March 2005

Wednesday March 9th

Back home after a week away in Malta. Finally it seems as though the replacement generator will take to the skies tomorrow courtesy of the RAF and the Falkland Islands Government Office in London, all of whom have been incredibly helpful. The last magic numbers on the Airwaybill were relayed to me in Malta, faxes flew, phones rang, and the effing form was finally filled in. The boys and Berrimilla are now at crunch point in their journey with Cape Horn only a few hundred miles ahead. So the Eye of Horus is staying firmly put on the What's New page just for now.
At Heathrow I picked up a book about the history of writing and alphabets, a subject that has been playing at the edge of my thoughts in the Freedom saga. Dear insomniac friends, relief is at hand. Your troubles will end with the recommencement of this topic. At the beginning of last month I wrote:
...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?

I’ll call this non-recognisable abstraction of the word the reduced form. When I looked at the reduced form it reminded me of cyphers, pictograms, or of ancient or foreign alphabets. One can appreciate these often exquisite marks (such as cuneiform) as shape, pattern and rhythm. One also knows they have meaning - even if it's simply an ancient record of how many white goats were owned by the man in the third field south of the river. Through my playing about with the reduced form I developed a curiosity about how information is communicated in the forming of letters, syllabic symbols, pictograms etc. Hence the book, and hence, no doubt, more sleep-inducing moments for you readers.

Here is a beautiful wooden door photographed in Ghargur, Malta. Not a posh painted entrance with a brass dolphin knocker but a wonderful patched, bleached, weather-beaten shed door by the roadside. The sign above is scratched "SAN BERT".

10th /11th March
Into the studio again. I go through a slight tidy and clean up (my family might disagree) in my studio before I go away anywhere. So when I get back in there’s a sort of mentat crust-breaking that goes on while I find stuff, sort thoughts and start off again.
Last time I went to Malta, before Christmas, I started reading a book called Underworld, by Don deLillo. It is an extraordinary and very accomplished book, and also very long. I managed to reach about half way through when I returned to the UK at Christmas, and felt it was too good a book to waste by reading in the ten minute bursts I was likely to have during the holiday. So I reluctantly put it aside.
On this recent visit to Malta I took it with me to start reading again, and of course I had lost, dropped or forgotten many of the important threads in the novel which are vital to the coherent whole. So I went back quite a way, re-reading and then overlapping the last few hundred pages I read last December.
It now strikes me that the process with this book is similar to what happens when you go away from studio work for a while, and why interruptions can be frustrating.
One interesting thing happened with re-reading. I create mental images as I read, and these are clearly identifiable if, say, I re-read the same page in the same week. But re-reading some parts of the book I had read in December but forgotten, I created entirely new imagery, almost as if I had never seen the passage before. Then, via a phrase or word, I sometimes encountered the old imagery again and had two to deal with. Very strange thing, memory.

12th March
Great news to supersede any nonsense emanating from my studio. Berimilla was abeam the Horn at about 11 pm UK time last night. Due to the Berri webmaster running a marathon this weekend, the site is not being updated until Australian Sunday. So if any of you are worried about the lack of information, all seems well and they are now on on their way to Port Stanley. It’s an exhilarating moment and a cork will certainly be popping in this household tonight.

Pete (right) and Alex (above) with Cape Horn in the background - reproduced with kind permission of Berri's crew and webmaster Steve. Clearly, celebrating rounding the Horn requires a drink in both hands.. These pictures were uploaded to Steve when Berri reached the Falklands but I am putting them chronologically in the right place.

13th March
Yesterday and today I took some pictures as reference for a course I’m doing next weekend with batik artist Robin Paris in Launceston. It is called Landscapes - Between the Real and the Abstract. I am really looking forward to it (and to being a student for a change). I am hoping to learn more ways to achieve textures and effects with wax, but also to meet more “textile people” in the area. Photos I'm taking include a local stream through woods (right) and I will also take some photos from the series I shot in Hampshire last summer. One is shown below left. This photo is from the same series I have been using for my Savannah series. I don't normally use photos as direct source material, but the grasses have been an exception.

14th / 15th March
Washed out some more crêpe de Chine blanks. These include a really large heavy crêpe shawl blank (55cm x 1.7m ); one of several I was awarded after winning a prize at SPIN at Santa Fe 2004. It is too big for my standard frames so I am improvising one by clamping two parallel lengths of wood to two tables, at the right distance apart for the blank. I am going to give it the Savannah wax treatment so I need stability along the long edges rather than the shorter.
I ironed wax out of several scarves (check my wax page for health and safety opinion on this). I think the latest ones have become too muddy colour-wise; maybe it’s because I have become a bit too familiar with the Savannah formula and inspiration and have stopped thinking enough as I work. The mud occurs when, basically, there are too many colours building up together. I generally prefer to make work in defined, clearer colours, and so am going to concentrate hard on the next pieces.
Berrimilla now in Port Stanley, Falkland Islands, and it does seem the generator is there and waiting.

16th / 18th March
Not that I haven’t been doing anything, but there didn’t seem much new to say. I tried a very large shawl as described in the previous entry and had a bit of a fight with the colours. The process of working back from colours by covering them layer after layer and adding more dye can occasionally lead to a metaphorical "holing into a corner". For instance, one can find that the green left standing out of one area no longer works with the surrounding colours because the sequencing has somehow changed the cast of the colour scheme. There is absolutely not a thing that can be done about it with this process, except to carry on, de-wax, steam and dry clean, and overdye if necessary.
The second shawl I have completed is much more tight on colour and has worked a lot better. I restricted myself to two colours, or variations of colours (green and bordeaux). I am also finding that the shawl fabric, being 14mm weight, needs the wax at higher temperature to penetrate. Otherwise there are unsightly stainy sort of bleeds under wax lines which haven’t penetrated right through and they are uncontrollable once they start.
To my great upset and disappointment I discovered yesterday that Denman College have left me out of their 2005 / 6 college programme. It seems to be an oversight due to a change of organiser rather than a statement about my teaching as I completed and sent off all the paperwork at the correct time, but it leaves a large hole in my teaching for that period. Sad. I will make more active plans to try to make up the time with some courses down here in Devon.

19th March

Glorious spring day at Launceston with Robin Paris. Very tired, so in brief: worked on abstracting some designs in two stages on paper and and then worked on cotton with procion dyes. Robin showed us her collection of mark-makers for wax: I hope she never tries to take it through Customs or she'll be arrested! Chains, spikes, forks, chicken wire, springs; you name it, Robin uses it - and to wonderful effect. Can't wait to get back tomorrow. Annoyingly my digi-cam appears to have packed in and won't close. I shall not be buying another Kyocera at this rate : this is the second time I've had major problems.

For some images from this course kindly sent to me by Nancy, another student, click here. and scroll down to April 7th.

20th March
Very intense day of work, again with Robin Paris at Launceston. Robin had encouraged us to consider where “real” meets abstract and yesterday we had started to work on pieces which were based on water and interpreted via very abstracted presentation of colour and texture. The texture was created with her many and varied mark-makers; for instance a very effective mark/texture was achieved with a length of chain dipped in wax and laid onto the fabric. All the students queued up to use the chain..! We built up layers of wax and dyes and Robin made us cut simple fish forms from paper. These were laid onto the cotton and were worked over and around with wax at each stage (in the same place) so the eventual form emerged gradually as the layers built up. My fish are not that distinct because I wasn’t bold enough with the wax. It must very difficult dealing with students like me who are entrenched in their own way of working. Beginners are, maybe, easier kettles of fish.
I part-finished a second piece based on the photo in the entry for 13th March and I will try to finish this at home as I have some procion dyes and soda ash in the store cupboard. It was great to work on cotton. The feel is different to silk and the dyes move more slowly. They also split into separate colours more distinctly as they migrate across the fabric.
Robin is a relaxed tutor but very clear in what she wanted us to achieve. I found it an exceptionally enjoyable two days with some very interesting students. I tend to forget how exciting it can be to work with other people. If you’re reading this, thanks again, Robin.

21st - 23rd March
I have been engaged in combat with something unpleasant which threatens to take control of my breathing tubes. From time to time I think everything’s ok, then I feel exceedingly tired and on the verge of drowning in my nasal version of wallpaper paste. So my contributions to internet trivia have been curtailed for a few days. Tonight I managed to stretch up a scarf, re-stretch the unfinished piece from Robin’s workshop, and pretend I was working because I had also washed 4 jars. They are, indeed, very clean. I also managed to get out in the sunshine and prepare some of our new veg patch for sowing parsley. Something lurking from my past reminds me that the day to sow parsley seed is Good Friday, no matter how early Easter is.

24th March

Preparing for guests over the Easter weekend, but I have decided not to give the studio the State Visit Makeover which entails putting everything neatly in rows so it looks craft magazine wonderful, but means I never find anything ever again. The breathing tubes are slightly less enraged today so I hope the bug responsible is heading on out. Spring is springing here, the fields are filled with lambs and the banks covered in primroses. Hey nonny nonny etc.

Long Easter Weekend 25th - 28th March

Excursions with our vistors this weekend. So here are some pictures.

Above: a view of the roof of Exeter Cathedral, showing the magnificent roof bosses

Below left: Bude and the incoming tide. Right: Lobster creels at Bude. These are working textiles!

29th March

Back in the studio today. The weeks are ticking away and I must start thinking about a small collection of work for Oxfordshire Artweeks in May / June, and then a bigger build-up of things for Art in Action in July. I also need to address the problem of displaying my textiles. I want to modify the system I have always used at big fairs and somehow make it simpler. I'll probably set out the complete body of studio work downstairs and make a starter selection, thinking about prices, colours, and where there are gaps.

January log

February log