In the workroom and the museum

"Do the most important thing at your best time" is good advice that I seem to have lost sight of. My best time is early morning, and so often that time is used for reading in the bath or piddling about with emails or instagram (the latter - shock horror - while still in bed!).

As it was still the weekend and as I was still "recuperating" from all that we did and absorbed and considered at the summer school, I had a low-key Saturday with a view to pulling my socks up on Sunday. So this morning, aiming to "do the most important thing" first, before being distracted, I got out of the bath (hmm, shouldn't have been reading for so long maybe) and made coffee (ok, that was quick) and took it into the studio "right away" - there's a little deadline to meet, and I wanted to be done with it by noon.

 And the work from the summer school was trying to relax after being rolled up for some hours - I'd also planned to take action on a few of those pieces -

What happened? Next thing I knew, I was clearing out one of the compartments under the workbench. It suddenly seemed vital to have all the woodblock paraphernalia together in a handy place.

 Ah yes, I pulled out a shoebox for some reason and started sorting its contents with a view to decluttering. But some were flyers that I'd produced for exhibitions and, while involved in the London region of the Quilters' Guild, for the regional days. Couldn't just toss those without making a record, could I? They go back to pre-blogging days....

 They ended up with a formulaic format, but the two at the top were special.

On the right, a textiles exhibition at Leighton House Gallery in 1999 or was it 2000? None of the participants had email addresses or websites listed on the back, just phone numbers (in case anyone wanted to see more work at their studio...)

The one on the left was for the exhibition Tony and I had in 2010, thanks to a local gallery having a free slot just after I'd done the art foundation course at City Lit. Somehow you think those days will go on forever....

Here's a couple of the works from the Leighton House show, still hanging around and gathering dust ....

a very tired "mobile"

Silk printed with chinese nonsense characters

 ... and starting to fade in the light ...

 Ah well, there's a new oasis of tranquility in the workroom/storeroom - no work done yet, but it was time to go to the farmers market

and unexpectedly I popped into the only local clothing shop (apart from the charity shops) and found this (sleeveless) dress on sale, made in Australia no less -

I could do the cutting and pasting and whatever in the evening, no?, so it was off to Tate Modern to see the Natalia Goncharova exhibition, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Ah those moody greys

From her sketchbook 1915-17

Didn't take many photos at all, but each page of the little booklet about the exhibition has a quick sketch of something in that room. Looking particularly hard at one item.

These aide-memoires really do that - a drawing brings you back to what and where and when you were. And I quickly found myself making nice dark decisive marks with the pencil, so pleased to find that happening.