June Log

1st-3rd June

When I started writing the studio log, it was some kind of response to the idea of recording thoughts and ideas and related to my brother's voyage in Berrimilla with Peter. Those of you who bother to read this stuff will have followed my various references to it over the months and the very small part we've had in sending stuff out to the Falklands, designing a logo for fund-raising shirts, arranging things for them when they arrive in the UK etc.

On the 2nd June for one day, my diary and Berri's became the same, which is rather a nice knot tied in the tail or tale. I'll put it in here below the photo, but if you want to see photos, go the the main website

This, in many ways, is our favourite picture and captures the amazing sense of arrival - a mucky hull appearing out of the dark after a very long journey.

4th June

Boot ferals departing in droves. Washing machine protesting. Did three more steams of Denman work.

5th - 7th June

Reached a bit of a dead moment with work on 5th. Perhaps it's because I have had a longish break, perhaps because I have reached the end of some roads with certain aspects of the work I've been doing. The result was that having set myself to paint some more Grasstops, the idea made me feel quite sick when it came to the point of getting serious about it. So out came the black paper and some oil pastels, mainly because they were there. I chopped at the paper and made a general mess.

Then I went back to some sketches of grass out on the moor and tried again.

This felt more promising and I could see a way of escaping from the "solution" I was finding in the earlier work. I think that had become the problem. When my solution becomes a way of not thinking, it starts to bore me. I read an interesting piece by Gwendolyn A. Magee called The Creative Process last week. The link to this article was given out on the creative thinking group and I printed it out. She talks about "style". When we start out, we want one. Then we can find the style we have eagerly sought actually begins to block inspiration. She's so right.

So I'm off again, but I can now see the work is coming from the same family of ideas and isn't brand new. Nevertheless, it allows me to make a more graphic and dramatic design and I am happy to play with it. I can't afford to stop and sulk with a big show coming up.

Here's the current sample half way through. The design is going to work best with sparse dramatic strokes and a smooth dark ground.

8th -12th June

A priority this week has been preparation of teaching notes and a handout for my one-day workshop in Oxford on 19th June. Thinking this would simply require an hour of hard graft at the keyboard, I realised 30 diagrams later, that I had involved myself in the major publishing event of the international textile year. It's now done and although I know the diagrams need further work they will certainly be sufficient for the workshop.

I steamed the remainder of the Denman work and the dry-clean part of this will be off to Holsworthy in the morning to await cleaning. To make use of the dry-clean, I then produced three further pieces of my own work and steamed two waiting in the wings to add to the batch.

A mail-out to three magazines with my new leaflet (you can see it on Rachel Richards' Chameleon Studios site here) has resulted in one "pick-up" for the textile feature in Craftsman Magazine for August. This is really good news, as it's in time for a boost for the October course here in Devon. I sent them a CD with images to use. The Guild of Silk Painters Journal also arrived yesterday with the feature on my work, and Jackie Whiting has done a great job with the pictures I sent.

Above is the salt-stained label of a tin of marmalade my brother presented to us earlier this week. Inside the tin is plastic-coated and the marmalade's fine. I think the make is Lackersteens. I've been thinking of some suitable ode to such a well-travelled preserve..

Grotty old tin lurking here on the shelf

Smells of rust and the label's all torn

Salute it, toast-spread it and stand-by-your-bed-it

This marmalade's been round Cape Horn.

Or something. Should probably stick to textiles. Me, not the marmalade.

13th June - 17th June

Apologies to those insomniacs who rely on my updates for nocturnal oblivion. The poetry-writing was clearly too much for me. It's been a very difficult week in many ways but I have been working through it with many scarves in the pipeline, a dry-clean completed and all work from Denman students on its way back to them. I am teaching in Oxford tomorrow and hope to update properly next week. Sleep well, oh reader.

18th June

Travelled up to Oxford in incredible heat and arrived at Sandhills in time to do setting up for the 6 Guilds of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers workshop day "Widening Horizons". It was held at rather an interesting community primary school, very modern, with a central hall full of huge hanging bugs the children had made. The classroom I was to use had a large "wet" area outside which meant I could keep all the dye-working to one place near the water, and off the carpet.

19th June

Intense day, heat and work-wise. 10 students, all keen to learn resist techniques. Some were beginners and some had worked this way before. The twist-dyed scarves were a hit, especially as I was able to steam all of them, plus a few skeins of yarn, before they went home. Many lovely results which students seemd to delight in. Here is one at drying stage.

and a finished one:

Improvements in my organising of the course would be to include more demonstrations, especially of stitch-resist. Students tended to use a thread they thought was strong, but proved to break on tightening. They also had to be taught how tight tight is.. and so sadly there were several failures in the dyeing stages of stitch resist. Clamped and bound work seemed to appear more easily:

Home in the evening after the workshop day, with a sweltering drive down the A303 into glorious evening light. I dropped a fellow tutor off just short of Exeter and came home to arrive at about 10 pm.

20th - 23rd June

Recovery from the weekend took a couple of days but I managed to work on through it with slightly more rest breaks than usual, especially as it was very hot. I am continuing with the new thread of work started and illustrated in the entry for the 5th -7th June and making designs on long and shorter scarf blanks. Going well, with the odd loud hiccup.

24th June

Met and taught new Shebbear students in the morning and in the afternoon whizzed down to Falmouth to see Berri slip back into the water after a week or so being scraped and mended. The boat, not me. Nice moment to be there. Alex and Pete off to Malta tomorrow pm.

The moor down the road is exceptionally luscious, with grasses of all types and textures growing in lunatic profusion. I've taken a few pictures this week and include these:

It's mad, I know, but at the time I ought to be down there drawing, and in the weather that would allow it, I have no time to leave the studio to get on with it.

25th - 30th June

I took those photos just in time as the whole moor has now been cut and the grass taken away. The place looks like a bad scabby haircut and feels sad. I don't know why it was necessary and what horrible effect it has on the wildlife.

I have been working very hard in the studio to make the deadline for the last week when I can have dry-cleaning done before Art in Action. So I have done two steams this week, there will be another over the weekend and I'll take the dry-clean load in on Monday. Then it's down to some hand made cards, checking leaflets, bags, tissue, sewing on labels and tags etc.

I found myself rebelling against the kind of work I have been doing (yet again) and made four scarves which look very flat and graphic on the Waffle Georgette. They are a complete and total contrast and don't really look like my work at all in context. I suppose I am quite tired and there is always that nagging feeling of - have I got enough work - is there enough variety.... there's a recurrent bad dream I've had of starting up at a fair to realise that all the work on the stand is green and blue. I think I need a holiday.