While I was struggling to complete the river piece I had announced to anyone who would listen, that I was going to give textiles a rest. I was going to go back to art journaling and mixed media. So much for that! As I was finishing the river piece I got ...
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Chaos to Calm and more...




Chaos to Calm

While I was struggling to complete the river piece I had announced to anyone who would listen, that I was going to give textiles a rest.  I was going to go back to art journaling and mixed media.

So much for that!

As I was finishing the river piece I got the inspiration for 4 new pieces.  I actually had pictures in my mind of what they would look like.  They are all very different but all represent freedom in some form.

Chaos to Calm

I have drawn them in a workbook to get them out of my head and only working on one piece at the moment.

I was also inspired by a lamp made by Donna the winner of the Great British Pottery Throwdown, called The Ascent, which represented her journey out of depression.

I have painted procion dye onto calico.  It was supposed to be really dark  at one end getting lighter using a dark black, a lighter black, a medium charcoal and a lighter charcoal.  However it didn't really work out but never mind.  There was supposed to bee a lighter grey where the black 'bled' into the cream!

Plus when I washed the dye out 24 hours later, I managed to get some staining on the part that was supposed to be undyed.  However it will work out okay as move on with the piece.

I decided to make the piece slightly smaller so ripped off some of the black on the left and a strip from the top.

I had dyed other fabrics to use with this piece plus some pieces dyed with rust coloured procion dye to make chains for two of the other pieces.

I have torn up some of the fabric to make fragments which I have currently just placed onto the background.  Each of them will be handstitched before being stitched onto the piece.

I am going to wrap the cords with the different torn black fabrics before couching them onto the piece.

My tasks for this week include wrapping the cords, making some thinner cords on the sewing machine and attaching the background to some wadding and a backing so that they will take the weight of the cords.

Not much then!!

I'll let you know my progress in a later blog post.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice


 

Catching Up!

Having not blogged regularly over the last few months I have some catching up to do.

Our photography theme for December/January was Glimmer Moments.  You can read more about what these are here.

The instructions for the photography group were: A glimmer moment is something that brings joy or a sense of safety. This isn’t about taking the perfect picture. It’s about snapping an image that probably only means something to you. It might be an image that represents a moment rather than the moment itself. After all we should be living in the moment. An example might be the dirty plates after a family meal.

I only took two photos during the 4 weeks - one at each end of the time - both of which were about meals out with the same friends.

Ceiling lamp at the restaurant

Painting on the restaurant wall


The next theme was to choose between 5 and 10 of our best or favourite photos from 2023. 






 

I hope you have enjoyed my photographs.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

 

Poetry thoughts

My lack of creativity wasn't total during January & February.  I did manage to attend some online poetry workshops.  The good thing about zoom is you can turn the camera off so the other participants don't know whether you're even there.  And certainly one of the sessions I was particularly vacant, even though I was actually in the room with computer!


For this first poem we were asked to make a list of words that go together.  For example, pencil and paper, cats & dogs, up & down, etc.

Where?
Let’s stay here. Here
where comfort lies.
Here, where my concerns
are contained and specified.
Here, where I feel safe. 

Let’s go there. There
where adventure waits.
There, where worries fade
amidst the new found space.
There, where I feel free. 

The second poem we were asked to write was about travelling solo.

Frustration
What if I packed a bag
and ran away from home?
What if I leave no note or
explanation; no forwarding address
or plan of destination?
What if I turn off my phone
to enjoy the silence of a solo
retreat? Retreat to times past
when communication was simple.
What if I set out one sunny day
choosing a road to travel to
who knows where; then turning
East or West after half an hour?
What if? What if I don’t?

This third poem is an ode to make something unimportant become significant. 

Taking Out The Bins
Monday’s chore. To empty
inside bins into
a plastic sack and place it
in the grey bin. Outside
whatever the weather, ready
for Tuesday’s collection.
A simple task held lightly
by him, but seen as a love
language to her. 

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

 

The Story of the River

What a journey I have been on over the last three months.

Regular readers know that I usually blog twice a week.  This year I have managed one post: Lets Start a Conversation.  In that post I told you how I was stricken with anxiety attacks and unable to do much creatively.

In order to finish the textile piece I had started in mid-December I attend two studio days at Littleheath Barn, taking only this piece to work on.  The choice was to sit all day doing nothing or actually working on the piece.  I did the latter.

Towards the end of February I managed to do some handstitching at home without too much anxiety.  But there were days in between when I was paralysed by anxiety and unable to pick up the work.

Last Friday after another anxiety attack midweek, I finished the piece.  And miraculously, all anxiety left me completely and I have experienced the best week of 2024 so far.

But let me tell you about the background to the piece before I show it to you.  I have had this picture of a river in my head for around 55 years.  I know! A long time.

When I was at teacher training college in the late 1960s, one of our assessments was to write a cross-curriculum project introducing a piece of classical music to 7-11 year olds.   I have no idea how I came across this piece of music but it has appealed to me ever since.

Vltava is the second of six symphonic poems by Bedrich Smetana.  He described it: The composition describes the course of the Vltava, starting from the two small springs, the Studená and Teplá Vltava, to the unification of both streams into a single current, the course of the Vltava through woods and meadows, through landscapes where a farmer's wedding is celebrated, the round dance of the mermaids in the night's moonshine: on the nearby rocks loom proud castles, palaces and ruins aloft. The Vltava swirls into the St John's Rapids; then it widens and flows toward Prague, past the Vyšehrad, and then majestically vanishes into the distance, ending at the Elbe.

 

Inthe 1990s we were singing 'The River is Here' quite often and I had this picture in my head of making a textile piece about the journey of a river through rocky land, desert and into lush greenery.

                

 

I eventually made the piece as part of my City and Guilds course.  I dyed various types of fabics and cut them up into rectangles and sewed them onto a backing piece.  I really didn't know much about dyeing at that time.  Whilst I finished the piece I was never totally satisfied with it.  I felt the greens were all wrong but didn't have time to do anything about it.

It hung in my office when I was a church administrator but when we closed down the office I threw it away.

Both that piece and the new piece was inspired by Bible passages:  Ezekiel 47:1-12 and Revelation 22:1-2.

So drum roll please!  Here's the finished piece:

It is 20 inches wide and 56 inches long.  As a river it would perhaps read better in landscape format but that would need a really long batten and would present a difficult storage problem.  And although my husband thought it was about a waterfall, it isn't!

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice


 

Let’s start a conversation

Did you know that February 1st is Time to Talk Day? I first came across it in 2018 where I wrote a blog post about my story and the value of talking for mental health. 

Thankfully in the years since then I have been healed. I do have down days – the winter doesn’t help – but I do not sink into depression. I can’t remember the exact day it lifted but I do know that it was an answer to other people’s prayers and mine.

This year (I know it’s only been a month!) I have had spaghetti for a mind. Everything has been muddled up and needs untangling. Maybe it’s more like one of my threads boxes than spaghetti!

I have been overwhelmed and over thinking. Actually some of it started the Thursday before Christmas when I did some free machine embroidery on the latest textile piece I’m supposedly working on. It just didn’t fit the piece of work or the picture in my head. And really why would something so innocuous send me spiralling into anxiety. The work and the machine sat on the table for what felt like forever but was actually just over 2 weeks. I couldn’t go into the room. I felt I couldn’t do any thing creative. I couldn’t even think about being creative without shaking inside. I have never suffered from anxiety – just a few butterflies before interviews or exams. But day after day there it was. I self-medicated with binge watching Chinese drama videos on YouTube.

Some of them are supposed to be comedies. I think some of them are supposed to be serious. But seriously, there’s slow motion kissing, slow motion gazing (how do you gaze in slow motion?), slow motion walking and slow motion running. And of course, slow motion blinking.  There’s also either a scheming man or woman or both, a firm-jawed cold CEO and a waif described as Cinderella in the click bait title. 

I haven’t written blog posts here. I did do one for church on Perspective.  Actually I wrote about perspective on this blog post From under the sideboard.  I haven’t written in my planner/creative journal. I have managed to turn up to a studio day and a workshop but it was a struggle. I also turned up for two poetry zoom classes but ended up somewhat further down the spiral after one of the poems I wrote stirred up a problem I thought I’d dealt with.

Chinese drama aside, I have also talked to people. I’ve ‘chatted’ by text on Messenger, I’ve been on zoom calls and I’ve met with people in person.

Looking back, the issue of whether I should give up textiles and mixed media has come up about every 4 years. Should I throw out everything and find something else to do? Rest assured, it wouldn’t be cooking!

However during this last 6 weeks it’s been obvious that I need to be creative. It’s what I’m meant to do. Creativity is the gift God has given me in order to help, support and encourage others in their creativity whatever that looks like.

I’m so thankful for all the people who have listened to me during the past few weeks. It is so good to have people you can trust who will listen without condemnation. Each of them said in one way or another some or all of the following:

  • I’m supposed to be creating
  • I encourage and support others
  • I need to be kinder to myself
  • I need to find the joy 

What do you need to find?

What do you need to talk about?

Do you have a trusted friend who will listen?

If you don’t, email me and I’ll start a conversation with you.

Maybe you could become a listening friend.

Thanks for ‘listening’ today.
Bernice