returning

a recent Cultures of Care session with Ruth Singer was about Ruth's lanscape work and how it's links with this topic  - we also touched on how we can interact with the environment without taking anything out of it

all this reminded me of how much i enjoyed my explorations during Place Making and my past experiments with nature art  - how these gave outings into my environment a sense of purpose through physical interaction with it - i really struggle with the idea of "going for a walk" being good for your wellbeing, but it now begins to make sense for me 

i have always found it easy to walk around urban areas because i feel there is more there that i can associate with - natural environments are attractive but i always feel i should be inspired by them in some way, yet i am happy to go and pick up a few conkers or interesting foliage to arrange and leave for others to find - i don't need to come back with an awesomely inspiring concept, just playing like a child with mud and sticks is enough really

so today i made good on my promise to myself to return to our local wildlife sanctuary, to sit and make from gathered ingredients, and/or journal about it on the spot - it got too hot to stay and write, but i gathered some fallen fruits and nibbled nut shells, wove a little dish for them and recorded my little offering

on my gathering expedition i came across windfall plums or damsons, so a bit of foraging happened as well!

re-playced - 4

 a twig with lichen

this replaycing marked a change of approach - i fell able to let go of my little treasures now, so i have stopped recording where i place them

instead i just hope that they are found and that they bring a little pleasure to the finder's day

for some reason lichen appeals to me, the combination of subdued colours and crunchy texture invites me to try and reproduce it in paper, or stitch, or something...

a photo of this after re-playcing will appear here soon

i saw this lichen covered twig created by Laura Youngsen Coll once and found it inspiring, but have never dared try to emulate it 

re-placed - 3

 compass case

this seemed an unusual object to find in a supermarket car park, but the colour attracted my attention as I got closer

re-playced - 2

cable hook with red thread (the one with pink thread will be re-playced later)

these came off the eves of the house next door during refurbishment -  the hooks attached a telephone cable under the edge of the roof, after it had branched off from a telegraph pole on the street 

they went out of use when cables went underground, and modern equivalents tend to be plastic - i really like the contrast of the pristine white ceramic "washer" against the rusted iron hook

location of re-playced 2

re-playced - 1

 the first to go, a nitrous oxide cylinder

i didn't know why i kept seeing these shiny little capsules lying around until i googled them - i had last seen these when we had a soda siphon in the late 60s, but i read that they are now filled with nitrous oxide (lauhing gas) and used as a recreational drug.... i suppose it was bound to happen!

i learned that these are normally

produced for making whipped cream in canisters, but now commonly inhaled for a high using a balloon 

so, in a way the rainbow wrap i gave it seems quite appropriate

re-playced 1 - in situ

re-playcing goes public

Ruth Singer has arranged an online exhibition for us to share what we have been doing during our Maker Membership so far

I have chosen my re-playcing collection - although it started as part of Place-Making, the idea of rewilding the collected objects came about through the Maker Membership

this has meant producing a brief artist's statement and some text to accompany the work exhibited, as well as attempting to take some good photos to submit

writing the statement, in 150 words or less, was a very useful exercise - making me give serious thought to what i tried to achieve through this work - ordering and condensing my rambling thoughts was really helpful - i feel this will have a longer-term influence as i now have a greater sense of purpose for what i do:

 

I stitch by hand to tell stories, share ideas and explore themes which influence my life. Recently these have included family history and re-discovery of my immediate neighbourhood.

Reclaimed cloth and meaningful objects are my usual starting point for stitch, which I add to embellish and build structure. I include other media and techniques like eco-dyeing and printing, when I feel the subject needs them.

I make for myself, for pleasure and reflection, often starting with research before letting work develop organically.

Through Maker Membership I am building confidence in following my own meandering path. One result of this is “Replaycing” which started as explorations during Place Making with Alice Fox. I collected objects which I wrapped and cherished. These will be “re-wilded” for others to collect and treasure.

Replaycing – The discarded detritus of people's lives and gifts from nature, collected and lovingly adorned before being returned for others to discover and cherish or discard.....again.

I see waste as an abuse of what we could use and value. Some see stitching as wasted time and energy, here I use it to add value to what I find. 

Pockets for Replaycing - Made from my own eco-dyed fabric and natural yarns, these pockets will hold my collected objects in places where I hope they will be found. 

collecting thoughts 4 - holding

i recently agreed to do something which means i have to delay rewilding my found objects - so they will accumulate until autumn when I can finally disperse them, like late fruit!

since the end of the Place Making course i have joined an ongoing group about creative development with Ruth Singer, Maker Membership -  every 3 months we are offered a new theme which we can follow or not as we wish

while i work on the objects my thoughts wander and at one point i realised that this brings together two of the MM themes: Land and Objects - the objects come from the small area of Land where i live, which i have been exploring, and they will go back there....probably to a different location, so they will have traveled and had experiences albeit passively

i begin to see their “embellishment” as part of the experience they share with me - not really an interaction as they are passive objects, but a process during which they have been temporarily altered

random objects which have been chosen to share my life and space for a while

i am usually hopeless at parting with things, but i look forward to parting with these as little gifts to the land where i live, with a hope that someone else will let them into their life for a while

but i do wonder if all this is simply a way of justifying my childlike impulses to collect, play with and leave my mark on stuff...??

lost and found

 

some of the finds which will be going to new places in their pockets

 all of them are here

selecting the embellishment for each little treasure can be a surprisingly long process - sometimes involving several attempts with a lot of trial and error

making more places for.....

after much dithering, pondering, sampling and general prevarication i think i have found a way forward with the collected items

a recent course on Sculptural Pockets with Debbie Lyddon gave me much food for thought, as well as a yummy recipe for flapjacks – i was not particularly happy with the “pocket” i made during the class but left buzzing with ideas, some of which i have been experimenting with

my main block here has been the thought of making more objects to hold objects which i don't need – the items were collected in a sort of magpie manner because they caught my eye or said something about the place somehow – but i don't need them or more displays of things

but I do want to honour them in some way and show they have been valued and cherished

then suddenly today everything came together …....  wrapped in a pocket, the items can return to a different part of my place for someone else to find! this idea makes me so happy because it feels so right

and it can go a stage further, with a photo of each item in its new place and a mark on a map to keep on my blog as a record

i have already made a sample pocket

this shape is really accomodating, size is easily adjusted to fit the item

collected leaves

 also in progress is some leaf stitching - early thoughts had been to make a book form with these, but i don't feel i have the skills for that 

so i am adding to them with scraps and little manipulations

 the leaf edges got a bit damaged in the process ... not sure about that.....? 

making a place for.........

 time for a catch up after a lull 

now i have moved in to my happy hut, i have resumed progress with sifting through the result of my walks and collecting - one of the walk mapping cloths is turning into a soft bag/pot 

the stitching needed to be extended to cover the join, so that is still going on - lovely meditative work and the fabric is such a pleasure to work on

tricky to take pics as it is now 3D

i'm happy with how this is progressing - it will be a place made for something 

ps - february 2022 the completed bag  

                   

developing walk maps

 i've shifted my wavering focus to developing the printed walk routes

the routes are stitched in ecodyed yarns - this looked stark and lacked depth, so i experimented with a top layer of ecodyed sheer, finally deciding on a very fine silk organza with ghostly markings

i added areas of pavement markings drawn from my photos of street furniture

and for more dimension i am layering on stitching which refers to the texture of the security fencing i pass on my way to the supermarket, such a stark contrast to the more natural area i emerge from just before reaching it

there is a good reason for my distraction for once - a month ago my new workspace arrived and i have been busy moving into and organising my new "happy hut" - this has prompted me to do some serious thinning of my stash but i am feeling lighter with every item i choose to part with - hopefully someone somewhere will benefit from my recycling 

more sampling, with a purpose

building up pieces to assemble as a concertina or zig-zag book

slowly progressing with my stitched walk maps - drawing on my stash of ecodyed fabric and threads 

i'll be adding more to this .......soon

another WIP and it's starting point - 

the marks reflect my visual finds around the place i am exploring 

i am also doing a course which involves machine embroidery, so these hand-stitched pieces are my restful stitching - i really get absorbed in the rythm of stitch, building the marks

moving on a bit

 after a lot of procrastination i finally tried out my oak and walnut extracts, i won't call them inks as i have not added the relevant ingredients 

i used some to reproduce some pavement patterning - using slightly diluted extracts as background, adding a thickener for the dots

then i used my print blocks to build up a background pattern with slightlly different dilutions, again with thickener

the blocks show some of the routes i have been walking - traced from a map shown here and mentioned in an earlier post

this time i kept the prints separate 

these will all be used as bases fo further stitching

in the meantime i have continued to collect and add stitch to found items

i have a particular soft spot for leaf skeletons, the network patterns fascinate me - i'd love to stitch these to some organza with gossamer silk ....... if i feel that i can do the skeletons justice.......?

another half leaf, with a repair at the point

and a combination of finds

i am beginning to think about ways of bring some of these elements together but am a fair way from attempting it yet

sampling

 

an image from a walk, converted to stitched textile (in progress) - threads and fabric from my stash of materials dyed with local plants

leaf stitching - not sure what the leaves are, they are really big and almost leathery, i added a bottle cap for scale 

- i don't think they are magnolia as those have no leaves left round here and the tree still had leaves hanging on - these were on the ground and picked up with the kind owner's permission - i dried them, lightly pressed between sheeets of acid-free paper, sadly most of the subtle colour and markings merged to brown - but they are a great surface for stitch 

routes for my walks - to be converted into stamps and used to build up patterns with the inks i am making 

inks: walnut husks from garden behind EG meeting place - oak galls from our oak tree - both macerated for years, concentrated beside our stove

a digital version of potential patterns

found during a walk - now cleaned and ready for embellishment with dyed yarns

tracks and marks observed

i need practice with capturing the textures in mud, probably need to use a lower angle, but it gets mucky!

screws seem to catch my eye

i visualise this in shades of walnut and oak inks with some stitched detail