What’s in a Name?

So I’ve been interviewed 4 times in 2 months, and two of the interviewers were reluctant to accept Singing Bird as my action name. As an agoraphobic, this is an avatar that helps me be somewhere that sets off panic attacks, so their attitude lands very badly. One accepted it but his editor called it my pseudonym, my false name, and this annoyed me excessively until I thought about what I’d said during my interview with Kristina, that this is my ‘true’ name, expressing a part of me that has struggled for a long time to come out. And as the editor has no idea about that…no blame…

Interview by Kristina Lewis-Shipley for her forthcoming book on Street Artists and their handles:

KLS: Please ignore ‘SprayCan’ throughout the message, (hahaha) Ok, so the two questions are really simple:

Why did you first pick up a SprayCan? Where does your Street Name/ Pseudonym come from?

SBA: I feel the tiniest bit intimidated, but I’ll just pull my big girl panties up and speak loud 😉

The two questions you put are 30 years apart in my life, and why I feel like my life is finally making sense – a big wound has started to graft 🙂
I first made a piece of guerilla paint and fibre art in 1983, but it was a street action for peace. I was used to making peace flags for the barbed wire fences at the MoD missile sites or the Trident base at Faslane, but when I suggested doing it in Newcastle upon Tyne, the other activists were really snobby about it. They didn’t want to be accused of vandalism 😦 Luckily my best friend and my boyfriend were supportive, because on the day I was down with a stomach virus, and they had to execute the designs. I’d made pieces to hang in a tree and a piece to write on the walls and pavements in chalks, and after they’d done those, they added some of their own, which made me sooo happy 🙂
Why did I want to do it?
I dreamt it.

A lot of my art comes to me that way, now that I am an artist, but at the time I was a bit lost, my parents had refused to let me do art at A Level, they were abusive in many ways, including physical and sexual, but looking back the biggest damage was withholding my way to be in the world. How is that possible, that a parent refuses to buy their child even super cheap felt tips? And pours scorn on everything that might encourage her?
So I grew up very bent out of shape and this was my first experience of genuinely needing to make MY mark in the world, and my new people, the activists did not like it, but I did it, and when I was up again, I added to what the others had done for me – it had been made for Valentine’s Day, so it couldn’t wait…it was a message of love to the precious earth and to her humans to stop the trashing…
I loved it and one of the ‘real’ artists I knew (he could draw!) decided it WAS effective after he heard about it and we should do some street art/ performance art and we did… 😉
But it was interesting to see how flyposting was political and ok, and heartfelt messages and pictures chalked on walls, bedizeners hanging from trees…not so much…

My street name has been Singing Bird Artist SBA for five years, since my husband died and I could no longer paint, so since 2008/9. (er, long relentless optimist story, broken collarbone and ribs trying to save him, permanent damage, learning Machine Embroidery as a new skill to keep sane through staying creative…)
City and Guilds courses are REALLY tough, super structured and meticulous, I was an “interesting” student 😉 but I found myself needing to express my wild side/politics and myself more freely, more directly…

So I started with hanging freeform fibre art in bus shelters etc and public crafting/freeform crochet and leaving bedizeners/happy makers in public spaces 😉 My husband was an artist/poet and we would do this together before, we made environmental art in the woods too, so art for people to find has been important to me for a long time.

SBA was definitely a response to him dying and me having to work without his support – I have agoraphobia and can’t be out alone after dark, or in isolated places. Then I mixed in with Nottingham yarn’bombers’ for some joint blitzes. I prefer yarn ‘tagging’, cos I’m a pacifist, but I understand the excitement of saying yarnbombing, and also the backing off from the guys within graf (def NOT all, waving at you, lovely Popx!)  who are hostile to using tagging for yarn/fibre work.
I have had fibromyalgia for over 4 years now (following the neck injury) and use a rollator, so can’t action very often, but am blurring the lines where I can, I have 2 fibre art installation pieces in a gallery in London in February and they want me to make a ‘live’ piece for the private view. What they don’t know is that with the help of the friend I’ll be staying with I will yarntag across London while I’m there – coming to a railing near you, people  😉 [Due to the injuries following installation, I couldn’t actually do this, but made it into art for the Anti-ATOS/WCA protest on February 19th and Robin Hood’s Rally against Budget Cuts on March 19th 2014]

I chose to use my yarntag name as my ‘fine’ artist name (big thanks to Banksy for showing the way) so I can link the two sides, legal, illegal. It also frees me to work a different way – the art world is full of puffed up entitlement at one end and genuine heartfelt making at the other. I have struggled with writing those pompous post-modernist windy statements, and then last spring I cut through it all and declared I would only use Singingbird Artist/SBA  for ALL my art/social justice/permaculture activism. It comes from a Chinese proverb “If you keep a green tree in your heart, maybe the singing bird will come.” To me it means that if we are true to our deepest calling to make our mark in the world for what is needed (to cut through the mindless consumption junky culture capitalism demands, at the cost of the earth and all her peoples) then we each become a singing bird for those around us who need to hear that things can be different, change is possible, every *small* act counts.
Since I got my ‘right’ name, amazingly, loads of doors are opening for me, so your question about the name strikes home!

As Singingbird Artist, I make what I like, as fast as I can 😉

Which is not very fast, grrr,  I have permanent damage to the deep tissue in my hands, but all the joy that pours out into the work and the world makes me really happy. I even like it when people steal the work to take home, if it speaks to someone that much, great, I’ll make another, keep spreading the song 😉

re photo, I need to be anonymous – the Dept of Worry and Persecution will stop my disability benefits at this prioritisation of my energy to art not hoovering 😉 so I like to use this one as a thumbnail- the rollator makes the point that physically disabled people can still make art/actions 😉

Well, back to making! I have been working on the brown – blue water waste piece, some tricky freeform knitting, but first there are some garden photos to edit 🙂

Loudest Whispers 2014

I was really tempted to call this post loudest whispers, quietest screams…talk about suffering for your art 🙂

So, I went to London last Monday to supervise Sea Change being installed at St Pancras Conference Centre Gallery… due to the curator being 45 minutes late, the previous artwork still being up and the curator needing to see the work hung a few ways, sad disaster has occurred. Sea Change is up in an improvised space, and I hope will stay up till March 28th, with Diversity is our Strength being shown in the foyer slot earmarked for Sea Change.

In helping install it 3 times in 1 1/2 hours (Jen did the lion’s share) I wrecked myself, with the coup de grace being run-limping for the train, they had already shut the doors on the train!

Luckily we got let into First Class and I staggered down to our booked seats, Jen making 2 trips after me with rollator and bags.

Since then I have been all systems down, my arms barely move, my hands hurt like blazes, my legs were shaking and spasming, I have a mystery muscle tear bruise on my left leg… I was terrified on the limp to the train my right leg would cramp and collapse, but I really didn’t have £120 for new tickets.

Of course I really don’t have a new body available either… 😦

I have had to recognize I won’t be able to go back on Friday and hang the Valentine piece or do the Same But Different fibretagging in London. Wow, this is such a huge thing for me, you can’t imagine, unless you are also a powerhouse who sweeps on through against the odds and snatches victory from the jaws of defeat type…My body just can NOT rise to this one…

 

UPDATE:  opened my email box to find this, which makes me feel so much better 😉

WE ARE THRILLED WITH YOUR WORK AND THE diversity INSTALLATION IS TAKING SHAPE WITH A BOLD USE OF A GLASS CABINET WITH THE WORK FLOWING OUT AND AROUND THE GLASS UP TO THE RAIL ABOVE THE WINDOW,. We think it looks exciting. Lots of fantastic comments about the SEA work…

– excellent!

So, what do you do with dozens of hearts and frustrated creative energy?

Think up alternatives! Elizabeth and Eleanor listened and laughed on Thursday and I felt better after that, then after a heated exchange on facebook last night (someone on the internet was WRONG! my, I amaze you 😉 ) the little contribution I was making to the local ATOS demo has grown a bit… Someone asked Eleanor if they could be put in touch with a yarn activist, so fingers crossed, I can get filmed making a piece to support the ATOS protests 😉

Win! 😉

fibre tagging

So these are the bedizeners I have been making over the last week, about 3 dozen, which makes a feast of colour and tiny details that get quite overpowering when they’re all laid out on my photography ‘tray’ (an A2 corkboard with black handmade paper laid on top.)

By the way, laying them out is a good idea if you want to keep an eye on colour balance – it doesn’t really matter, as I will be tying these to railings and trees individually, but if they were all being hung from one tree, just like decorating a Christmas tree, total randomness can look less than pleasing!

I discovered I had made nearly everything in shades of blue (leftovers from all the watery blocks on the chiropractor’s quilt) or purple and oranges (C& G Machine Embroidery colour palette) so I stretched myself and deliberately made some pink and green ones, and some black and greys.

I’ve also made hearts, some from complex cloth, which is where you lay out scraps of cloth and stitch them to a backing cloth, (like quilting without the wadding we assume for modern quilting.) I use ribbons, lace, leftover fabric, sweet wrappers, anything that will hold up to the task I intend the cloth to manage.

The slitheriest and most swearingest part was stitching silk taffeta ribbon to satin blanket ribbon…I set myself a target of 100 metres of thread in an ornamental stitch and by the end I was getting the hang of not twisting the ribbon as it unrolled…  😉

I then arm-knitted massive chain from this (like fingerknitting, but huuuge!) and as everything is so slippery, the next stage is stitching hearts to the links to keep them in position…

Of course, the ‘more is more’ school of embellishment means that some at least of these complex cloth hearts are being edged with beads and sequins, photos of that stage to follow 😉

Another set of hearts are knitted and some have a crochet edging. As my hands hurt horribly if I knit more than 2 a day of these small hearts, my lovely Mahjongettes have stepped into the breach. Gold star goes to Elizabeth, who has taken yarn home with her to do more (I so owe her cake!) and the moss stitch hearts are hers, with edging by PoetrySue. Eleanor stuck to garter stitch and had fun mixing ribbons in and making faces over my texture yarns. The results are very pleasing!

And of course, all those ribbons and threads and glittery bits and rustly wrappers are very attractive to Nonie…

waste not, want not: sewing room snippets

I’ve had the loveliest evening, listening to a favourite band with interesting lyrics, while making miniature bunting/ yarn tags/ fibre art tags.

Now, I’m using tags in the graffiti sense, a street artist leaving art that has a strong flavour /signature/ handle that others recognise. These are the first pieces of dozens, maybe hundreds I will be making for an event next month in London.

However, they are very easy and pleasing to do, and you can adapt the technique to make your own festive bunting/ tree decorations/ or even tags for gifts to crafty friends. The best thing is, they CAN be made entirely from leftovers, in fact, they are richer and more interesting if they are! Just like a patchwork quilt where you can look back and see a favourite shirt, summer dress, band Tshirt…twice the happiness!

How do I acquire all these snippets? Basically, whenever I make anything, instead of sweeping the snips and trimmings into the bin, I save them in a clear plastic bag. At a sew or knit event, I’ve been known to sweep up everyone’s snips! Some of  Truly Hooked’s yarn trimmings are in this batch, I am not a great one for pink 😉

Then, when I need a variety of materials and really don’t want to cut into a block of fabric, out come the bags. Seeing what I have available, pulling out particularly appealing pieces and mixing and matching makes the wheels start turning, and then I might seek out some larger remnants or a particular yarn…It’s a really great way to gently ease back into making if you’re unsure what to do next or feeling blocked or downhearted, the variety of colours and textures is like a salve to bruised feelings 😉

So, what have we here? Chopped off bits of felting, leftover machine cords, trimming edges on something in yellow gingham (I am sooo drawing a blank on what THAT was!!) a couple of inches of rust ribbon, a bit of rainbow chiffon with automatic stitch patterns to embellish…hmmm….

Punchinello (the plastic foil sequins are punched out of) can be torn in half, if you start at a corner and work slowly, and then it’s much more bendy, which helps. You can see a seam edge from a charity shop blouse lovely Robyn gifted me, mmm, patterned kingfisher/ teal shiny satin! by cutting very close to the seam I got the most remnant for use, but also created an interesting ‘string’. There is a theory of proportions, called the Golden Mean, the human eye likes things to be divided by thirds, so because the white stitching makes a third of the strip, it looks very pleasing. Otherwise I could make it work by having one third and two thirds of a piece of fabric either side of an interesting line of stitching. Sometimes you can make something jump out by breaking this rule, it snags the eye, it all depends what effect you want whether it’s ‘right’ or not!

Because I have lots of interesting snippets, I can work quite fast, the trouble I have is not getting out everything in the studio 😉  oh, i have a button somewhere that would be just right, or where is that ladder yarn I was using the other day? Staaaaaaaaaaap! Challenging myself to work as much as possible from the one bag really helps 😉

Making a series is good, I get quicker and quicker and then I can string them together by stitching them onto a machine cord or a piece of braid or a ribbon and voila! I have bunting 🙂 Well worth a try, and good fun to do when you are going on holiday and can’t take much with you. Coming to a tree or a railing near you soon, yours or mine?

Complex cloth is good for using up leftover scraps or strips of fabric and ribbon. I used Thorntons choccie wrappers, they are plastic/foil and I need to make some waterproof embellishers too. Cut a 6″ or 20cm square of backing cloth, I used umbrella fabric someone gave me. Pin the wrappers along the fold line so you can stitch anchors in the strong sections – put the needle down first, then sew slowly, with strong thread, using a wider zigzag so the strain is spread across the fragile plastic/foil. Unpin everything, and pick a pattern stitch you like and can curve with, in a contrasting colour. Again, needle down first, start slowly and set the pattern stitch to be wider than usual. Draw lines of stitch to please you, but also anchor your scraps. This is easy for quilters, but just keep it simple and slow, and even beginners can get it right 🙂

Now cut out the shape of your bunting – draw on the back if it helps – and save the scraps! This is a double winning technique!

Here are my hearts, and you can see a pile of scraps to the side – they can be used in the tags or as dolly bunting or as spacers between bigger bunting shapes 🙂

Again, very simple, very pleasing, and a great way to make something fromwhat would otherwise go in the bin, to landfill. Zero waste rocks!

diversity at Pride

First: a big thank you to the friendly strangers who helped me when the taxi driver jammed the brake on my rollator again! They pushed the rollator lifted on to its front wheels and carried a big bag of diversity (!) down from Addison St to the community stage so all I had to do was walk slowly, and only once! I was panicking about how to manage two trips with nothing going missing or wrecking myself 😦 And they weren’t even going to Pride, so it was particularly nice of them to help me 🙂

So, a lovely sunny day, with lots of entertainment, people dancing barefoot on the grass, lots of stalls to look at and good causes fundraising – including Pride itself, as it all costs money to sort out. I was at the community stage at the beginning and saw the march coming in as Single Bass sang, then went home for a rest and came back to take down the installation about an hour before the rain was forecast, which meant I got to see an excellent singer, Emily Franklin, wow, what a voice! And it was lovely to hear Single Bass sing again, she is such a thoughtful writer, ‘Aseity’ (empowered groundedness) is one of my favourite songs, and as ever I got tears in my eyes when she sang ‘Weather the Storm’. I missed her second set, which matters less now this is available online 😉

http://single-bass.bandcamp.com/track/heavy-woman

– Keith helped me hang ‘Diversity is our Strength’ and then took some photos, so here is your eyecandy 😉

And now I am resting and very slowly pottering round tidying up the yarn explosion…where did all the feathers come from???

diversity is our strength

So, this is a detail of the Diversity is our Strength installation I am hanging near the Community Stage at Nottingham LGBT Pride. It’s not finished yet, but while Cherise and I set the world to rights this afternoon, she wound some more pompoms and I sewed more feathers and opalescent pink buttons and generally wrangled until two dozen components have become a piece. It is very long as it will be hanging from a tree branch about 8 – 10’/2.6m – 3.3 metres high, so these are detail shots and I’m hoping Keith may take some in situ shots with his good camera, depending on heat and health of course 😉

It’s freeform crochet, with lots of organza, some batik print which is really like the Black Pride image background, a ton of eyelash yarn and lots of other rainbow-y elements. I used the knitting mill to make some long i-tubes, twice my height 😉 and then chained them, ooh very satisfying!

A couple of people helped with cutting fabric as my elbow is not happy using scissors, the lime, orange and black is an industrial remnant I bought at the place near Fixers, the nylon velvet ribbon was upcycled from a friend’s skip find, the 60s neon rainbow/lace fabric (Cherise called it “the most of more”) has been waiting patiently for the right project as has a lot of the yarn! Some of the long chains have been made with skip yarn and some are nets and nylons that have been given to me by stashbombers (they call themselves friends…!!) So I have cleared a lot of stuff from yarn drawers and fabric stash (hurrah!) and hired Cherise to help me consolidate my stash when I’ve gathered spoons after Pride. I’m guessing at least 3 x 20litre storage boxes will be freed up!! I’m also going to put my millinery supplies on E-bay as with this new complication with my arm, my 3D work is going to be yet  more limited, so time to downsize some less possible materials and tools (let me know via comments if you’re interested) and gather more space 😉

agoraphobia and exhibitions

– a short film made by the Nottingham Contemporary crew about the course and how it affected some members, at 3 minutes they did well to fit in the WEA assessor, Chris, Daphne and Stephen, though you can see more of us in the backgrounds, of course. It’s interesting how huge an experience it’s been for some of the group… I think I felt that way about the Art Access course I took 97-99 with Charlotte Finlay-Broadbelt and Chris Lewis-Jones (yes, the same!) and then the City & Guilds Machine Embroidery with Chris Standen, that my art making skills expanded exponentially. This should feel as transforming to me, it has been my ability to take my art into the world that has grown…and I realise I am not remembering to celebrate it enough!

I’m finally walking through the wall I identified in therapy in 2000…the agoraphobic barrier that stopped me or punished me for even trying to broach it is now a pile of rubble I am picking my way through. I watched my fibromyalgia spoons soooo carefully during the installation, trying to rest as much as I could (my new homehelp had a baptism by fire today 😉 ) but agoraphobia-wise I have been really struggling when I am out this week, with high anxiety and tearfulness and reluctance to go out… a bit of oversharing too 😦  Luckily my new doctor is an absolute sweetie and handled it! The rubble is pretty big, and I am getting very tired and wobbly, but…I’ve just walked through the Berlin Wall of internal barriers! Wow!

 

The work we did on presence and presentation:

nottingham contemporary: definition for recognition

was hard for me, but has really paid off. By comparing myself to Banksy I set myself free from the agoraphobic/ fibromyalgia issues of maintaining  presence in spite of rising adrenalin/anxiety because, bingo! I used a variation on his anonymity, I extended the singingbird avatar from yarntagging to my facebook profile and promotion. It made things a lot easier, and though I had to still be very pushy, sorry, I had to be an efficient promoter of my own work 😉 I didn’t have to see my name over and over again. I don’t know how well this would work for other agoraphobics, but I’m talking about this just in case it helps anyone else. Cold calling is my worst nightmare,  to the amazement of lots of people who have seen me being very confident! Aren’t we all interesting mixtures 😉

Lovely Suella prodded me to approach Nottingham Castle about linking up with the lace tagging… and in my new expanded space, I did. Being able to assemble images so quickly and email them for free (sending slides used to be so expensive and time/effort consuming, the internet really is great for this) and with the extra freedom/non-attachment to results that gave me I already had a big win, but to my delight she liked the images and is keeping me in mind to link up with fibre/thread artwork in the future! Which means I can send her updates as new pieces complete in their slow and meandering ways, without triggering the huge anxiety of cold calling. I was nearly crying as I told the doctor about it…

sea change

I am very excited! Sea change has been accepted by Nottingham City Council for exhibition in a Green Flag winning park!

This is my first municipal showing; I had to learn some computer stuff at top speed (ahem…wing it?) to get around the council postmaster (email portal) refusing work in open document format; the health and safety format is very different to what I learnt 25 years ago on Supervisors training for Gateshead M.B.Council and again to what we learnt at South Notts on the City & Guilds in 2009/2010…I had to buy a rollator simply to get around the site, I had to grow my patience waiting for my escort and installation team member to get back from Scotland and to her diary to be able to confirm arrangements…it’s been a steep learning curve and well worth it 😉

To be able to show something I have made in 10-30 minute segments, over more than a year, in a place where hundreds of people will see it, much more than in a gallery, because it is between a school, a sensory garden, a community centre, an outdoor bowling green, on a historic walk that links The Meadows where the crocuses (a local crop) were grown, now a large housing estate, and the main railway station and city centre….this is an amazing feeling!

Of course there is a lot to be done, so posting may be a bit intermittent with a strong focus on art and exhibitions for a month…the art class changed its end of course date so I will be hanging work there in the morning and at the park in the afternoon of May 10th!

How am I managing my fibromyalgia? Well, the rollator is getting used every time I go out and I am learning the art of sitting down BEFORE I am tired 😉 I have a little sit every 100yards/metres and a long sit every 5 minutes. The buses here are very good, so often that sit is on the bus. I am extremely lucky in that 2 friends with H & S training have volunteered to hang sea change for free (they will get happy vegan boxes of approved foods goodies and cookies 😉 ) another friend is going to film it (choc n nut cookies for him!)  When yet another friend has finished her finals she can  take my posters and flyers to the student colourcopy shop  and various peeps are being given a handful to put up and a bundle to hand out. Cherise signed me up to facebook nearly 3 weeks ago, so I am able to use social media to promote an exhibition for the first time…Now Eleanor has finished being a film star she can show me how to get my facebook settings right for promotion! All this helps me lie back and relax, avoid overdoing it or fretting, and therefore avoid burnout.

Because of the art class at Contemporary, there is a new way of  thinking round things, and as I often slice through time wasting in class (there is something so freeing about turning 45 or getting fibro, I just tell excited clusters of peeps to shut up and listen to the tutor, who is waiting politely for them to realise it is their own time that is draining away) I may not be the most popular, but I am useful!!! And mostly appreciated 😉

At home I am using more convenience foods, part of the budget I allow for showing is for more  expensive fruit juice and pre-prepared meals, and getting things picked up by friends who can’t help “directly” with the shows…counting spoons means it all counts to me, as I explained to PoetrySue who drives from Skegby to see me and then takes me to a supermarket and then on Thursday tried to help me make my printer work before saying, no, it really IS dud cartridges!! Less stress is less adrenalin, less cortisol, less lactic acid muscle pain, less fibro fog, less neurological pain, less exhaustion… it ALL counts 😉

I feel the way Andy (my late husband) helped me get out into the world and make more friends in spite of my agoraphobia, and the way I focussed on maintaining that after his sudden death, and my own daoist approach of finding the next thing to be delighted by has played a large part in what I am now harvesting. I have tried to be a “merry widow” and a matter-of-fact disabled person and a process artist with an invitational and possibilitarian approach, and that way of being has made it easy to help others and be helped…and accepting chronic fatigue and high pain levels as part of the deal, without wasting energy on wishing it away, has kept me positive. Working with what I am fit for/ A fit for (ie suited to by skill and attitude)  and finding ways for the other things to get done without draining me is the daily question, and how to make it fun, is the icing on the cake 😉

sea change

I am so tired! Keith came round and we had a photoshoot of gaia’s guardians, renamed to SEA CHANGE…

This is a huge win, as he took a photo I could easily turn into promotion posters and flyers. We took turns slumping in the wicker chair I dragged out, and it was so nice to sit in the sun in a Tshirt! I still had woolly socks on but  basking while he scrambled up and down the bank I could imagine summer…and as we had snow till what feels like two minutes ago, oh, what luxury!

We were both shaking with tiredness by the time it was done, even though we took breaks. He takes lovely pictures though, so here is some eyecandy till I get the slideshow sorted:

persistence and pacing

So today I have overdone it, I got on the wrong bus (attention! expensive when not paid) and walked just a bit too far and then I was leaning over to listen to someone speaking softly in a super-echoey place and now I ache and feel stiff as a board…ggrrr… The good news is, the new home help made my kitchen and bedsit all lovely and fresh again and when you are this tired, getting in a freshly made bed with fluffed up pillows and shaken up duvet is bliss, curled up with the cat, both purring 😉

The art class was given a guided tour of Surface Gallery in Nottingham http://www.surfacegallery.org/ today, the volunteers were lovely to us, lots of info on how they make it work on sixpence and squeak as my granny would say…they make a lot happen and are invaluable for the exhibitions, including students’ final shows, the collective members’ workspaces and affordable studios, the gallery hire fees are fair and they seem very enthusiastic. They took the chance to ask us for feedback and it turned into a very friendly idea share (yeeeesss, that would include me sticking my neck out as usual 😉 but I will only offer criticism if I can offer a suggestion too, and it was a very minor point about making the gallery look more welcoming, it belongs to the council and suffers from frosted glass making it look shut) and they were very welcoming of our ideas…and that is so nice, because some places I have volunteered were really set in their ways and closed/ defensive about longstanding issues. I feel fairly unattached as to whether people use my suggestions, as long as I am allowed to offer them, as an outsider there are often conditions applying of which you know nothing, after all.  I got the impression of a really healthy organisation trying to keep their focus during tough times for artists and galleries. And congratulations to them for winning some funding, they obviously worked hard for it. They are already doing a lot, and have really positive, exciting ideas for the future, it was so nice to be somewhere with such a good atmosphere. I realise I haven’t talked about this exhibition, but you should go and judge that for yourself, it’s on till the 16th 😉 The others enjoyed the tour, I was sensible and stayed downstairs and borrowed a pair of scissors so I could do my 10 minutes art for the day.

I had been across the road to David’s Fabrics at Sneinton Market (pulled by the giant electromagnet that draws me to places with cheap materials and tools for making!) and while the others were oohing and aahing over light filled studios, I was ripping into 4 metres of industrial remnant lining fabric. I made a snip and then tore down the length of the fabric and crochet chained the resulting strip, I got 5 lengths, so 20 metres by 20 cm+ (no rulers were disturbed during the making of this component!!) using my arm as the crochet hook…oh soooo satisfying! Sadly it only takes 5 minutes to rip and 5 minutes to chain £4.80 worth of fabric like that, but it was very pleasing getting it out to show Eleanor at Knit Nottingham, she laughed at the chain and recoiled in horror at the tackiness of the other fabrics I bought ( 5 metres in ‘speciality’ fabrics for £9, giant square sequin effect in scarlet, green jungle and brown desert nylon camouflage wtf? but when they are cut up, shifu style and chained, they too will be pretty…promise!)

So, I foresee a weekend in bed playing with scissors and making silliness 😉 which is a good way to rebalance my spoons and forks (tiredness and pain) while I sigh in contentment over the freshly hoovered domain and eat risotto till it’s gone..I have a big pot to last the weekend 😉

Some ugliness, definitely a before and after 🙂

Do you see how the green is picking up the red sequin shine though? I should have more to show you tomorrow or Sunday ….