February 2005

Tuesday 1st / Wednesday 2nd February
Felt it was time to have a go at a sample working of Freedom idea on fabric (see early January log). I have, since last entries on this subject, progressed through a sketch book stage of abstracting the word out of existence in terms of reading it, and decided this was daft because it just became a sort of self-indulgent cypher with no meaning at all. Looked kind of curious and interesting, but so what. I started off this trail with wanting words on scarves and if you can’t read them, what’s the point of putting them on?
Therefore back to what I am calling Torn Freedom. I stretched some habotai and outlined simple letter shapes in Resistad coloured with dye using the sketch book drawings and collages. At first I made the “torn edge” shape appear by drawing the edges of the letters straggly; this probably isn’t going to work because it looks tentative and I will need to create a cohesive, confident slash of white through the word for it to have the effect I want. How??? It ought to be done with wax. But if I use wax then I can’t use Resistad (this resist fluid must be ironed to set it, but ironing it would melt the wax and inhibit the rest of the working).
To make the white slash stand out, I also need to be working with three colours: the letter colour, the slash colour and the “surface” colour on which the torn letters sit. I don’t want white resist lines round red letters so am going to have to rethink the method here. I am unlikely to produce a lot of these scarves so maybe can afford to think of a multiple steam / dry-clean process where the work goes through a steam and dry-clean to establish the white slash and, ground colour, before applying the letters on the surface. Then I can steam the letters and dry clean, or just steam if I use Resistad (this is water-based and will wash out).. Artist pauses for thought right here.
An involvement in a new local project has occupied a lot of thought recently. It’s to do with setting up a creative thinking / drawing course and I feel very excited about it; I am going to re-read Mapping the Mind by Rita Carter and have been generally sleuthing away on "left and right brain" articles on the internet. I’ve met some sparky and interesting new people and will be helping get the project off the ground. More anon.
On the subject of log readers, I realise there are some of you out there as I’ve begun to receive mail! So, hi, and if you have been, thanks for reading. An explanation of the tie-dye scarf will follow later on and I will post a link here on how to find it.

Denman Course : some technical stuff

This picture shows a piece of work from the Denman College course last week. The student worked a carefully painted ground, and then applied organic forms using dye thickened with Manutex. I steamed it but at once felt uneasy that once it was washed, excess black dye held in the loosening thickener would helpfully transfer itself to the beautiful background.. I decided to wash it in lukewarm water with Lavnet liquid, which helps prevent loose dye transferring itself back onto the work. Keeping it flat in the bath helped avoid the dye backstaining; I did notice qute a lot of dye lifting off and so felt my treatment justified. Once I felt all the thickener was clear I rinsed the scarf, still in the bath, then rolled the piece into a length of white calico and allowed it to rest. When I checked the calico later there was no black marking, so I feel reasonabky confident the work is now secure.

Thursday 3rd February
In pursuit of card to use as templates for Freedom I started rummaging through old portfolios, and as one does ended up doing another job, which in this case was weeding out all the dusty old stuff and chucking it into a rubbish bag. Very cathartic. Rubbish Bags Full of Bad Art. A new take on the Contemporary British Art scene, says she thinking of Gavin Turk. I kept some watercolours which won’t embarrass me too much when I’m dead and currently remind me of the places I made them; particularly Labuanbajo on Flores.
Last night reviewed my attempt at making the letterforms on silk and instantly didn’t like the squared font that I thought so fetching in my collages. Looks awful on silk. So I went back to the drawing board, metaphorically speaking, and tried out a version of American Typewriter which has good curves and shapes and creates interesting shapes between letters. Looks awful in caps, thought, much too overbearing. So am trying it in lower case. I’ll try out a couple of letters together as next task.

Later.... Done it. Sampler of letters on habotai. Sorry it's so blue - it's the flash. Letter shapes look more sympathetic to fabric than the last font and aren't bad to draw using spirit-based gutta on painted ground. Decided not to worry about the tear / slash just for now, and get the letters right.

Above: Working out the exact spacing of the letters on detail paper at full scale. I hate badly spaced letters.

Friday 4th
I started to photograph students’ work from last week so I can upload to the website. A feature of this house is a room downstairs with windows on two sides, so it’s filled with good clear light. This means I can photograph work indoors without a flash, and avoid the problem of the wind blowing work around. This used to be a major head-banger in Abingdon and took twice as long as I chased silk around the garden cursing immoderately.
I still have to avoid conditions of very bright sun inside the house because it tends to make textile work look hard, and also creates shadows across the work from the windows. I use my digital camera on Fine setting and always use a tripod.
A piece of major good news: the post arrived with a letter confirming that I have been accepted for the Market at Art in Action, Waterperry, near Oxford, from 14th - 17th July 2005.
This wonderful event has recently been altered from annual to bi-annual. I have shown twice before, but some years back, and the competition for entry is fierce. It will mean I shall have a stand inside The Market marquee where other makers will include jewellers, potters, weavers, toymakers etc. I have always loved showing at Art in Action and it is a major boost to know I have been offered a place again.

Saturday 5th
Fighting off a cold and feeling brittle so I stayed quiet reading Betty Edwards’ book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I found the first few chapters the most interesting. Betty Edwards articulates her understanding of what is happening in the brain when we observe and draw and gives her theory on why drawing can be such a key component in unlocking creativity. She also explains why the very idea of drawing becomes such a problem for so many.
What struck me after a few chapters is that what she is recommending in the rest of the book is not at all new; it’s simply a traditional drawing method. It is more or less exactly the way in which I was taught to draw when I first went to art college in about 1964. This was four years before psycho biologist Roger Sperry published his research on human brain-hemisphere functions.
So it’s the understanding that’s new, rather than the methods.
This isn’t intended as a snide aside at the book, more as an observation on the excellence of the methods used when I was at college. So, in a major feat of memory which unfortunately leaves some gaps, thank you to Mr Goldsmith, Mr Elwell, Mr Folkes, Mr Sellars and Mr Greenwood. Ability to draw is probably the skill I value most.

Sunday 6th / Monday 7th
The local project I’ve been working on is now official and I’m putting a link to the site where it’s all going to happen. I am co-ordinating a Creative Thinking course at the Shebbear workshops of furniture maker David Savage. It’s been a very interesting challenge and also personally enlightening. My studio work has taken a back seat for a week or so, and recently I have tended to wake up in the middle of the night with my brain all fired up with a new idea, sleep banished for the duration. But I think the experience will be stimulating and productive in the long term - and who needs sleep anyway?

Denman students: your work will be in the post tomorrow. I hope to create a web page for it soon.

Tuesday 8th
More photographing of recent work and trying out a photo-quality paper on the printer. I am finding it tricky to set up the photo on Photoshop so that, together with the settings on the printer, I end up with something light and airy on paper and not a dark, colour-flooded, leaden mush. I suppose I am getting there slowly. What looks good on the screen does not look great printed straight out. I don’t yet know whether the calculations are going to be the same for every photo, or whether I need to set up each one individually.

Wednesday 9th / Thursday 10th
Some family distractions to studio work but I managed to find time to negotiate a compromise through the photo printing (see yesterday) which gives a reasonable result. I am supposed to be sending images off to a gallery wanting work for Christmas 2005 but sorting out the print process without wasting rainforests of paper has been trickier than I thought. My conclusion is that each photo, which first undergoes tweaking via Photoshop, then needs another set of settings through the print program as well. In the print program I can alter saturation, brightness, colour tone, ink intensity etc. And yes, they clearly do make a difference. There isn’t a formula that is going to work for all photos but I hope to develop a “nose” for the image and settings.

I am trying out a sample letter f on silk using a combination of wax and gutta for further trial of the Freedom series I am planning. I have decided to work on achieving good letterforms first before I even think about the “torn” letters, or doing anything fancy with the word. I am reasonably confident about making the letter shapes precisely now, although I have been trying samples on habotai and will eventually work on crêpe. Crêpe, which stretches like crazy, may offer a new set of problems. I would have to be ultra careful to stretch the silk on-grain or the straight lines of the letters will be distorted when the silk is taken off-frame. So I am wondering whether I could tape the silk to a table, lightly pencil the letter shapes in and then stretch it up.
My thanks to student A who e mailed an interesting technical solution for my jagged edge quandary (2nd February). I shall try it, student A!!

Friday 11th
I have finished the letter f (gutta outline, wax fill around letter, see left below). I don’t think I shall need the wax fill as there wasn’t a real need to protect the background so I tried a further letter r with just gutta (see right, below). I used wax over the letter as before to create a texture. Savannah texture, in fact, on a letter.

Then I stretched a blank scarf on the long table downstairs, so I could trace out the whole word. Much use of masking tape, careful adjustment, fiddle fiddle. After some time I found I was using the wrong shape of scarf so had to peel the whole ******* lot off and start again.
It seems a good method. I have cut accurate letters mounted on thin card. This gives them a strong enough edge against which to run a pencil or gutta applicator, but they aren’t too heavy so that if used on silk they weigh down and distort the fabric surface.
I pencilled in the letter shapes. Now I have to decide the best way to apply the gutta. More anon.
Thinking of final colours as I did the sample, I know these Freedom scarves are oddities for me. The idea began with a kind of anger at the world scarves inhabit (for more about what I mean, see entry for Jan 1st) and the idea of an unwearable scarf. At what point does the scarf become so much art that it won’t or can’t be worn in our society? Or if the word Freedom is worn, being on a fashion item, does the genre then devalue the word?
The Freedom design won’t be unwearable, but it is more challenging, shall we say, than something that uses colour and pattern for its own sake.
Back to the colour. Colour on these scarves must come from a totally different place from any other scarf work I've done. The colour must just support the word and I have to forget the implications of the wearable. It feels like a red and black word in its full form, with connotations of blood, struggle, sweat and hard work. If I start fiddling with it later, going for tearing or distorting the letters, this may well change.

Sunday 13th / Monday 14th / Tuesday 15th February
Quite a lot to do sorting out the other project I’m on, organising a Creative Thinking course nearby.
But eventually back in the studio and on the Freedom scarf I am attempting, I managed to gutta in the word without mishap while it was very loosely stretched on the frame. With the gutta I followed any distortions in the pencil line where stretching had caused the letter to go “off” line, on the assumption that once the silk is off the stretcher the fabric grain will take care of the problem as it returns to relaxed state. There are a lot of possible problem-accumulating variables here. Copying the letters up to size is one. Cutting accurate templates is another. Stretching the silk with minimum of distortion is a very major number 3. Drawing around the templates with pencil, then applying the gutta following the lines, makes 4 and 5. Plenty of places for lines to go off and gutta to falter.
However I am today looking at a lettered red and black scarf.

Because the wax marks hold a stiffness in the fabric at this stage it isn’t possible to see how the drape works on the scarf and displays the word. I have given myself the worst test, using a white ground, as I want to know whether the dyes will stay where I put them and not wander around in the steamer or during the wash-out and plant themselves on the white where I don’t want them. Because the word has two ascenders (the f and the d) I am also dealing with lots of space top and bottom of the letters elsewhere. I think this was why I decided to use Caps when I first started out - but disliked the caps in this font. Anyway, let’s see what’s going to happen in the processing.
Alex (my brother) and Pete and their voyage log continue to amaze me. All the time I’m plodding about, writing lists, walking the dog, trudging round the supermarket, he and Pete are confined to that tiny space listening to the sounds they describe and the sights of the loneliest-looking bit of the Southern Ocean - and all the time the line on their progress map creeps inexorably onwards. I think they’re amazing. Thanks also to Steve their worthy webmaster.

Wednesday 16th February

I received some feedback from a logreader today that expressed reactions to work-in-progress on the Freedom sample I completed yesterday. The comments exposed one of the hazards of writing a creative log.
One is metaphorically on view all the time with a diary like this, even when one knows the work isn't right yet. It's like having visitors into the studio to have a look at stuff which may be going wrong. The log is intended as an exploration of a creative year, so the honesty of what appears in it is fundamental as is the implicit (and welcome) invitation of feedback from viewers and readers.
I have been putting everything in, including the failures. A flattened nose may result from dead-ends explored at full pelt!! Feedback creates out-of-studio and out-of-my-head input into what I am working on - and could in itself change the course of a project if I let it. I have already had an order for a Freedom scarf, incidentally, and had to ponder the hypothetical moral dilemma of not abandoning a project because someone else seemed to think it was a good idea!
I've also had to assess how much time I spend writing this stuff because it takes time away from the work itself and I don't want it to become art imitating log.
The scarf I've done isn't meant to be a statement yet, it's just the first one on this theme that is trying out the lettering technique to see if I can do it. I thought I'd better do it on the scarf shape and in the right weight. I have found it is fraught with technical difficulties as described in the log and I still don't really know where I'm going with the idea at all. Is it a scarf, is it a protest for me, is it an art piece.?? Basically it's something I feel I want to do. If that sounds airy-fairy and irrational, then the description is spot-on.
I am just trying at the moment to get the letters to work on white (no bleeding into the white required, please) before I try anything more dynamic. If I can't get the letters and the technical stuff with dyes and steaming right at this stage I won't be able to achieve the tearing, the fading, the loss or whatever that I might want the word eventually to imply. It's therefore a first sample and I totally agreed with my correspondent about it needing eventually to convey an aspect of the meaning of the word - and not just use the word itself. I hope this might happen when I master the technique, which as yet is very far from being the case.
I heard a composer talking recently (wish I could remember his name) who expressed total revulsion at the idea of composers writing about 9/11 or the Holocaust without having in some way some personal experience of it. I think someone had tried to commission a piece from him and he had refused. His opinion was that it was obscene and that many people were hanging their work on such terrible events in order to gain an audience; there is something of that in the idea of using a word without inner understanding of meaning. It's like the cultural plunder I hate, where designers dive into their nearest museum of ethnic artefacts and draw up plans for their Cherokee Collection or Kiwi Knits. I hope that's not what I am doing with this word Freedom, but it's food for thought.
The trouble is that with some designs (and this is one) there is no possibility that I can express the thing at the back of my mind until I have totally mastered the technique. Technique must lead intention . This involves all the tweaking and fiddling around with gutta. In other types of design, like Savannah, I can allow the technique to form the pre-determined "formula" of the way the design works and follow what happens as the medium does its thing.
I agonised over the letter spacing in the Freedom sample, which is as right as it can be with that typeface and the lower case letters. I haven't abandoned the idea of using caps or another typeface. But I need to find a photocopy centre where they can enlarge the letters to the size I need because doing it on the scanner has involved too many problems. The letters are larger than A4 and so I have to do them in pieces and re-assemble. This builds in more and more variables when I really need maximum accuracy.
It's glorious weather here today: bright, cold but beautiful. I am giving Freedom a rest for a day or two and starting on something else. I will steam it the Freedom sample before carrying on with more work.
I had a great batch of work from a student yesterday as I steam her work for her. It's wonderful to see someone's work progress and develop. I will be steaming them for her tomorrow.

Thursday 17th / Friday 18th February

In the epic length of yesterday’s entry I omitted to say I attempted a portrait drawing in the morning. I have asked my children to sit for me in turn. This project is a recipe for disaster. As mother I wanted to capture some likeness in the drawing and of course this totally scuppered my ability to look and see properly. So, unless I can persuade child 1 to sit again for a bit longer, roughen up the inaccuracies and work over them, that one’s for the bin. Today is child 2’s turn.
My correspondence with a logreader involved an interesting e exchange in which we discussed the value of criticism of work-in- progress. With her permission I quote her here: “Even if we do not understand or agree with comments, for me, when people critique my work, it helps clarify the murky recesses of my ideas.” Thanks, Ann Graham, I know just what you mean.

However, there exists the sense that I may sometimes want no diversions in the form of incoming thought from others. Listening in the quiet darkness, I suppose. Sometimes I think this works better for me and so if I'm in a mess I reserve the right not to put visuals up until they are at a certain stage!!

Here is the latest Savannah, showing about 4 layers of wax and many of dye. I might say it's work as an escape from the tight constraints of Freedom..!! I am now deliberately placing larger wax shapes into the layers and then crackling them at the final stage.

Didn't manage to do a steam yesterday but the second portrait drawing was more successful.

Friday 18th February
Still didn’t manage a steam, partly because of the weather. I do steaming in the garage which means waiting for a dry day that isn’t too cold. Today was wet and it just makes the job unpleasant. If the weather is really cold I am concerned that the heat inside the chamber will be affected and so I sometimes insulate the outer chamber with a blanket, or wrap extra paper inside so that the silk doesn’t “start” until part way in. If you want to see the steaming process and kit, here’s a link.
But the two sets of work are rolled and wrapped work ready for, possibly, tomorrow. I always steam students’ work separately after the Great Steaming Disaster of 2003 when I ruined a piece of work which belonged to a student who had travelled 12,000 miles to come on my course. Actually, this is only partly true as she came for a family visit too, but it adds to the drama and horror of my and her experience. Her work was stained with colour bleeding off an experimental waxed piece of my own. So now I divide work up, and at least it lowers the possibility of damage.
Started a new Savannah but am now out of the long ones which I prefer. I must check if the suppliers have re-stocked.

Saturday 19th February
Steamed the two rolls. My student uses Dupont dyes which don’t need so long in the steamer. The sample Freedom scarf went in with my batch for steaming. I had ironed the wax out as well as possible, then found pristine white paper to roll it in so that there could be no possibility of restain from an old piece of the regular paper I use. I then interleaved the paper, which wasn’t very absorbent, with tissue paper so that some of the remaining wax would have somewhere to go. To recap, I am trying to keep this piece very clean because it has a white background.
I also included the experimental 5 spout tjanting work (see 14th January) which I had forgotten to do in my previous steam. The most recent piece, where I tried several S shapes, looks like something intentional. The others are not very exciting although they have textural interest; they may well discover the joys of the Bargain Basket during Oxfordshire Artweeks. I am taking part in this for one last year, thanks to the kind invitation of friends, although I won’t be there in person very much.

Sunday 20th February

Just a picture for today. Lovely walk on Dartmoor, very cold, clear light.

Monday 21st February
Suffering from something buggy today. In between self-pitying bouts of lying down feeling unpleasant spent the day investigating the logistics of sending a replacement yacht generator to Berrimilla when she and the boys arrive in Port Stanley, Falkland Islands. Their generator has apparently packed in. Not too funny. As there are very limited flights out there I even phoned the RAF to see if they might take pity on us and slip the generator in with the MOD Baked Beans; as yet no info on this. No studio work except a layer of wax which made me feel sick. Fun, fun, fun.

Tuesday 22nd February
RAF has been brilliant and come up trumps but the documentation and arrangements took up a lot of the day and there’s still more to do. I find this sort of fiddle very distracting; waiting for someone to phone is the worst thing. It ought to be possible to do something useful while you wait but somehow the mind will not sit down and get on with it. However I did finish a Savannah (blues and purples) and started a new one. I’m beginning to wonder about them all having the diagonal direction and whether I can now move on from this. Flu-ish bug persists.

Wednesday 23rd February
Yesterday’s frustration of waiting for phone calls has been superseded by today’s waiting for shipping documention. “Improvements in our postal service” mean that we no longer receive deliveries by 9 am, sometimes wait until 2 pm and occasionally, 5 pm.Not our local Post Office’s fault, I must emphasise. So I went to the Post Office to collect personally- but no letter. Back here I put the wax pot on, looked at my painted ground from yesterday, decided I needed to try something else and looked back at the charcoal drawings from 18th / 19th January which are pinned to the wall.
As soon as I’d made the first unalterable wax marks, realised I was going to be in a totally different game where I wasn’t dealing with arrangements of colour and tone any more but having to deal with “arranged elements”. Shouldn't have been a great surprise but it was. I shall blame it on all the distracted waiting. So the first one may not be too brilliant beacuse I have to find a way to express the grass tussocks without making a plonk-plonk-plonk distribution on the rectangular shape. And it has to look good at both ends, of course, being a scarf.

Here's one end after background dye, first wax, second dye, second wax, third dye.

Here's the scarf middle, about three stages later. Nearly finished. I may call scarves done this way Tussocks as they are essentially a different thing from Savannah. I find it helpful naming designs this way as I keep a stocklist with a coding for each design. When a gallery has a query about a scarf, I ask them the code and immediately know what they are describing.

Thursday 24th February
Still awaiting shipping documents for Berrimilla’s replacement generator. I’ve been astonished at how helpful everyone has been in the various departments I have been dealing with. I think the wonderful Dame Ellen has something to do with this: heroic marine achievements are both in the news and popular imagination and it’s easier to explain what Alex and Pete are doing.
Back to the studio. I found a couple of washed blanks in a slightly lighter weight, lustrous crêpe so have complete another Tussock. The lighter weight dries fast so there isn’t such a wait between layers and I finished it during the evening. It won’t photograph well, as the wax makes it look very dark and dreary so I am not including an image. It’s actually got some streaks of bright raspberry pink amongst green so should be vibrant once steamed and cleaned.
The scarf blank was narrower than the other recent one. Because the wax strokes I make with a particular brush have a definite minimum size that gives the effect I want, the tussock shapes have to be a certain minimum size too and of course, the smaller the blank, the fewer tussocks will fit. This one did end up with a plonk-plonk-plonk of three, but I am not so unhappy with it. I must remind myself to keep referring to the original drawing as the tussocks I’m using as inspiration have a rounded, “globe” feel to them. What I have ended up with is more Three Rockets on Firework Night..

Friday 25th February
Apologies to anyone using my log entries as a simple way to find out the date! I have been somewhat adrift all week. Today’s date is correct, however, or so my diary informs me. I’m continuing work on more Savannahs ( I have completed 5 new ones) but attention still taken up with shipping Berrimilla’s generator to the Falklands - and also the Creative Course with which I’m involved ( see 16th / 17th February entry). The course has started now and is entering its third week.

Saturday 26th / Sunday 27th February

Eventually achieved the right light, a reasonably tidy studio and an available man to press the button on the camera: so here’s a pic of me in the the Devon studio. It does appear that I am wired up to the mains, but this is actually my wax-pot lead. Bottom right blue papers are the printouts of my brother's and Pete's progress maps from their mammoth sailing voyage. Savannah hanging centre.

Monday 28th February
This will be the last entry for a week or so as we have an amazing family celebration ahead: my remarkable mother will be 90 and there is a lot to do to prepare for the party.
I’m going to leave The Eye of Horus here for the duration to look after the website, take care of Berrimilla and keep an eye on you visitors.

The Eye of Horus : protection against evil spirits. From a Maltese fishing boat.