail.

Each stitch is between 1 - 2 mm and I have approximately 40m of fabric to sew!

Wanting the work to look good both on the back and the front, neat, precise and uniform, yet with the touch of the hand - made, this stitching process reminds me from when I was piercing my 10m scroll of paper in 2012, the act of taking a large scroll of material and mark making it, little by little, bit by bit. 

I am re-learning how to make garments again and have nearly finished my first piece. I am also learning how to alter existing garments that I have, un - doing things, re - sizing, re - constructing. 

I have disassembled our footstool cover, re - constructing a new version in a new piece of fabric, using the old pieces of fabric as the pattern for the new one. 

Remnants of the footstool cover.

I had a discussion with my Mum and she talked about her memories of Nan creating loose covers for client's furniture, and how amazed she was, remembering as a child, seeing nan convert something that was flat into something 3 dimensional, with very little instruction. 

All my activity is in readiness for moving back into our motorhome, along with an urge for 'make do and mend', re -cycling, up - cycling and sustainability. Ah ha, I am a very new to the idea of sustainability and what exactly does this mean?

There was an artists residency recently at the An Tobar Arts Centre on the Isle of Mull for which I went to the open evening discussion to talk about what roles artists might play in the future, in a more sustainable society. How can artists' roles contribute to a greener, healthier, more equal planet? 

Whilst we did diverge a bit, the chatter was thinking about how to live in a cohesive way within the community as a creative. To make sense of what I am trying to say more clearly, take a look at the website of the organisers of this event, Creative Carbon Scotland, who have documented it much better than I ever can http://www.creativecarbonscotland.com/mulling-on-mull-2015-artist-residency-reflections/

I think there can be friction sometimes between my art and the life I lead with my partner. Moving back into our van and travelling again, where we stay and how we survive, will become more important than ever. How we sustain ourselves individually and as a partnership. Big stuff huh! but I'm thinking about it more and more, taking some action at a mini scale. 

A while a go I picked up the 'Crafts' January / Feburary 2015 Magazine. I haven't read this for a long time and it was really to have a browse, along with thoughts of how can I sell my work and make money, hopefully through my practice, whilst we are travelling? 

The written language seems different to my arts journals and there is much more emphasis on the act of making. From making being an essential thing to do for the human being, to the development of ephemeral works that may not last, with the act of making the piece a very important part of the process. 'Street Craft' where creations appear without being asked, within public spaces, unannounced or anonymously, and a discussion between where an artwork is made to where and then how it is displayed. 

This last mention often feels problematic for me as the act of making my work is very important to me, the experience of creating it often out weighing or at least in competition with the work's public presentation. I think about the numerous exhibitions you apply for, fitting your work to the gallery's brief and not the other way around. Perhaps this is why I am struggling with my practice at the moment, needing a brief, yet not needing a brief. Making, yet not having an end goal. Note, you don't always have to have an end goal.... I really struggle with visualising how an artwork will or could look, or could be presented publicly, whilst it is still in my studio. I follow what is happening in the exhibition world but there seems to be a huge chasm between my work in the studio and how it 'could' end up and be displayed. 

So, back to the quilting. When I was machine stitching all the patchwork squares together I acquired a lot of loose thread. I rather like it as a sculptural object in it's own right. It is like a 3 dimensional line drawing, a squiggle, a doodle. I am fascinated by the space between the threads, how the threads are suspended within the 'clump'. How is that? Each ball of discarded threads represent the residue or record of a meeting between maker and material. 

Artist Ness Donnelly also likes her waste thread. Take a look at her blog and scroll down to 'Transition II' written March 25th 2015. She has stitched her short lengths of waste thread into a new piece of cloth  https://nessdonnelly.wordpress.com

Perhaps I should create some paper patchwork 'quilts', taking the idea of this process and using alternative materials? What would they look like? How would they feel to touch? What stuffing or 'wadding' should I use between layers? Does it need these layers?

I have worked with dress makers paper patterns throughout my art career on and off, initially making a body cast in 2004 for my end of year foundation course show to my ongoing (not finished), dress makers paper patterns, paper yarn, which I am still 'spinning' since March 2013. I haven't finished it yet!

In May 2013, Hormazd Narielwalla presented five 'Love Gardens' sculptures made with paper, coloured acetate, glue and staples, inspired by old military suit patterns. They are fabulous. Take a look here from fashion blogger Disneyrollergirl:

http://www.disneyrollergirl.net/hormazd-narielwalla-pieces-pattern-saatchi/

And to see more of Hormazd Narielwalla's work with garment patterns here is his website:

http://www.narielwalla.com

So, how do I finish this blog? Still no completed, what I feel are presentable artworks, but I do feel there is the ground work, a bubbling of ideas, both solidly (actual real things) and mentally (thoughts in progress). Who knows how these activities I am currently doing will bleed into my art practice more fully? 

I end with a link to artist Deirdre Nelson who has been working at Timespan Museum and Arts Centre up in the Highlands of Scotland on a residency called 'm a p MAKING'. She is exploring what is being made around the area, and looking at that which is "often not considered creative or artistic". As you will see, all sorts of things are being 'made'. Here is her blog: http://dstitch.blogspot.co.uk

At the moment there seems little correlation to my pierced black paper artworks that I present as my most recent portfolio for my art practice. But is there, however remote it may seem right now? The first sentence of my artist statement on my website says "Emma Moody-Smith's practice explores the process of making" Hear hear!, I say. The second sentence says "She investigates artistic and everyday actions asking, why do we make things, keep things, covet things?" Hear, hear!, I say again! 

At the moment it is all about 'the making', albeit mostly for myself and our home, and I am enjoying it. My artist's declaration and my act of making match up, it's the visuals perhaps, that seem confused?

Blog 53

Creativity has taken charge instead of blog writing and whilst the creative juices have been flowing I didn't want to interrupt with the formality of explaining what I've been up to. I will try to do that now.

In January we had our annual holiday, taking time out in Southern Scotland in our RV motorhome. On our return I was back in my studio drawing simple maps, trying to make sense of my relationship with the Isle of Mull where we live. You see, we hope to leave here this year and start on a new journey in our van.

The map drawing didn't last long and I started to abstract the Isle of Mull shape into a simple triangle. Using graph paper as a simple structure to draw from my marks became stitch like, imitating fabric and thread.

As we prepare to move back into our van I am slowly 'de cluttering' my studio with a desire to use what materials I have left in it without adding too many new ones! I have some tissue, Japanese scroll, tracing, and hand-made cotton rag 'Khadi' paper which I would love to use up before we go... 

Last year I was stitching into the tissue paper. I really like it's delicate and translucent nature. It is quite fragile. 

In between drawing I've made a batch of hand-made books using up my stash of packing paper that you get in parcels, and left over drawing paper which is marked and 'un usable' in it's marked state. The aim is to use these instead of A4 pads, and I like the idea of recycle, reuse, 'make do and mend'... There are more books than this. They look like old school exercise books. Each has a pocket to put things in, and each sheet is perforated so I can tear it out if I wish to transfer the paper/notes to somewhere else (I keep notes and clippings interleaved in my reading books with the information on it relating to a specific article or topic in that book). I've kept the cotton loose where I've stitched papers together. 

In the image below, I've stapled scraps of paper together. I like their layering effect, being able to see one sheet under and over the other. It looks like a book, with connotations to the multiple sheets of paper that make a book.

I think the image below was a turning point and I particularly liked the drawing on the right where the pen has leaked underneath the graph paper. It looks like some sort of netting.

Last year I made a mini white cube box to put things in, to imagine how they would look in a gallery space. I struggle with being able to visualise how an artwork would look when presented in public. Whilst the focus should be on the making process itself, you've got to have some idea, even an inkling of how something could be presented. 

Whilst the scale may be out, perhaps the materials slightly adrift, imagine the above as an installation in some way, you walk into it, under it, on it...

I began to flip between stitch drawing and pen drawing. I enjoyed the methodical process of creating squares. I was calmer when I made these stitch drawings, except when I pierced a pin up and underneath my fingernail! Big ouch! I don't recommend it.

The key words to describe my practice are process, material, craft, sculpture and performance. I think at the moment my work is about 'paper, fabric, stitch and draw', and I think the link to sewing is because of all the sewing I have done these last few months (separate to my practice). Is sewing as a process a positive influence or a negative conflict to my current art practice? I mean, I pierce holes in paper with a sewing needle and have been doing so for a long time, but is stitiching and using thread the next course of action to take, or is it too direct? Is this too literal a step in moving on from piercing paper?

I've been sewing into muslin, again a transparent and fragile material, and I like it's fine grid of vertical and horizontal threads.

In the past I have imitated fabric through drawing with an embossing pen, and ink, but I don't think necessarily this is the way forward now? I discovered an artist last year who creates fine line drawings, like my black ink drawings below, on copper and aluminium sheeting. His are stunning artworks and I don't want to compete with that. 

But my pierced paper with pigment artworks that I am known for do have a fabric like quality about them which is part of their success. 

Blackening paper with pigment is out, unless someone can provide me with a work space to do this. It is a very messy process. But should I be doing more work with pierced paper? Make it more sculptural? What? Part of me feels my piercing process is not yet fully resolved and yet part of me wants to move on to new things. On a practical level, piercing paper for a long period makes my hand and arm hurt and I don't believe this is a good thing long term. 

I near the end of this blog by sharing the image below where I have stitched wool into cellophane, you know, all those outer plastic sleeves from cards that you send to people. The piece feels completely useless as an object, and yet I like the natural wool against the artificial plastic, and the way I have pulled it in and the gathers. Huh? Why? What is it about this piece? 

I have a stash of outer plastic sleeves to use up, again needing to empty the studio and the idea of recycle, reuse, 'make do and mend'. You may ask why I've even kept them, for someone who is so into 'de cluttering'?  I don't know ha! It's their transparency, their clearness, materiality. 

The artist Karla Black makes sculptural works using cellophane, combining it with other household materials such as vaseline, flour and make-up. Should I make a big batch up of wool sewn cellophane sleeves and see what happens? It feels a very crazy idea, both positively (why not?) and negatively (it's not the right thing to do). 

As I finish this blog I check through my notes and see the word 'embellishment', a single word, on it's own. I think this is what I am trying to do, make a mark or lots of them on something, in some way. 

Paper, Fabric, Stitch, Draw.

Blog 52

After two months I have finally finished repairing all the inner walls / fabric partitions in the Shieling tents. Hooray! And now I can return to my artwork. First task - submitting for a couple of shows for next year, and second task - write a blog before the year runs out!

I think this blog is about repetition and the continuing act of getting up and sewing each day - same time, same process, same challenges (the positive word to describe 'problems'), perhaps with some moody fluctuations in between - frustration, despair, anger, anxiety, relief, distress, happiness, happiness??

I have been working with a polyester satin fabric which is bright yellow - what a nightmare of a material - it is very slippery and frays like hell! The challenges of material and process.

The work has been physically demanding and mentally challenging and I would come in in the evening exhausted having used up all my concentration, so very little 'art' was done during this period, but at least I was 'making'.

I always try to keep up with what's happening in the art world through social media, reading blogs, journals, newspapers etc. even if I am not making artwork itself, and as I went through my notes and jottings that I have collected over these last two months at least five articles referenced the subject of repetition.

In 2003 an article called 'Eternal Return' was written by Brian Dillon and published in Frieze magazine. Dillon describes different types of repetition and I quote:

"the relentless crawl to infinity that is the experience of boredom," i.e. something to do.

"or the equally unreachable horizon of obsession," i.e. a goal, an aim, you never quite achieve, or do you?

 and "the repetition that results from forgetting" i.e. you do something all over again, and again.

In the exhibition titled 'Down to Zero', curated by Michael Roberts, he presents a group of artists who start from 'zero' when they begin a new piece of work, setting up rules and boundaries as a starting point for their creations. These rules and boundaries can be broken or altered in due course and often repetition in some form or another takes place. One artist describes using rules and boundaries as a way to reduce having to make decisions on the way and then, what I call 'happy accidents' occur, during the repetitive process - chance, mistakes, improvements, new direction and so on.

There is a twenty one step specification that I have written for how to make a patch for an inner wall / fabric partition in the Shieling tents. This process is repetitive, monotonous even at times, yet with nuances taking place all the time - the cotton runs out, the machine decides not to work, the fabric puckers up, the electricity goes off - oh that's because we had a storm...

I wrote on a post it note a single word one day, date unknown, the word says 'Interference'. I think it was because I was getting frustrated by all the distractions stopping me from doing my own artwork - some my own doing, lots outside of my control. Oh that's called 'LIFE' Emma!

One book that is high up on my list of favourite reads is 'The Poetics of Space' by Gaston Bachelard. I have since discovered two more texts that sound interesting - 'Voyage Around My Room (1794)' by Xavier de Maistre and 'Notes Concerning the Objects that Are on my Work - table (1976)' by Georges Perec. All three authors write about how we and our objects inhabit space. How do I inhabit my space - the house, my route to and from the workshop, my work station in the workshop, mealtimes...?

The text 'Notes Concerning the Objects that Are on my Work - table (1976)'by Georges Perec was discovered in another Frieze Magazine article titled 'In its place' by Declan Long. Long writes about the artist Uri Aran who presents work-tables in exhibition spaces showing his ideas and artworks in progress. Long describes these work stations as 'cryptic bricolage' with a 'general air of mental muddle'. As the viewer you have to work out what is going on - the artist's thought processes, his connections, make your own new connections. Long describes Aran's tables as "transitional arrangements, with transitional meanings". I think that's how my own studio desk is right now - a bricolage of works in progress that I need to re-familiarise myself with having missed them for two months!

When I have come in from sewing all day I have needed to do something to relax and unwind. My eyes were too tired to look at a computer screen or read a book and I was too 'wired' to listen to music or gosh, even dare to sit and do nothing, so I enjoyably stared at the big TV screen and watched a number of classic films - 'It's a Wonderful Life (1946)', 'Casablanca (1942)', 'Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)', 'Millions like Us (1943)', 'War of the Worlds (1953)', to name a few. One of my favourite times at college was our art history lectures and often the tutor would talk about or reference classic films during the lesson and now I have finally got to see some of them. I am particularly struck by the setting, the costumes and props, story line. They seem outdated now, perhaps clumsy, humorous, or 'quaint' at times but what is best is the fact that the films are an interpretation of someone's imagination.

In 'Millions like Us (1943)' it is about a young girl who goes off to work in a munitions factory, all part of the 'war effort' of the second world war and all this made me think about my previous career when I worked in the food manufacturing business helping to produce vast vats of sauce or cake mixture or vegetables and brine to be packed in foil trays or glass jars along the ever moving conveyor belts. And like wise now, the hand - made production of innumerable patches for the inner walls / fabric partitions in the Shieling tents. I'd be good in a factory, that's where I come from. Production, process, repetition, "p p p p procedure" - my friend will know I became to hate that word...!

As I end my last blog for this year I've been talking really, about the monotony of life, the every-day, the banal, and repetition. Next week it will be Christmas, again, an event that happens every year, again, and it is on this note that I'd like to wish all my family, friends and readers of this blog a very happy, if slightly repetitive, Christmas!

Now to the third task - go and assess that artist's 'muddle' on my studio table.