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!

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

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

collecting thoughts 3 - principles

11TH Dec 2020 - listening to the other group members today helped me to distill my guidelines which remained vague even after a couple of weeks of reflection

explore - 

• the routes i currently walk, several of which are new to me, others more familiar, all offer different potential for collecting

collect - 

• occasional natural resources and found objects
• images, textures, impressions, observations

record and express - 

• on paper, where & when relevant
• later on fabric with my dyed yarns
• digitally here and as photos 

materials: mostly what i have in stock already with some additional collected materials from my walks - use ecodyed fabrics and yarns from my stash - these draw on earlier learning and experience and form the foundation on which this project is based - they come from the place i have occupied for the past many years

 work towards making a variety of useful items which express and reflect "my place"  through the materials and imagery used -  until recently my environment has mostly been indoors in my home and the garden - so exploring my local enviroment and getting out of the house independently on a regular basis represents a new beginning for me - i want to use this course as a way towards recording it in a tangible way, sometimes as objects i can hold and use 

some finds

loss of function seems to be a common factor in many of my finds

embellishing the scissors is my way of making this a feature

strange brews

 poor mick is worried about me spilling some of my nasty looking brews! i have been using the wood-burner to help concentrate my oak and walnut liqours by evaparation - using a wide stainless steel bowl allows a large surface area, but this is always risky as i tend to be a bit clumsy - no slips so far though

for once i have been noting results:

other ongoing brews are onion skin and budleia .......?

also during my walks i scavenged* some cotinus leaves which still had colour - after getting some information about obtaining blue prints from cotinus i tried a few bundles - got some lovely prints, but nothing i would really call blue although i was close in one case 

cotinus + some sumac, cotton fabric, wallpaper, folded bundle

cotinus + odd sumac leaf on dupion silk and hot press watercolour

as above

the silk and watercolour paper gave the best print definition where the lower leaf surface was in contact, but the cotton and lining paper gave pleasing results too - fresher leaves would probably have yielded different colours but in december i was limited to what i could find

the process involved iron water and alum, i know that my alum solution was correct but suspect that the iron water was too strong, the fabric soaked in it took on a rather more yellow colour than i would have wanted - i will try again with a solution in which the sediment has settled more, leaving a lighter coloured solution - but my stock of leaves is small so i will be cautious

- - - - - - - - - - - 

* at one stage this involved knocking on a stranger's door and getting down on my knees on their wet lawn! i'm sure they think i'm bonkers, but i know i am so that's ok

session 1 tasks

collecting and storing are already an established habit so the focus for me will be working out my "manifesto" - wrong term as far as i'm concerned but the right one is elusive

for me it's the what, how, why and where - and i need to establish some rules and limits to encourage focus - one thing i have really accepted lately is that small achievable targets are much better for me so i need to bear that in mind

where this is the point of the course as it is about recording "my place" - at the moment i feel it is about my recent and new experience of exploring the area around my home - i have a rough idea of the geography, it's the area within which i take my daily walks, mostly without using the car - 

that's roughly it - i need to firm up the boundaries on the map, but i know where they are in my mind - the pink area is moot - it's the golf course which has only been available for part of the time and i relied on the car to get to the starting point of the walk 

i tend to stick to footpaths as rough ground is a bit risky due to dodgy balance - it's also rather wet and claggy at this time of year

basically an urban area with patches of nature in varying states

what is the stuff i find, collect and already have - i might collect physically, but also photographically and mentally as thoughts, ideas and images - also included is the parts of my stash which i feel appropriate by way of textile supplies

it is also what i aim to produce - while being process led i know i want to end up witha a useful product, something which has a purpose other than just decorative - so i think my aim will be small vessels or containers, like cloth pots and/or wraps for small items, books etc

to be continued