What a swell party it was

Thursday saw the opening of the first of our Material Girls/ Articulation collaborative exhibitions here in the UK . The Private view was a resounding success with attendances by the deputy Mayor and our local arts supremo, lots of friends, relatives and colleagues.

The Girls had all produced excellent work as usual and the display was outstanding. The only sadness was that none of our Canadian colleagues could be with us on the night. Finally the Girls presented me with a gorgeous bouquet of flowers which was really appreciated.

The exhibition runs for one more week at the Brentwood Road Gallery and then its next viewing will be at 'Textiles on the Hill' , a weekend event Material Girls are organising in May which will include not only the exhibition but so much more. So as they say there's no rest for the wicked. Keep tuned for more info. on this event in the near future.

Come and See

We are under starters orders with the first of the Bridging Waters exhibition. We 'hang' on Monday and open on Weds (22nd) It appears to have caught the imagination of the local press and we are hoping that this might feed the fight to get Textile Art registered in the minds of people as worthy of a place in the world of fine art. If you can't make this exhibition there will be some more opportunities to see the work whilst it is in the UK the next being as part of a textile weekend we are staging at the Woolmarket in Horndon On the Hill,Essex at the end of May. We hope this will be a free, fun event which will include not only the exhibition, but demonstrations, supplies, textile art for sale and info about what is going on in the world of textiles- all trying to raise the profile and get more people involved. And of course there will be tea and cake! Keep your eyes peeled for more information.

If you want to know more about any of the exhibitions visit ;-

www.the-materialgirls.co.uk or themarterialgirls.blogspot.com. and come and enjoy this transatlantic collaboration.

Dust of Snow

I have felt a bit like I am running and getting no where at the moment textile wise. So much so that recently I have even been questioning why I bother and if I should go on.

With the big exhibitions coming up it has been hard work - not with creating, I haven't had a lot of time for that and I think that's been the problem.Whenever I have had time I have had to 'do' something else usually connected with paperwork. Also since finishing the degree I feel my textile work is now expected to take a back seat to other areas in life. But I didn't do all those years not to try and take my work forward.

Two things have happened just recently which have helped.

About a week ago we (ERTF) had a study day on Scandinavian textiles at the house of one of our members (Kirsten Yeates) who has an extensive collection. They beautiful and delicate and must have been produced under quite difficult circumstances sometimes. They were made with love and you could feel it and it made me realise just how much I love these things, being in the company of like minded people and learning.

Secondly yesterday I was bashing the snow off the olive tree in the garden when a large pigeon landed on the Acer and covered me with snow and it made me think of the Robert Frost Poem

The way a crow

shook down on me

the dust of snow

from a Hemlock tree

has given my heart

a change of mood

and staved some part

of a day I had rued.

It made me laugh - it was beautiful out there, it made me want to go in and sew something snowy and magical. So I will start to structure my time again properly and treat creating as an essential part of my daily routine again as it used to be and hang the paperwork!what is it they say 'a little less conversation. a little more action please'

Hacked Off

This may seem ironic that I am using a computer blog to have a moan about computers but I am using this just to alert people that my e-mail account was recently hacked by spammers. As I expect that most people that read my blog are people I know and, therefore, have their e-mail addresses just a warning to only open e-mails that you would be expecting from me. It has taken me ages to sort this out today and hopefully this is all now secure again and I hope these people that do this sort of thing get exactly what they deserve. But its just another occasion when technology has caused problems and totally disrupted my day.

There are times when I really hate all this modern technology. Now don't get me wrong I know exactly what it was like to live without many modern conveniences and we should be grateful. I know what it was like to live with no indoor plumbing, bathing in a tin bath heating water on a range , cold outdoor loos, not having access to a washing machine until 1978, washing sheets in a bath and using a mangle or not knowing what central heating was until 1979 when it was often a case of scraping the inside of the bedroom window to see out- I know it was no picnic (although it does mean I am a dab hand at plucking chickens, removing shot from fowl and can dig a great drainage ditch for sewage!). I still wouldn't know what to do with a tumble dryer or a dishwasher and I know computers can be useful but they really seem to have taken over our lives. If there is a power cut -the world stops, people panic. We have almost gotten too reliant so bring back balance! send me a letter not an e-mail occasionally, don't expect me to be on the end of a mobile 24/7. - just allow for 5 minutes peace away from all this madness. I'm off to mediate.

Sailing into 2012- new year,new challenges

Gosh- Half way through January already.

My textile year started with a bang as I spent time helping out setting up the 'shop within the show' at the Society of Designer Craftsmen exhibition in the Mall gallery in London. They have such beautiful work there that it was a bit scary putting the shop together and handling exquisite pieces of glass and ceramics as well as all the textiles and jewelry etc... Still I learnt an awful lot about display and the commercial world and am looking forward to being part of it all next year.

I was also lucky enough to have a one to one mentoring session with Deidre Hawken , she of the exquisite hats. This is something that the SDC offers its new licentiates and it was really useful as I start to venture out into the real world.

Still no time to relax as our first 'Bridging Waters' exhibition looms large, only a month away now. The work has all arrived over from 'Articulation' in Canada- this was a bit nerve racking as whilst it was out of our hands somewhere over the Atlantic you are never sure if its going to land all in one piece. Fortunately it arrived safely and I think it will all make a stunning show.

Even before this exhibition has started I am deep in preparations for the next showing which will be at a textile event we are holding in an Essex village in May with an emphasis on ' spreading the love of textiles' so watch this space or the Material Girls website

(www.the-materialgirls.co.uk) and blog for more details.

Its all very exciting but I feel like the many mentioned swan - all serene on the surface and paddling like crazy below the water line. Still talking about paddling I had just better go and check my elderly spaniel hasn't fallen in the pond again- he's gone very quiet! bye for now

A textile free zone ... almost

Most people who know me know that I don't really like Christmas for a myriad of reasons, however, this year when I thought it was going to be actually more angst ridden than even normal I think I have found the secret- Just don't think too much or if you do end every sad or sorry thought with a but...

I haven't managed to do anything 'christmassy' to get me in the mood this year for a variety of health and work reasons but I have taken to making sure that when I am out walking I enjoy all the little light displays that people put in their garden and there are some lovely ones out there.

Its been left entirely up to me to do nearly all the Christmas shopping - pressies and food - because everyone else has been too busy at work and as I don't drive this has been no mean feet. Even the wheelie basket gets heavy dragging it up the hill to my house for the umpteenth time. But I now have splendid biceps and I haven't had the other half (the accountant) staring over my shoulder saying things like 'couldn't you get the cheaper one?' (no because that tastes disgusting, will end up getting thrown away not eaten because even the dogs won't eat it and that's saying something as I don't do fussy pets and mine eat anything! and I'd rather eat less and enjoy it)

I'm no domestic goddess . I can pluck and draw a turkey, make all sorts of cakes and puddings and make any preserve you like but I don't enjoy it and the family (all 3 0f them) never notice and I'd rather be sewing. But they will all have all the trimmings (they all want different things including different types of pudding) and its actually cost me less than making it from scratch. More importantly as its all up to me I won't end wanting to stuff an onion up one of them rather than the turkey and even more importantly in today's climate we are lucky enough to have a Christmas dinner.

Although I was feeling a bit down because the daughter will be spending a large part of Christmas with her boyfriend and his family leaving me with the husband and the father-in-law who will probably be asleep by 5pm on Christmas Day , I realised I am lucky to have her with us for Christmas lunch and I shall spend the evening with something good on the telly and at last have time to pick up my much neglected stitching again.

Finally in just over a week it will be January- I love January, a new year, new challenges, time to get off and running again. So to everyone in Blogland have a Happy Christmas whatever you are doing, wherever you are and a joyful new year.

Minatures, Miracles and Matrices

Friday saw me meeting up with a couple of my closest arty friends to visit a plethora of exhibitions in London before they closed.

In reverse order we went to catch the 'Bite Size' exhibition before it finished this week and I am so glad we did. One of my friends had already seen it with a trip with her MA course and had recommended it and it was a joy , so calm, so peaceful, so clean.

For lunch we popped into the Wellcome Foundation but as they queue was so long we thought we'd have a quick whisk around one of the exhibitions before we ate and I am so glad we did.

The 'Charmed Life' exhibition was a real treat. Tiny little amulets and charms and how they were used juxtaposed with Felicity Powell's wonderful tiny wax pieces was a joy and extremely interesting. I would have spent ages in there if the hungry monster hadn't been calling.

In the morning we had visited one of our old degree tutor's show in the Crypt gallery at St. Pancras. Catherine Dormor had on display some of her work for her Phd. I had seen some pieces before and I do tend to find her work isn't quite me but they certainly looked stunning in this wonderful space and I particularly liked her silk organza pieces with seemed to warm against the brick walls and also her boxes which seemed to penetrate the walls and push you into another dimension.

The Crypt is an exciting space and it has certainly made me excited this week. My covert activity can now be revealed. I have had a proposal accepted for the gallery and myself and a group of fellow artists will be exhibiting there in May 2013! This is such an exciting prospect to be exhibiting in a London gallery with such a good reputation for unusual work and to be exhibiting besides artists of various disciplines will at last take textiles into the mainstream I hope, not keep it in isolation -something I have been working to do for so long. What a christmas present!