TAKING STOCK

We all know how weird its been. Time has passed at a very strange pace and we all think that we haven't done that much in the last 3 months. 

So now is a good time to take stock and look at exactly what we have all been up to. 

I don't mean a tidy up or a sort out. I am also not counting cake making, new recipes and the shampooing of my lounge rug and the cleaning behind my fridge in this audit.

I have laid out the last month and a halves worth of stuff made, experiments tried and half completed ideas.

Lets kick off with the brilliant project started off by Catherine Kingzett at the beginning of lock down. The Alphabet I-Spy. The task of recording things seen on that regular walk or in the garden in alphabetical order. I loved doing that, I do have X, Y and Z to do, but it was a motivational little project that kept me going. I dipped into an emotional response here and there, particularly my V for virus, but otherwise I have seen everything I have put in my samples. I will be making a small book which will become a Lock Down Artifact.

I have added to my Eco printed crow book and used the drawings for collagraph plates. 

I have also experimented with printing these collagraphs onto fabric...there has been a great deal of that lately!!

You may remember one of my first prompts was to have a go at Eco Printing, this left me with lots of lovely papers and fabrics. I have been using the paper to print collagraphs and

etchings. Keep an eye out for this in workshop form next year. I think you could try this at the yard:ARTspace

I dipped into other peoples workshops and tutorials, finding a free workshop call Sketch Book Revival. This was very early on in lock down.

I was thrilled with the junk journal I made and have been

drawing my garden in it...I have more plans for it later on.

At a very loose end one Sunday I gathered my fabric samples together, eco prints, gum arabic transfers on fabric, collaged panels, collagraphs and cyanotypes on fabric and...well...just made a skirt. I love wearing it, it makes me feel very arty!

In between all this experimenting I have still been moved to make collagraphs and have been expanding on my birds with haberdashery series. This has not been a time for me to go off on a completely new way of working. I have had to stay with the familiar and comforting.

And now there is the Same Sea, Different Boat project where I have printed over 200 collagraphs and together with Louise Asher and Liske Johnson and a few other willing bodies will be creating a Lock Down Quilt describing the experience we have all been through.

That's what this experience has made me do!!

When I woke up this morning I was feeling lack luster, that feeling that over the past 3 months I had not achieved very much. This time of lock down was not meant to be about achieving, it was not the time to take on new skills, spring clean or read War and Peace. We do those things when we feel happy and secure.

So I have looked at the things I have done here, not what I could have, should have done.

Looking back at what I have explored and what I am about to take on, also looking forward to starting classes again in August (I hope)

I think perhaps I am being hard on myself?