Drawing Tuesday - National Maritime Museum

At the National Maritime Museum I was intrigued by these "ropes" - they are telegraph cables from the 1850s -

but also liked this brooch, too small to see in its case so I drew it from the photograph, sat comfortably at a cafeteria table  -

Not quite finished, and my good intentions of last week (to continue with it) haven't resulted in action.

The rest of the work -

Janet K's crowned lion, a ship's prow

Jo's metal tag, a humble object that raises more questions than it answers

... and some tools she found

Sue claims to have gotten lost in this Pacific navigation chart

... so turned to some reassuring pattern from the region

Judith drew outside till rain drove her in, then found some admirals

From Janet B, a chair and,,,

... some animals

 On the way home, we noticed some old vehicles lined up among the buildings of the Royal Naval College - "cossy drama" films are made there ....

This morning in the home studio

Actually these headless dolls have been sitting around for a few days - they are stuffed but the openings (at the back) not sewn up. I took them off the pinboard when they got in the way, and oh my, the dust.... But after a gentle hoovering they look as good as new.

 The challenge was to use lots of little bits of microwave-dyed fabric - thank you Ann Dingsdale for showing me how to do this, so many years ago! What we did was start with big pieces and then tear them in half to overdye. At the end of the day we split each piece of fabric and thus each had half of the final output, some with several layers of colour.

My sort-of-people are based on Korean costume (hanbok), with those long, banded sleeves.

Their headless state bothered me rather, and suddenly I realised that the traditional wrapped collar, exaggerated to great heights, would look like a head

All together in a happy dance - or defensive movement - hmm not sure...

 ... make of it what you will....

 Seen from above -

 Drawn from the photo -

Fleeing!

Festival of Quilts 2019

The best part of the day - always - is the encounters with old friends. But there were things to see, too.

Works from the 40 years of the Quilters' Guild - these
(by Diana Harrison and Jo Budd) are from my formative years

 Eco dyeing was/is "big"....

India Flint's gallery

In  the "Natural Selection" gallery nearby - the 52 books
 made weekly by Alice Fox

Simplicity and complexity by Lotta Helleberg

"Did you see the pots?" people kept asking me. I did, and they made
me want to get back to stitching! By Fabienne Rey

Liz Hewitt's "Give Me Strength"

Mepuru by Caroline Bell

Inuit wallhanging from Sandra Meech's gallery

Sandra's Antarctic works on paper

From the bojagi gallery curated by Sara Cook, work by
Yoko Kubota 

"Silk Road" by Elizabeth Brimelow - strips of silk,
carefully tied at both ends ... a long thin piece

Another long thin piece (easy to store!) by Janet Twinn

 I went to the lecture by Michael James, but looked at his gallery first and was struck by the monochrome quilts. These were made during the time of his wife's final illness.

Detail showing how the quilting adds to the work

Recent, happier work - he explained how the fabrics were digitally
printed, based on photographs and drawings from India

Karina Thompson's gallery made a 3D labyrinth
out of her piece from the 2013 Saltaire exhibition

Leprous Hands is digitally embroidered

The Fine Art "Quilts" are usually contentious - and now it's become a "textiles" category! These are among those that appealled to me -

 Nearly missed the tiny gallery with five complicated quilts from the Japan quilt show. The detail of the work is astonishing -

Finally, my favourite piece(s), from the Pojagi exhibition, are these "collages"  by Marian Bijlenga - oil paint on used sandpaper -

Studio Saturday - stirrings in both studios

Making a dedicated space to keep all my woodblock printing materials together was a good use of two hours -

 Meanwhile my drawings from the summer school were relaxing back into some degree of flatness after being rolled up. I looked at them again during the week and haven't thrown any out just yet....

 Meanwhile the final stages of this print were happening -

 ... and here's an indication of "how the light gets in" ...

 Sometimes the sky is wonderful. I do love a wide open sky -

 Having the table under the window clear has encouraged me to visit the studio every morning, to sit in the chair and ...breathe... and look around and pick up a pencil, eg to do some tracing -

 Somehow I tricked myself into clearing off most of the workbench. What bliss to have so much clear space! (Yes, I say this every time it happens....)

 And how good it was to go to the studio on Friday, if only to leave the pots that are ready for dipping. Sometimes other things need sorting, and you don't get around to what you intended.

It's made me want to stitch, though.

Poetry Thursday - about shades of black and darkness

An excerpt from a meditation on darkness by George Szirtes. I heard it on the Echo Chamber (BBC Radio 4, Dec 17; available on vimeo) as a result of researching Sam Winston's durational drawings.

Exhibited at the Poetry Library, South Bank, 2017-8 (via)

Having established a bedrock of pure darkness we may perhaps be able to name its sub-classes, all the classic blacks we know. Let’s say their names: Ebony, Taupe, Davy’s Grey, Noir, Charcoal, Soot, Jet, Onyx, Lamp Black, Carbon Black, Super Black, Vantablack. That black.

The black of your polished shoe, the black of the ribbon on the undertaker’s hat, the black of drypoint in curled metal. The raven, the crow, the rook, the blackbird, the black swan. And other blacks. Keep adding. These are only names, and names are there to be invented. But do it in darkness. In the dark backward and abysm of time. In time’s eloquence. In time’s infinite capacity and its vast belly that keeps expanding and never will stop expanding.

Are we there yet? Is the thought of time a black thought yet? Is darkness visible supposed to be visible?

It’s just a room. These are just thoughts waking to find themselves returning as words. But they are waking in darkness, a darkness in which it makes no difference whether your eyes are shut or not.

The rest is here, on Szirtes' blog.