Have strength in your own convictions.

Well after my complete crisis before half-term, things are looking up again. I am writing an accompanying essay for the exhibition that structures the whole show, with quotes from it being displayed with the work in order to set the visuals in context. Here is the brief summary about the collection:

“This collection of new work is concerned with the natural evolution of communities through “inheritance”.
It explores the issues we face in terms of what tangible evidence (buildings, artefacts etc) from the past we preserve and what we discard.
In addition, the work aims to challenge the audience to consider the possibility that large scale intervention could in practice hinder the natural development of a community and indeed disinherit an entire generation in the process."

I have completed my gloves for the piece 'follow me' and they hang quite nicely together.



Each mitten is knitted from an old book of patterns that I inherited, published in 1903. The ribbon threaded through is printed with the names of some of my female family members and ancestors. It suggests the way that we learn from the women around us, each generation passing onto the next skills, qualities and attributes. Each mitten is slightly different, even though worked from the same pattern, through the process of the making I often found fault with the previous one and tried to make the next one better. Each time I would alter the pattern just a little in order to improve the glove. In the same way, each generation takes the pattern of it's predecessors and alters it to improve it, all the while knowing that the next generation will go through the exact same process.

Over the half-term I have thought a lot about the direction of this collection and what I am trying to say through it. With a little help from a friend http://www.blogger.com/profile/12648229748088235109

.....and a quote from Richard Billingham:"It's your work that matters; you haven't got to bother what people think. You've just got to concentrate on your work and not be distracted......... but you have to have strength in your own convictions".

Sometimes it's hard not to get distracted by what you think you should be doing or what you think other people might like you to do or, in my case, what might be more 'exciting' to the world of contemporary practice. I will always struggle against textiles in this respect and indeed in today's atmosphere of almost anti-beauty within contemporary art. The further something is from traditional art, the more appreciated it is.
Now I love contemporary art, I like to see installations, I like to be challenged, I even like to see screen based media(sometimes!) but what I like to create is probably more traditional. I just like beautiful things and I like the good old fashioned ability to hang something on a wall!
I think there is room for all approaches in contemorary art and so I must indeed concentrate on my work and "not be distracted".

On a lighter note, at the weekend we went to Etruria Canal Festival as we do every year. We walked along the Cauldon Canal which is very close to our home and it took about twenty minutes. May have been quicker if I hadn't been taking a load of photos! Here's just a few.