Looking Through Holes

As I delve deeper into my research I'm looking at photographs of old lace

I'm making drawings of the lace with a fine black pen and then cutting out selected areas. By laying the drawings over red paper the cut away areas stand out. I like the idea of partially revealing what is behind.

I'm still not certain where this is taking me but I'm having fun finding out

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Thank you for all the good advice and concern about my voice which has now returned.

The Sound of Silence

It's true, I'm in denial about Christmas. Far too many other things going on to think about it yet... until I looked in my diary at the beginning of the week and had one of those "Oh, no" moments. It would appear I've committed myself to a couple of open days this weekend.

After hastily sorting out what stock I've got, I ran up some extra Christmas cards last night and I think I'll be alright...

Except I've now lost my voice. It started to crack yesterday afternoon when I was teaching and has now virtually disappeared.... nothing... just a pathetic croak. Which is a little alarming because I'm giving a presentation about my work at University on Tuesday, so I'm hoping this will do the trick.

Meanwhile, if you are in the vicinity do pop in for my Open Days...

I'm open from 10am until 4pm Saturday and Sunday.

There will be mulled wine and mince pies...

I just won't talk to you!

Zombies

When your friend buys you a book on how to make felt zombies for your birthday...

It is only fair that she should get a felt zombie for her birthday.

Although I fear this little zombie kitty at only 3" tall, is more cute than gruesome.

But it did give me a chance to try some paper cutting that was not pretty and lacy.

Happy Birthday Jude!

Progressing.

Lots of pictures and not so many words today as I begin to explore ideas for my MA practice.

Continuing from my initial ideas, I cut more leaves...

gradually expanding the cut sections

to create a lace like structure.

I notice the shadows.

And play with the light to create a lace shadow.

I cut more... and used them as a stencil to print patterns in my sketchbook.

And then used a photocopy of the resulting print as a template to cut out some lacy pages

And loved the way they looked when only partially cut.

And loved them even more as I pulled apart the layers and could see through the holes to the layers underneath.... revealing and concealing.

And thought about the possibilities of this on a larger scale.

I sprayed one of the pages black and liked the way it looked when positioned slightly out of register with the white page. Again, seeing through to layers beneath.

And even the newspaper that was protecting the floor becomes interesting with partially revealed text.

Meanwhile, the original leaf has started to dry out and curl up, creating more possibilities.

So many ideas, so many starting points, I'm not sure where to go next.

Eleven Books, Two Cheques and a DVD

Much as I would have loved to have followed your advice and spend the weekend reclining on my sofa, Saturday was spent with ladies from the Enfield branch of the Embroiderer's Guild making little bonded books. And lots of fun it was too!

Eleven lovely ladies produced eleven very beautiful and individual books... each one quite unique.

By a stroke of good fortune there was a rather fabulous hydrangea bush outside the hall with some gorgeous coloured petals so instead of using the ivy leaves that I'd brought along, several of the ladies used the hydrangea petals on their covers instead (including me!). This one below was made by Jackie.

And on Sunday... I retired to that sofa (with my laptop so I could do some studying)

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More news... I have had a final adding up of the money raised at my pink party...

And we raised a magnificent £262... THANK YOU!

When I went to send off the cheques there was a form that required me to have a witness to sign that they had seen me add up the money and write the cheque... well I didn't! And then of course I proceeded to feel guilty as though I had embezzled the money, so you can all be my witnesses that the cheques have been written... and you'll have to take my word for it that they have been posted!

*****

And finally.... I've had a preview of the cover of my DVD!

Not long now before it will be available.

Just a little excited!

Chasing My Tail.

Quite often on this blog I get comments of the "You are so amazing, you do so much" or "You must have more hours in the day than the rest of us" variety... and they make me smile. They make me smile because they are kind but mostly they make me smile because in my head the reality is so different. I seem to spend most of my life barely one step ahead of myself, rushing from one thing to another and never really achieving half of what I want to do. Take yesterday for example...

It was my weekly machine embroidery class at the Settlement. I planned the programme for the term during the summer so I knew what I was going to do. For the classes up until half term I had all my samples made. The plan was I would make all the samples for this half of the term during the break... but for one reason or another it didn't happen. This week as usual has whizzed by and so I woke up on Thursday morning with no sample. Fortunately it's an afternoon class!

So I put on the radio, made a pot of tea and got to work making this little embroidered envelope from transfer printed fabric, adapting a pattern by Jill Kennedy in Stitch magazine.

A little envelope designed to hold the little hand made books we've been making in the previous three lessons. (samples made during the summer!)

Tiny books just 4" square made from appliqued tissuetex and filled with coloured pages.

Which was all well and good until half way through I remembered it was my turn to make the cake (to be cut into 12 portions) for the over 60's club meeting this afternoon. A rather rapid all in one fruit loaf... complete with sunken fruit... was delivered just in time and still warm!

Which of course meant I then rushed out leaving the ironing board up looking like this...

And my sewing table strewn with mess looking like this... not having eaten any lunch and forgetting my sister-in-law's birthday card... which is already late. (Happy birthday Anne! Sorry!)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining... I love what I do... and I like to be busy.

In fact, I get restless and irritable if I haven't got anything to do.

And when the ladies in the classes I teach produce fabulous things like these books...

it makes me really happy... because they are so beautiful!

and I learn different ways of doing things from them too.

But sometimes I wish it would all slow down just a little bit.... because I'm tired...very, very tired!

And it doesn't make for very interesting blog reading if I tell you about how I collapsed in a comotose lump on the sofa last night and instead of doing the academic reading I needed to do for a tutorial today... I fell asleep! Rather dispels that wonderwoman myth!

Keeping an Open Mind

There is currently an exhibition of Bridget Riley's work at Kettle's Yard in Cambridge.

I was aware of Bridget's op-art work in black and white from the sixties, which having a mathematical background I found quite fascinating.

Movement in Squares, 1961

The paintings in Kettle's Yard are selected from the past thirty years up to very recent work and are big and colourful. I saw the exhibition when it opened but if I'm honest, I didn't understand it and felt somewhat indifferent which annoyed me. Here I was standing in front of what was generally acclaimed to be great art and I didn't "get it". So when an opportunity arose to attend an evening talk with Bridget Riley in conversation with Paul Moorhouse, art curator at the National Portrait gallery, it seemed too good to miss.

Loss, 1964

Last night I went to St. John's College, Cambridge and listened to this amazingly vivacious 80 year old talk about her work... and I'm so pleased that I did.

Nude, 1951/52

She spoke about her childhood in Cornwall and the love of nature instilled in her by her mother. About how her mother would make her really look at the colour, shape and movement of everything around her. She spoke about her early days in art school and the strong grounding she had in life drawing and how the tonal drawings she would make then went on to inform those early black and white paintings.

Reve, 1999

Another strong influence on her colour paintings was the work of Seurat. A study of Cezanne gave her a desire to dig deeper and explore colour and pictorial space further.  Her work is filled with movement and rhythm.

Two Reds, 2000

And armed with this greater understanding of how Bridget Riley works, knowing where her influences have come from, I find I have a greater appreciation. Aesthetically they might not be my first choice of paintings to look at but I now feel I can take something away from the experience of looking at them... and so I intend to go back to the exhibition in Kettles Yard, which has been extended to the end of December and take a closer look.

Rose Rose 5, 2009

As I work through my MA over the next couple of years I think I might be doing a lot more looking and appreciating of things I didn't understand before.