I spent 5 days last week at Committed to Cloth. This was my last week at the C2C studio as it is closing next month. Leslie is retiring and planning to spend some time working on her own work. I am excited to see what she makes.
This was my fourth time of doing 'Unlocking the Mystery of Creative Play'. You would have thought I would have unlocked it by now!
You may have noticed in recent posts that I have been making both paper and fabric collages and last week I continued the theme. I started by making a concertina book. I usually make small collages which are centred within a page so I set myself the challenge of covering the whole paper. I used papers I had taken with me.
As I said, I like to work small so I challenged myself to work much larger. I used papers taken from an amazing German art supplies catalogue.
This is about A2 size and as I worked on it I kept turning the paper round until all the white paper was covered.
I also photographed it in other ways up.
I moved on to another large collage
I don't usually work with dark colours so I had some interesting conversations with Leslie and with Amanda Duke about contrast.
Watch out for another post on Saturday about what I did next!
I have just got back from 5 days of play at Committed to Cloth. Admittedly I didn't play the whole time but that's a whole other blog post.
After we had all introduced ourselves and Leslie had explained some activities, I chose to make collages using brown, white and black paper, with added touches of red. I started with 14cm squares. I had decided I would work with squares because when I was at C2C last year I used circles.
I tried them in a long line and then decided to make 3 more to make a square.
I tried out different layouts.
Then I photocopied the squares 141% bigger. The problem with that was 141% makes rectangles rather than bigger squares!
I had glued the black & white squares to a backing paper and then I cut it up. You know I love cutting up stuff. I tried out the strips in different layouts.
I added small amounts of red to make it more interesting.
I joined all the strips together and was hoping to be able to have a curly book.
The paper didn't really want to curl so I went back to my preferred zigzag.
I pinned it to the wall
Then (you know me!) I cut up the long strip into 3 strips.
I don't know what I shall do with this - if anything! But I know from last year's play that what you see above may well inform something I make later this year although it won't be a replication.
That was just day 1. There's so much more to come. See you back here.
I had booked the workshop because Leslie Morgan (owner of C2C) assured me that it was something that I should do. I went with some trepidation and uncertainty as I didn't really understand the description of Tactile Notebooks:
This workshop will help you to find your own living language through the creation of a vibrant notebook practice. Motivated by ‘haptic’ considerations we will use the sense of touch to stimulate and awaken perception to guide the making process, and to revive sensitivity to the way we communicate both visually and verbally. We will create tactile pages, playing with materials, techniques, and words to make concrete the vital elements of our experience. The goal is to heighten your sensory experience, expand understanding in unexpected directions, and deepen your artistic vision.
The supply list didn't give many clues as it matched in almost every particular the tools and media I would take to an art journaling workshop.
The first day started with the group gathering around the table whilst Sandra talked about many things including what the workshop was about. Each day started with this gathering and the setting of the timetable for the day. Sandra shared generously from her abundant knowledge, backed up with photographs and quotes. This photo shows just a few items from the first session.
Unusually the first day was spent making the cover for our notebooks - to make the notebooks precious. Most folks I know make the cover when the notebook is finished. I had taken some ice dyed fabric which I cut to fit my 6" square notebook. I found the bit of turquoise in one of the bags of bits I had taken.
Inside
I beaded the spine.
On the second day we talked about paper and made a group list of things you can do to paper. I had also taken a 4" square notebook with me and found I had enough fabric to cover this to match. I spent most of the day making a record book of the different actions from the list we had made.
One of the things that Sandra emphasised was that these notebooks were for our eyes only. They were not for public consumption. We did share the pages with her as she went round talking to each of us. Her encouragement and support was limitless.
I decided that the first page needed to be a privacy notice as a reminder to me, especially as I tend to share, (some may say overshare), much of my work on this blog.
I really didn't get going in my notebook until day 3. I had played with one or two pages, but had put all my discussion notes and quotes in a separate notebook whilst I came to terms with all the input from Sandra. I wanted a record of everything but not necessarily in this tactile notebook.
I was very taken with the poem Love After Love by Derek Walcott
We had each been given a nightlight which sat on the foiled paper. As I wasn't planning on lighting the candle I glued the paper into my notebook to represent the mirror in the poem.
I'm not going to show you all the pages I did. However I will show you a sequence of pages I did after watching this video:
Sandra had described a metaphor for the workshop. We were to imagine we were all on a barge with the banks close to the sides of the barge so that we could get off whenever we wanted to. We could follow wherever inspiration took us.
One word written in many different ways to fill the page.
My response to one of the poems we read together. It rained quite heavily whilst we were at the workshop.
By the end of the group session on the fifth day there was a phenomenal amount of inspiration on the walls - and notes in my notebook!
We were each given a piece of red fabric and asked to look at all the information on the walls and pin our cloth on the image or quote that meant most to us at that moment. I chose this:
I photocopied it to put in my book and wrote about why I chose it.
We were also asked to go back through our notes and notebooks and make a list of 27 words, phrases or sentences that stood out to us as a summary of our time together.
You will see that #27 says new life. Our granddaughter was born whilst I was on the workshop.
Over the years I have wanted to have a daily journal practice, but it just wasn't me. I didn't enjoy the act of writing. Strange as I love writing here. As you know I do art journaling but that isn't daily. I've tried writing a diary but that gets very boring - there's only so much you can say about my day - got up, had breakfast, read my emails, spent far too long on Facebook, etc, etc.
As I spent time going through the notes and my tactile notebook to gather my 27 Words, I noticed that I had picked out some things about journeys. As you probably know I like to travel and I often make travel journals for my trips. I realised at that moment that if I treat my tactile notebook as a travel journal - a travel journal of my life - that I would be able to find a way into keeping a journal. Especially as having a daily notebook practice can be about mark making or stitch or gluing a picture in. It doesn't need to be a diary with a written account everyday.
It was an inspiring and life-changing experience. Thank you Sandra and thank you Leslie.
Last summer, just after the bandages were taken off my hand, I spent a glorious 5 days at Committed to Cloth. The retreat was called Breakdown Printing with Colour Studies. I went with the intention fo getting as much out of it as I could even if all I did was watch and listen. I wasn't sure my hand would be up to doing any of the actual work. But I did.
I have at last spent some time cutting up the colour families I made and putting them into a sketchbook. I haven't been able to grip the rotary cutter firmly enough to cut up the fabrics into little squares. But now, here they are.
Leslie dyed a colour family in the washing machine to show us how it is done. It produces an all-over dyed smooth finish (above) whilst the ones I did produce a variety of textures based on the unironed fabric. Dark Brown - Turquoise
Lighter versions
Dark Brown/Royal blue - Turquoise/Royal Blue
Various experments
Then a change of colour
I managed to do all the breakdown printing whilst I was there. All 8 metres of it. I used the various colour families I mixed on the breakdown screens.
I ended up with some lovely fabrics although I still have no idea what I'm going to do with them.
If screen printing or breakdown printing interests you, there are 2 books I can recommend. Screen Printing by Claire Benn and Leslie Morgan Breakdown Your Palette by Leah Higgins
