Hidden tasks

Another Beastly Art Exhibition is on its way, but not closely enough yet for publicity images, Facebook events or web pages.  Nevertheless, much of the work I've been doing over the past couple of months is in preparation for the exhibition in the middle of November.  No pots while I'm in France, but textiles work, cards and earrings can all be made here and the work you see at an exhibition has often been made months ahead, as I think I've mentioned here before.

As I was working away yesterday, I was aware that I'd achieved quite a bit but at the same time had nothing new to show for it and began to think about how much of not only putting on an exhibition but generally running an arts/crafts business consists of hidden tasks.  I've already created a slideshow which shows many of the hidden tasks which go into making a mug.  I sometimes have it running at exhibitions but if you've never seen it, you can also see it here on my website. 

Recently I've been meaning to tweet more than I have been doing as I realise my focus has been much more on Facebook and that this isn't fair to those who prefer Twitter.  I announced on Twitter that I would treat the beginning of September as a new year, since it heralds a new academic year, and therefore my new year's resolution was to tweet more often and more interestingly.

Ah.  You see what I did there?  Placed my own petard roundly centre stage and hoist myself on it.

Luckily a solution sprang to mind:  tweets about individual hidden tasks.  There are so many of them.  Just today I've done about five of them already.  I shall probably select the tasks somewhat randomly although they may appear in related clutches.

If you are on Twitter but not yet following me, then this is the chance you've been waiting for.  There's a link to my Twitter page just over there on the right of this piece.

To kick things off, today's hidden task is reproduced here:

#hiddentask no 1: design sticky label for packaging for new product and print out a sheet of them.

Is it Work or is it Play?

My husband asked me this as I was working on some new silk scarves.  He's creative with words and can build stuff but isn't artistic in the visual sense and that world is often a bit of a puzzle to him.  He said he thought that when artists were working it was often the same thing as playing.  It made me think.  Is it work or is it play?.  And just in case you're of the same generation as I am and are now hearing a certain tune in your head, here it is:  "Was it Bill or is it Ben?"

It's a tricky question to answer.  I sometimes feel a bit boxed into a corner with it.  People appear to be implying that because expressing my creativity in clay, fabric, paper, or whatever is really important to me it therefore isn't work in the sense that someone doing a dull paid job means by the word.  If you enjoy it, it isn't work.  I've even heard other artists express this idea, but I don't agree with it. The line between the two is difficult to place, though.

The difficulty is compounded by the fact that we use the word "work" as a noun meaning what might be described as "product".  I'll put that aside for another time.  For now, I'm just talking about the activity.

I earn my living through my work.  My work is mostly some kind of creative output.  But here's another complication: when I'm being creative, my sense of play is often present, particularly when I'm using colour.  It was because I was about to paint a silk scarf that I could see my husband's point: I was about to play with colour combinations.  On the other hand painting a silk scarf is something that takes care and can go wrong if you don't pay attention.  I find that textiles work in general takes a lot of concentration and am often more tired after silk-painting or machine embroidery than I am after making pots.

It's true that I have chosen the work that I do.  It was a free choice.  Most of what I do is very enjoyable, some bits are routine and some either just dull or actively unpleasant, such as pugging clay in the winter when my hands turn to ice. Packing up after a market isn't much fun, particularly if it's cold, windy or raining (or all three).  My job is like any other in this regard, it comes with better bits and worse bits.

Another factor is that if you are involved in the arts at an amateur level, by and large it's up to you what you do and when.  If you want to make your living at it, your artwork is always to some extent market led.  At the basic level, this means that if I want to sell silk-painted scarves, I need to make sure that the right numbers in the right colours are available at the right outlets to sell.  To do this, I may need to make more scarves in colours that don't excite me as much as others and then I'm more conscious of the work/play divide. 

So is making silk-painting scarves, mugs, greetings cards or earrings work or play?  You've probably realised the answer I've been heading towards:  it's work.  If I don't do it, I can't pay my bills.  Work which involves being able to play.  And although this may seem strange to some, one doesn't always feel like playing!



The scarves above are of a new small triangle design that goes with the newest triangle earrings, which you may remember my posting about earlier in the year.  Look here and scroll down to the bottom of the page for the triangle design.

We like sheep

Hands up those who are now hearing Handel's Messiah?  No?  Well, here you are then.

But I digress.  Yes, already.  There hasn't been nearly enough digression in recent blog posts.  The point is that I like sheep and so, it turns out, do lots of other people.  I suppose it would be the same whichever animal I thought of but it does seem that over the years I've been representing animals, I've chosen ones which then turn out to be really popular.

I started out earlier this week intending to begin some new chicken canvasses and found myself drawing sheep, as you do.  I've never tackled them before.  Some animals I represent in a very stylised way, like the fish and lizards, and some more realistically.  It turns out that sheep are to be in the realistic category.

It's also been a while since I blogged about the progress of any one piece of work, so I thought I'd take the opportunity, following on from my last post, to show a few stages in the sheep pictures.  I don't have the stages broken up as much as I did with the lizard vase (and the colours of the photos are not entirely accurate) but you can still see something of how a piece develops.

First, following on from my last post, here's the most recent page in my sketchbook.  These sketches were made from photographs of sheep (which I didn't take, in this case.)

Next, I painted the basic colour areas of the picture onto silk habutai.  After the paint was fixed and the outliner removed, the silk was mounted onto muslin (for some strength) and then the detail of the sheep was worked in machine embroidery.

Once I'd got the essential subject of the picture worked, I added some background.  The silk panel was then ready to be mounted onto silk dupion.  Here it is pinned on, ready for hand stitching.

After that, I added some more machine embroidery was added and now the piece is ready to be mounted on a frame and backed and prepared so it can be hung.

This is as far as you get now with the photos, though.  You'll have to wait to see the completely finished piece until Another Beastly Art Exhibition in November. 

From there to here

I first learnt about the design process at college. For each fashion or textiles project we had not only to produce the finished item (garment or length of printed fabric or constructed textile) but the artwork that led up to our finished design.  Well, that was the theory, anyway.  Anyone who has recently completed a course in art or design (or whose children have done so) will now be familiar with this as these days it is common practice.  In the early seventies, though, it was my first experience of this.  And it really wasn't how I worked.  So,  like others who worked as I did, having had the idea of what I was going to make soon after receiving the brief, I then worked on my 'design' folder, doing the sort of sketches, colour swatches, tests, etc that a person might have done to get the idea I ended up with.

This method never stopped me getting A grades, so it has a lot to recommend it.  Indeed, I used to teach it to GCSE students who found themselves knowing what they wanted to make at the beginning of the project and not having the first clue what was supposed to go in their design folder.  It seems to me that if you're lucky enough (and I am lucky in this) to get the best ideas just like that, you should go with them.  Not using those ideas and working painfully through the design process to arrive at something less pleasing would be silly.  This is not to say that if you find a better idea during the backwards design process you shouldn't go with it;  you should.  It's just that it never happened to me.

These days I do some preparatory sketches now and then.  I have a sketchbook for my textiles ideas.  My current one is about half full.  I began it in 1999

I know these were ideas for wallhanging borders.  I also know they were never used.

In those days I used to set aside a bit of time for some background work during the year, so the theory was that I had some designs I could call on later, but after a few years of not using most of the ideas I had sketched, I moved on to sketching things that I knew I was going to need and that's the way I've worked ever since.  Some years I haven't even added to the book at all.


At the end of my last blog post I included a photo of a black and white butterfly on a thistle.  A friend suggested that this would make a lovely scarf design.  I wasn't sure I was up to it as it's quite a different idea from the designs I've made so far, however it felt a little like a gauntlet being thrown down so naturally ....

And I'm really rather pleased with it. The design process in action. From there to here.

Photography

One of the great things about the internet is how easy it is to see other people's work.  One of the drawbacks is how easy it is to see other people's work that is much better than one's own!  Or maybe that's a good thing too.

I've always enjoyed photography and within the family have been the best photographer.  Along the way I acquired a few friends who were very good indeed, but that was ok because they were still in the minority as the majority of people either didn't have cameras or didn't take many photos apart from at weddings and along with my other artwork.  Knowing people who took better photos gave me something to aim at.  I continued to develop my photography with a view to one day perhaps being able to exhibit some photos. 

With the arrival of digital photography and related technology came an explosion in the popularity of photography and with social media everyone's efforts can be readily available for admiration. I now have several friends whose photos are of such a high standard that I don't expect mine will ever reach those heights!  I've also seen thousands of photos taken by people I don't know, which just take your breath away with their precision and composition.  The place of photography in my artwork has been diminishing for the past five years or so and I think this is part of the explanation.

On the other hand, put me in a location with plenty of wildlife and a little more time than usual, and I get the bug again.  I love digital cameras.  It's normal for me to take 50 or more shots to get just one that I like.  I think I took 62 shots of the little lizard at the top.  (He's only about 15cms long, including tail) though a very modest 30 or so of the deer.

There were certainly more than 50 pics taken of goldfinches.  I took one batch the first day I found several feeding away at the thistles and the second day, having got at least some halfway decent shots, was braver with the noise I made and opened a window perhaps 5 metres away from them.  They didn't interrupt their feeding so I was able to snap away and out of the second batch got this one, which I'm really pleased with.

And finally, butterflies.  I'm still busy taking them.  If you've followed my blog over the years you'll have seen pics of butterflies before.  These are  three of my favourites from the past two weeks.  I love the sweet pea pic because there's a little bug in there as well as the butterfly.  I never tire of the black and white butterflies, and the last shot is one I'm really pleased with because of the overall composition of the picture.

Something old, something new

At a really stretchy stretch, you could say there is something borrowed about this and if you're feeling really elastic about it then the pink is a bluish pink.  And relax.  It really is just something old and something new.

I did a couple of these pieces about 4 years ago, this one and a landscape, using layers of organza and machine and hand embroidery.  They were fairly small and I had the idea of perhaps going back to an old style of work and putting them inside a mount and frame.  I had a bit of a play with the landscape one and realised the format just wasn't doing what I wanted and then there they both sat.  That's the old part.

Recently asked if I could provide something four inches square to promote the fourth birthday of By Local, I thought of this little chicken and found that with a bit of trimming it would be just the job.  Mounted over hardboard, backed and ready to hang, this is a format that really works. 

I'm hoping to go on to work on a lot of little mini-pics, in a variety of techniques, some maybe silk-painted images, some machine embroidered and perhaps some appliqued like this one.  There's a big gap between ideas and reality, of course, and I don't know when they'll actually happen, but I'm hoping that mini-pics can be made at a really affordable price - difficult to achieve in hand-made work, particularly textiles.

Mini-pics: tiny textiles treats.

Dolly and Holly and Molly

This is Dolly.  My mum made Dolly when I was probably a little less than two years old. Apparently mum propped her up on the sofa and when I came in I went straight up to her and said "Jane's dolly!" so it's just as well she was. Her dress and hat (a little moth-eaten now, I see) were made from remnants of Mum's coat material. Mum always made her own and my clothes and I'm sure I get my connection to textiles from her.  She says now she doesn't think Dolly was ever washed, so she's done pretty well.  The greyish patch on the forehead is as much worn as grubby.  

 

I wouldn't go anywhere without Dolly for many years.  I suppose she was in effect my teddy or comfort blanket.  Later I had first a baby doll and then a girl doll, both of whom I liked to dress in different outfits but Dolly is stitched into her clothes like rag dolls often are.

I wanted to make a rag doll for Holly, our granddaughter, but when I looked for patterns I came across one for a proper doll that really appealed to me, not least because the website told me that clothes for an 18" "American Girl" doll would fit her.  It seemed a little early for a proper doll for Holly but I thought I could make the doll while off work and then she would be ready for when she was needed.  In the mean time, though, Holly took a fancy to another child's doll's pram and now has one of her own and her mum decided she might well be ready for the doll earlier than we'd thought.

So I made Molly.  It was a really therapeutic project, something I really wanted to do and had plenty of time to spare for because I couldn't work.  I love miniaturised things anyway so had great fun making the clothes and eventually the shoes.  To my great surprise, Molly stands up on her own in her shoes.  And here she is:

And here are Holly and Molly meeting for the first time. 

I am so pleased to learn that Holly and Molly are already getting on really well.  Holly can do her own shoes up now so she also takes Molly's shoes off and puts them back on.  She wheels her round and round the garden in her pram and goes and holds her hand when she is standing up. 

I had such fun being inventive about the clothes - did you know that one pair of adult socks makes one pair of tights or one t-shirt for an 18" doll?  Or that a child's vest is exactly right to make proper pants for a doll?  No, I thought not.  Here is Molly in her authentic-fabric pants and the rest of her outfit laid out in front of her.  You can imagine that I am already planning her next outfit.