Nothing ever seems impossible in spring, you know

Andrew Montgomery

Hello and welcome to the beginning of April – I’ve been like the birds with the longer hours of daylight – busy and pootling about with burst of spring energy!  When the sun comes out everything in me has to be outside for a spell.  I’m an early bird so I love sitting down the garden in the morning with my coffee before doing a few garden jobs.  I think the squirrels are going to have to get used to me – the trees and fence are their run and once or twice they have stopped in their tracks and flicked their tails when I’ve been sitting quietly and they realise I’m there.  I’ve had a tiny one-person patio laid as our large patio is in the shade this time of year.  It feels a bit like nesting in a studio, it needed a nice chair, plant pots, pebbles and bits ‘n bobs around to feel at home. I just love it!

Because I’m up early, I hear the dawn chorus, too.  In fact I’ve stuck my phone out and recorded it just for you 😁 and it’s the best sound in the world!  I’m absolutely made up that we have a lot of birds in the garden and fields, I missed them at our previous house.  So far I’ve counted 22 different ones in the garden (23 if you count the skeins of geese flying over). 

In arty news, I’ve been preparing for and enjoying our local arts week.   40 artists took over the high street shop windows, library and church in our small town and it created a brilliant art trail.  My window was quite a big one so I packed up pretty much all of my paintings. It’s been so nice to be part of such a celebration of the wider arts as there were also 50 other activities taking place and a wonderful launch event to start things off.  

Some nice March weather has also meant I could try out a bit of sketching and mark-making.  This feels very new at the moment but I’m excited to see how it translates into textiles and paint this year.  I’m on a mission this year to free up and will have work in a gallery exhibition later this year which I’m busy with.  After the summer, I will be able to share more of all this.  

I knew Spring would be quiet in the sense of having photos to share but I’m actually busy with mentoring, teaching and making.  It’s nice to be back visiting groups after the winter break.  

We have just taken down the ‘Reflections’ Art Through Textiles exhibition in Dronfield Hall barn near Sheffield.

This was my piece and you may recognise the surface design from my book.  There were some fantastic pieces in the exhibition and I’m really enjoying having joined a large and vibrant textile art group.  If you are on Instagram, there are lots of videos of the exhibition over there.   Happily the piece sold, but here is a little about it which I feel I can share as we all offered background information to our pieces at the exhibition.  

Illumine was made in response to considering the light that can be found in the many ways we express ourselves as humans, particularly spiritually.  I was swimming up and down a pool looking at the light reflecting on the small waves.  The layered surface I created in response some time ago spoke about theme of the exhibition so well that I decided to re-work the original piece.  The piece contains small snippets of printed papers with lettering from various spiritual traditions.  We tend to live within a culture, a religion, an upbringing that creates a personal viewpoint.  It is a very different form to the original but similarly, you cannot see all sides at once: the act of turning the vessels round provides a metaphor to encourage us to look at different views as we consider our connection to each other and the light which illuminates our many colours on this one planet. 

I’ve also finished some more Stitchpots.  I know, I said I’d finished doing them last year 🤭 and I thought I had, but the joy of our move and a new place just wanted to come out so I caved and here they are, all based on the limey green tree trunks and grey skies of winter.   

Now, off to do some more work in the garden and give a neglected patch a bit of love before everything takes off…