As per my previous blog about the 'rebuild' of my studio I have sorted out a selection of fabric packs for sale on my Etsy site. These are combinations of overs from dyeing runs, pieces that didn't dye perfectly and pieces that I dyed for my own art but have decided not to use. I have also reduced the price on 4 pieces of wall art already listed on Etsy.

You can find my shop by clicking on the Etsy button to the right of this blog. I'm also offering a 10% discount across all items - just use the coupon code STUDIOSALE2015 during checkout.

Around all of the disruption in the studio I have managed to produce some really lovely pieces of cloth using breakdown printing. (I have produced some ugly pieces too!). I start by spreading thickened procion dyes onto the back of silkscreens then embedded various objects including metal joining plates before leaving to dry. On a nice sunny day this only takes a couple of hours. But I live in Manchester so sometimes I have to dry the screens indoors overnight. Once the screens are completely dry I pull through with plain thickened paste. Sometimes I keep the prints separate and quite pale. Other times I print off until the screen is completing spent. The printed cloth is left overnight to batch then washed out. Wonderful!

I am a great one for making plans, writing lists and organizing my working methods to give maximum output especially in the studio where time is very precious. I am so much more relaxed and productive when I have a plan. But life has a way of disrupting plans! I've been sharing my studio with my son Callum for the last year to support him starting his own picture framing business. It has been wonderful to be able to do this and we have worked around each other reasonably well. He uses it 2 or 3 days in the week and I use it in the evenings and at weekends. We each have to tidy up a bit more than we would do if we weren't sharing but it has been a real pleasure to see his business grow. And I have got to see some wonderful pieces of photography, print and even textiles. The great news is that he is now moving into his own studio. The bad news is the period of chaos that we are going through!

The date he got access to his new space has been a bit fluid. As has how many hours he can spend getting the space ready (it needs a lot of work!). So the date he moves out of my studio has become very fluid. He also still needs to earn money so he has been coming into the studio at odd times including weekends to do framing. When he moves out next weekend he will be taking his big work bench and the glass and paper store we build on the back wall. This will involve dismantling them. And then he needs to build me a new print bench and some more storage spaces. All of which creates sawdust. Lots of sawdust. Which means I will be packing up and covering up all my stuff for a period of at least two weeks.

I don't actually mind being without a studio for a couple of weeks because I'm going to end up with more space (and no sawdust). But uncertainty is a powerful distraction. Although I'm making good progress on the goals I set for April and May I have struggled to enjoy the hours that I have spent at my print bench and am not as happy with the results as normal. As Steven Pressfield would say the Resistance is very strong in my life right now.

So my coping strategy - shift focus to activities that don't require 'creative' input. And to activities that I can stop and start at short notice. I have been busy finishing 'finished' pieces - that is binding or stretching, adding labels and photographing. The extra space means that I'll be able to move all of my 'stuff' out of various nooks and crannies in the house. Including all my quilts and my many boxes of fabric. So I'm using this period of chaos to think about how to store quilts and to decide if I even want to keep all of them. I'm also looking at all my boxes of fabric and wondering the same thing. Maybe a 'studio' sale on Etsy?

The key thing is that I am still 'turning up every day' and 'doing the work'. So what if it is not the work I thought I would be doing. Steven Pressfield would be proud!

One of my goals for this spring was to finish at least 8 of my Hidden Message skyscraper pieces. Having realized that my older Hidden Message pieces would be too big for the Etcetera exhibition at Platform Gallery, Clithero (12 - 27th September) I intentionally set out to create pieces that were 12 inches wide by 30 inches high. I had to dye more fabric, print using a smaller scale and finally, think of a more appropriate construction process. Hence the skyscraper pieces which I have documented in earlier posts. I constructed and stitched 4 pieces during the Rydal retreat in February. Over the last few weeks I have completed another 4 pieces and have 'finished' all 8. In this case finishing has meant stretching over canvas, adding labels and picture hooks. I brought a box of 10 12 x 30inch own brand stretched canvases from Jacksons Art Supplies who have a great selection of canvases (and other lovely things!) and give a decent saving if you buy in bulk. The method I used for stretching my pieces has been really well described by fellow Etcetera member Helen Conway. I used double sided tape instead of contact adhesive and finished the backs by covering the edges of textile with a self adhesive fabric tape (well I am a neat freak!). I added fabric labels to the back of each piece. I used an Epson S22 printer with pigment inks to print onto hand dyed fabric. I love this method of finishing my work. And I have ticked a box!

This weekend I finished After Images. I have entered it into the Contemporary Quilt Group Challenge called Elements. If successful it will be shown at Festival of Quilts in August.

It is years and years since I have made a piece specifically for a themed challenge. Back when I used to describe myself as a 'just' a quilter and was a member of a couple of traditional patchwork and quilting groups I almost felt a sense of obligation to enter various themed competitions. I often read or heard that it was a way to show support for groups such as the Quilters Guild or to show support for quilt shows such as Malvern. And it probably is. And certainly many people love entering challenges. But, for me, 'forcing' myself to create something was usually a negative experience. Over the years I made some truly horrible pieces as I tried to respond to a theme that did not inspire me. Eventually I said 'never again' and vowed to only work on pieces that come from me. From ideas that I want to spend time exploring. Using materials and techniques that evolve through experimentation and play.

So I was rather surprised when I read the title of the CQ Challenge and realized that it would fit very nicely with ideas that I have worked on over the last couple of years around 'chemistry'. And the relatively small format has allowed me to fit this piece around the two series that I currently have running: Hidden Messages and Ruins. Serendipity! And maybe the beginning of another series??

I'm also really pleased that it is a CQ challenge as the quality of work submitted to previous challenges has been excellent. And the pieces are shown in a gallery setting which is a better fit for me. For those that don't know it the Contemporary Quilt Group is a specialist group within the British Quilters Guild and its' members include many wonderful artists (and friends!). So I know that I will be in very good company whether I am accepted or rejected.

 

Inspiration is for amateurs, the rest of us just show up and get to work' (Chuck Close)

I've been keeping track of the hours I spend on my art for a few years now and used to be pretty happy if I managed 15 hours a week. I used to let myself take 3 hours off that target for every night I spent away from home with my day job. And I'd take 6 hours off that total if I was busy with other stuff one day at the weekend. As you can imagine there were weeks when 'art' owed me time!

That all changed last year. Building a studio space has given me somewhere so lovely to work why would I want to be anywhere else. And then I read the 'War of Art' and 'Turning Pro' by Steven Pressfield and decided that I was ready to turn pro. So my weekly target is now 20 hours per week. If I'm away from home for 1 or 2 nights my target is still 20 hours. If I have family stuff happening at the weekend my target is still 20 hours. If I loss a day to a migraine my target is still 20 hours. (I even got up early on Christmas Day to get a couple of hours in!!). If I know I'm going to be travelling a lot or otherwise tied up with the day job I 'book' myself a holiday from the studio. And I record my hours on a planner pinned to the cupboard where I store the studio biscuit tin so I am guaranteed to see how I'm doing.

I've also paid attention to how easy or hard it is to walk out to the studio each evening or each day. And to the type of activity I prefer to do.  I noticed that I was much more relaxed and more productive in the spring and summer as the evenings got longer. Although the studio is only 20m from the house it takes an extra effort to go out to the studio on winter evenings when it is dark, cold and wet. In the spring and summer I really love doing wet process, in the autumn and winter I prefer to stitch. I also noticed that I was particularly productive during the 4 long weekends we have due to public holidays. And that my productivity was disproportionally bigger than the extra hours would suggest. I found that I could give myself 'permission' to sit in the garden or even have a nap and still produce some great work.

So this year I am experimenting with time. I know that if I take a weeks holiday from my day job to spend in the studio I will run out of energy by the Thursday and won't achieve the hours that I would expect. Instead this year I am taking 5 Mondays off in April and May. Combined with the public holidays that means I have 8 long weekends across April and May.  I spent time in March when I couldn't be in the studio thinking about what I want to achieve over this period and it is pretty ambitious. I have set myself the goal of completing 4 more Hidden Message pieces ready for the Etcetera exhibition in September. I am also going to complete the After Image piece for the CQ Challenge. And I'm going to create more cloth for the Ruins series. I want to complete 2 fairly large Ruins pieces by end September so need to get all the textile printed by the end of May. And I also want to finish Ruins 3.

The Easter weekend was the first one. I put in a great 15 hours spread across 3 days and spent the fourth day starting some long overdue decorating. I finished the Ruins 3 piece. I stitched a Hidden Message piece (see photo below). And I did not feel in the least bit resentful when I was up a ladder painting a wall. So far so good!

At last my travels are over (for now) and I have been able to get back into the studio! There is not a lot to be said for sitting in a plane for 14 hours but it did mean that I had thought through exactly what I wanted to do to one of my 'happy accident' discharged pieces of cloth. Looking at the darkest piece had reminded me of fragments of old sepia and black photographs; layers of our lives, past and present, the memories that stay with us and those that fade away. So I gave the cloth the working title of 'After Image'.

My first degree is in Chemistry and I have always enjoyed working this into my art. I have made a couple of pieces inspired by Copper in the past but this new piece of cloth got me thinking about the fact that we all share the same chemistry. Over 99% of the human body is made up of just 6 elements: Oxygen, Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Calcium and Phosphorus. From this finite set of elements are created infinite possibilities.

So I began by adding a layer of fine print onto the discharged squares using three thermofaxes - one of the periodic table and two of different molecules. I have had these for a while but have never found the perfect place to use them until now! I then created a temporary screen and printed larger grey 'water' molecules across the surface of the fabric. (The human body is made up of 57% water.) All this was done using screenprinting inks so the cloth dried quickly.

The Contemporary Quilt group challenge for this summers Festival of Quilts is called Elements (how convenient!!) and has a size requirement of 45 x 80cm. I was able to cut this and 4 small pieces approximately 20 x 20cm from the cloth. I have used the small squares to sample different stitching ideas. My ideas evolved as I moved from one to the next. In the first one I stitched different size circles and connected them with straight lines. I liked the idea but wanted something less 'rigid'. So in the second piece I tried to replicate one of those diagrams that show flight routes between airports. I stitched curved lines spreading out from one point. Sometimes stopping, sometimes becoming a hub for more lines. Having stitched the piece I printed small white circles on the hubs. I liked this piece a lot. In the third piece I tried adding chemical symbols in different ways. I liked the H and the N but neither where obviously chemical elements. So in the fourth piece I stitched a more detailed symbol which included the name of the element as well as it's symbol. Then I added a set of curved lines. I love this and now know how I will stitch the full piece! I am so glad to be back in the studio!

I am very pleased to announce the first exhibition by Etcetera at the Platform Gallery in Clithero, UK between 12th and 27th September 2015!

Etcetera is a group of 7 textile artists (including me). The other members are Linda Bilsborrow, Julie Bunter, Helen Conway, Isobel Holland, Magie Relph and Sandra Wynam. We formed about two years ago with the specific intention of supporting and encouraging each other as we strive to develop as textile artists. An important part of that is exhibiting in 'white space' galleries alongside artists using other media. We are a diverse group so chose the broad theme of Transitions for our first exhibition. It has been interpreted in very different ways by the group members. I will be showing pieces from my Hidden Message series which are inspired by the cultural transition taking in place in China today.

You can find more about us on our website www.stitchetcetera.com

You can find more about the Platform Gallery at Platform Gallery

Address: Station Road, Clithero, BB7 2JT

Telephone: 01200 425566

Opening times: Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm, Saturday 10am to 4.30pm

My day job involves quite a bit of travelling and there are periods when I have a series of trips week after week that keep me out of the studio. The month of March is one such period with two trips to Germany, one to China and one within the UK. And, of course, each trip requires some level of preparation further eating into studio time. So I came back from my week at Rydal Hall knowing that I should not expect to do anything in the studio for the next 4 - 5 weeks. I took the opportunity to put my sewing machine in for a service and had a good tidy up in the studio. And tried not to feel bereft!

But last Saturday I realized I could, if I was quick, squeeze in a bit of bench work so I decided to do some more experimenting with discharge. I had a lovely 2 hours laying down discharge paste first then over printing with thickened dyes. And the next morning I found time to iron then wash the pieces. I was getting a LOT of colour coming out of the fabric as I rinsed it. And then realized that I had printed onto fabric from my 'scoured' box rather than from my 'soda soaked' box! Oh boy, if I could have kicked myself I would! I quickly added soda and hot water to the rinse bucket in the hope of salvaging something. The results can best be described as pale and vaguely interesting.

This is the first time I have ever made this mistake and I was really annoyed with myself so I stayed up late on Sunday evening repeating the work on pre-soda soaked fabric thinking that I could find enough time on Monday evening to iron off and rinse the pieces. But the day job intervened and it was Tuesday evening before I got back into the studio. I was horrified to find that the pieces of fabric had already started to discharge leaving areas of yellow, green and purple! I have had pieces discharge when I have hung them outside in the sun but I've this had happened with the fabric sat on the bench.

I ironed the fabrics until the fabric felt like cardboard but couldn't get the colours to change - I really thought that I had ruined yet more fabric. But I figured that I might as well rinse them out and was wonderfully surprised when all the 'nasty' colours washed away leaving a couple of really gorgeous pieces of fabric. I had used black and dark brown. In one piece (pictured above) I used full strength colours which have discharged to indigo and a dark sepia. And in the piece below I used medium strength colours which discharged to pale blue greys and beiges. In both pieces there is a lot more detail and texture than I have seen in my previous experiments. Could this be because I left them so long? Maybe. I'll have to do some more experimenting to find out.