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!

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

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

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 

collecting thoughts 2

 

i have become more aware of the textures and patterns around me 

i stop and look closely at these every time i pass them - the colour gradations and lacy decayed flowers captivate me

our local level crossing was recently refurbished with an enclosed approach, for safety (and thereby hangs a long tale and much local outrage, but the locals won) -  i keep eyeing up the pattern of built up of layers of this grid ........

.....and the wood edging, with blue "cat's eyes" which light up so attractively at night (meant to prevent us from straying onto the rail line)

this security fence topping has always caught my eye, but here the green blue and silver-grey composition seems to offer so much stitching potential

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

 

collecting thoughts 1

 walking to sainsburys in the rain i noticed the lichen patches on the tarmac pavement - randomly scattered, looking like something trodden in - but i have noticed them before and realised what they were, this time it was how different they look in the rain which caught my attention - they look even more like random patches of trodden in grunk! 

the  patches seem to increase in density nearest the grass allongside the tarmac - must take some photos when dryer

on the way home i found some lichen which has fallen from a tree onto the path - a rare find and i don't like to harvest it since it takes so long to grow

so fragile - i love the way the branches become filigree and the white crustiness on the other surface (not shown)

two days later passing a small oak, similar in size to the one in our own garden - i was thinking about how successfully it had been pruned and how large the remaining leaves were - noticed a falen leaf on the edge of the drive, with lovely water drops

impossible to collect physically, the image is lovely - the contrasts of water drops on the leaf surface, organic leaf edge against the hard bricks, grey and red bricks ...and the tiny leaf to the side - a natural composition, happy that i caught it - maybe something to preserve in another way...?