handwriting

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i'm in the garden

First of all, don't click on the image to make it bigger. It's all pixellated and weird and I don't know why, but I didn't have another one ready and I think it looks alright small, so leave it be, ok?!!

It's been an interesting few days for me and I've been thinking hard about things as usual. Another bout of illness helped with this as it meant I couldn't do much else other than sit up in bed... things have also been rather quiet as Rory is stuck in Dubai waiting for the ash cloud to blow away.

I have come to several interconnected decisions...

• I will spend more time in the garden, because it's lovely, and if I don't get out there and look after it, it won't be lovely anymore.

• I will stop moaning about not having any time to do art and get on with making something beautiful out of what life throws at me. I am needed to be a big part of my granddaughter's life, and whether I like this responsibility or not, it is mine. There is so much about it which is delightful and wonderful and I am in danger of missing that side of it if I am not careful (for which read, if I carry on moaning all the time).

• I will close my shop for the time being and concentrate on making for pleasure if time allows.

• I will take more exercise now that spring is here, it always makes me feel better and I have no excuses.

And so I'm off into the windy, sunny garden to dig up some weeds. Have a happy Tuesday.

cross pollination

Elizabeth Bishop: Pansies, 1960, watercolour and gouache.

A recent snoop in our secondhand bookshop brought to light a book of paintings by the American poet Elizabeth Bishop*. I was immediately interested, because I have a great curiosity for artists who write, poets who paint, painters who embroider... the rich exchange of medium and mood experienced by so many artists over the centuries. It's fascinating to find that an artist or writer you know for their work in one discipline turns out to have been active in a quite different area of expression.

Elizabeth Bishop: Table with Candelabra [undated], watercolour and gouache.

Of course, women artists have often done this instinctively through domestic textiles and decoration of the home environment, indeed the home has traditionally been the sole provider of surfaces for embellishment and opportunities for creative expression for those many many women who have been denied a more focussed outlet. However noble or humble the setting, I just love how creativity oozes out of artists and writers like mud through the fingers: it's unstoppable. Vanessa Bell's work at Charleston Farmhouse is a wonderful example.

Mary Fedden: The Lemon, 1976, pencil and gouache.

I learnt from a book about one of my favourite painters, Mary Fedden*, that she also makes what she calls 'little soft lions' for new babies... exquisite embroidery and wonderful tactile shapes that call out to be held tightly in tiny hands. I shall post a couple of snaps of them taken from the book although of course they are copyright, but I think they deserve to be better known and I think many of you will love them, as I do.

* William Benton, Exchanging Hats: Elizabeth Bishop Paintings. Carcanet, 1996
* Christopher Andrae, Mary Fedden: Enigmas and Variations. Lund Humphries, 2007

All images are copyright of the artists and mustn't be reproduced except, as here, for personal use, and without due credit.

the anxiety of responsibility

The beautiful stained glass windows at Blackburn cathedral by John Hayward... I can't stop looking at the textures and colours. Find out more about the artist here.

I have been struggling to force my thoughts out onto the screen. Physical tiredness, emotional exhaustion, mental lethargy... all the things I thought had gone for a while are here again.

My thoughts are flitting around everywhere and it is hard to catch them and make something coherent of them that you might want to read, but this bittiness does reflect my state of mind and so if nothing else it is honest. I have been meaning to write for a while now.

It frustrates me that I am unable to share more thoughts about creativity on these pages other than so often to express the barrenness I feel. Soon after I wrote the previous post, the ground beneath me started to shake and slip again and my mood of peaceful optimism evaporated, leaving me instead with the old familiar feeling of anxious worry...

Each time I think I am nearer to a peaceful wholeness, a time when creativity may flow, it seems that life requires me to focus closely on something else. I am evidently needed to be intensely active as a mother, grandmother, mentor and guide at the moment, despite feeling hugely unqualified and quite at sea about it all.

This need to be so totally available for my family strips me of creative energy like a sharp frost decimates new growth in the garden. It is so frustrating but I must focus very hard on what I'm needed to do and, indeed, trying to convince myself that I can do.

Thank you so much to all of you who so kindly left comments on my last post... I am sorry that I haven't had the time and energy to reply to you all personally but be assured that they have been read and re-read and are very much appreciated.

consolidation

Thankfully, thankfully, things have quietened down a little in my life just now. Illness has subsided, sleep is usually possible, I have more time to myself, I am feeling brighter and have more energy at last. Who is to say how long this may last, but I am very, very grateful for this time to breathe.

I am enjoying finding the time to keep a clean and tidy house, to plan and make nutritious food for us all, to exercise and stretch and get strong again, to improve my posture and my back problems, to read a little more, to get out in the sunshine and think about pruning and maybe growing some beans. My granddaughter is becoming a little easier and more fun and there is more of a dialogue between us, with the promise of more to come. There are birthdays and visits and other nice things to look forward to.

So, nothing major is getting done, no great works, no daily programmes of activity have begun, there is no particularly creative buzzing going on. This will come I think. I will always need to create and eventually there will be more time to devote to this. Meanwhile, there is always crochet.

My latest project is a stripey blanket worked in aran weight yarn. It was supposed to be a way of using up old half-balls and oddments, but along the way a 'few' more balls have found their way into my wool basket and into the blanket. I chose the colours to remind me of the sea and of the shore... sand, water, wood, rock, seaweeds, shells, shimmering light on the wings of birds. I love the sea and the shore and this is for wrapping up in and dreaming.

It is about halfway through and a lovely thing to do in the evenings... it is still chilly enough for a log fire most nights and there are lots of great things on tv... have you seen Sacred Music and The Wonders of the Solar System? If not, do try to.

she is not dead but sleepeth

Despite the recent lack of posts, I'm still here, taking things slowly, recovering from a cold and spending a few days in beautiful Richmond, Yorkshire, where we had the great pleasure of staying at Millgate House with its beautiful garden.

Although it had only just emerged from several weeks of snow, the garden was a delight, and we were lucky enough to stay in the garden apartment which has its own little door onto the terrace.

Everything in the apartment was understated elegance...

It was a very nurturing place of warm fires, old wooden furniture, linen armchairs, worn stone flags and shelves full of books... even the kitchen drawers were lined with more and more and more books.

Unfortunately the cold virus prevented me from doing much other than drink a lot of soothing tea and work my way through the library. But that was fine.

Now we're back in Manchester I'm spending my time getting to grips with my birthday present, spring cleaning, crocheting (a new project... news of that soon), making time to continue my experiments with drawing and embroidery techniques and cooking delicious things to eat. I always feel that spring arrives with my birthday and so I will hear no more of winter. Green things are unfurling and poking their noses skywards, the birds are singing until nearly 7 o'clock and it's getting lighter every day...

in the end is the beginning

My hexagon patchwork quilt is finished! A few weeks ago I wrote about the need to finish various projects that had been hanging around for months or years and now another one has been removed from the pile of things to do and set free into household use. It's a lovely feeling... a freedom... a sort of decluttering that somehow unblocks creativity and leads to new things.

I wrote a lot about the quilt once before, so I'll only offer a brief introduction today. If you'd like to hear the story of how it began, over fifteen years ago, and read more about my Granny who inspired it, have a look here.

It's almost certainly the most labour-intensive and time-consuming thing I will ever make... nearly a thousand hand-stitched hexagons and probably a hundred thousand little stitches holding it together.

New and old fabrics including many vintage pieces from family and friends... a pieced binding from the same fabrics... backed with plain white cotton sheeting and cotton batting and then quilted on the machine... otherwise it would never have got finished. Then washed and dried to achieve a lovely, slightly shrunken softness.

It's already much loved and enjoyed... not an heirloom treasure but a proper part of the linen cupboard, a domestic textile to be used and washed and worn and snuggled into.

As a coda to last week's paper giveaway, my mum gave me a huge pile of unwanted art paper today... I love every bit, and it has more than replaced the bundles I gave away. I like how life provides, if we let it, and if we keep things moving round.