Get your wiggle on!

Helloooo!

We have moved – Whoop! Whoop!  

There was drama until the day we actually vacated, and even then it was in horrid stormy weather.  I don’t know anyone whose move goes smoothly these days but we definitely took a few days to come round and enjoy the feeling of being in a dry, easier to manage, newer house and the lack of constant house-moving communications. 

So, arty chums… I now have a bedroom studio with pristine white walls (probably not for long).   It’s a very different space to our last house and has a north-facing window which is great, although if I’m being honest, the darker spaces are taking me a while to get used to.   A daylight bulb is also a brilliant addition (pun intended) and I’m enjoying sitting at my desk by the window looking out to a row of trees that have been glorious in the Autumn sun we’ve been having.  Yes, sun.  In the UK.  I know.

We have moved to a place of trees and my soul is very happy!  To that end, we’ve inherited an established acer which I just have to show you as it’s been breathtaking.

I’ve also joined a new textile group and said a sad goodbye to my old one.   There are a lot of changes but we are ready to see what this part of our lives has to offer.  The town is known for its coffee culture and countryside, both of which are wonderful.  There is a vibrant arts scene here which I’m slowly being introduced to so I’m sure there will be more of that as time goes on.  

One feature of Penistone is the Trans Pennine Trail which runs East /West across the country.  It’s an old railway line so makes for easy walking or cycling.   I posted a few photos on Instagram and ended up being invited to write a short piece about how I’m re-finding joy in Autumn and walking on the trail as part of that.

Due to all the turmoil, I’ve had some hand-stitching with me that is easy to pick up.  Since I’ve sorted some studio space, I’ve extended it a lot, layering and piecing it section by section.  It’s a piece about re-wiggling rivers. 

Rewiggling or ‘re-meandering’ is the process of adding bends back into a river or stream if the watercourse has been straightened artificially in the past. This often involves enabling a river to once again overflow across sections of its ancient floodplain. 

In a natural river system, a complex variety of slow and fast flowing water, waterfalls, sandbanks, deep pools and marginal spaces supports diversity.  In a straightened river, most of this is lost. 

For decades, rivers have been straightened to increase shipping and usable agricultural land.  We got it wrong.  It was thought that straightening rivers would decrease flooding by moving water quickly away from flood plains, but flooding only occurred downstream instead. 

A straightened river is a ‘lotic’ system – fast-flowing requiring species to cling to the bottom or swim rapidly. But in a wild river, there is a good mix of lotic and lentic (slow-flowing/static) systems. 

It struck me that creativity is much like this: moments of fast pace and flow, meandering, deep pools, blockages and paths round, glimpses occurring in our periphery or tributaries of our projects…

As rivers are re-wiggled, similarly, we are much more conscious of how slowing down aids wellbeing amidst our fast pace of life. 

This piece was primarily about just that, the not getting from A to B as fast as possible.  Hand-stitching is delightfully slow and comforting and it’s holding me as I hold it, for many hours. 

Here are some close-ups and a couple of sections but it’s so long (over 4m so far) it’s hard to photograph well and I’m still deciding if it needs to be single or double sided… It’s made with lots of Procion-dyed silk organza and other thin recycled cottons and silks.  Dyeing is unusual for me as I tend to work with paint but the organza came out so beautifully and wriggly that I’ve had enormous pleasure leaving it that way and exploiting the shape of it to represent flowing passages.  

Dark orbs of organza were my way of representing deep still pools. There are browns where shallow water flows across gravel and greens where water shares its passage with vegetation, water weeds or trees. 

I’m making each section up as I go along and trying to balance some repeats along the length.  It’s surprising just how long the thinking, arranging, rearranging and tacking takes in order to get to the hand-stitchy bit.  

I also had a treat of a painting day with Debbie Loane.  We used inks and mixed media to explore landscapes.  I haven’t painted for a long time so it was a nice way back in.  It was a day to play and explore possibilities without pressure but having come home, I worked further into a couple of pieces which I’m unexpectedly pleased with.  I’ve struggled with both inks and chalks but suddenly realised I quite love them together and their mark-making possibilities. Here are a few crops of some juicy bits 😊. I continue to feel stretched to make bold moves in painting and risk what happens. With inks, it’s usually sloshing a good lot down somewhere and relinquishing control – it feels good when I manage it as it’s the opposite of how I experience textile art which is slow, comforting and more predictable.

We talked about trying to work from different landscapes but how we all end up creating scenes that look like home.  Personal connection with place always seems to make itself heard and it certainly was the case for me.  A couple of these remind me of our new fields and hills even though it was more of a general play.  

Well I wish you some happy creating until next time.  I’m off to get a wiggle on and work on some more sections of my river.