Art?

At the beginning of the year, I read threads of life by Clare Hunter. It’s a beautiful book of stories about how thread based art, predominantly embroidery have been used and thought about over the centuries. It was really interesting and thought provoking.

It also coincided with me thinking about whether I was an artist or not. Where I live has a lovely artists trail, each September, across the town and local area, and I have been to visit various artists, full and part time through it over the last couple of years. I saw the call for sign ups and was considering if it’s something I’d want to exhibit in. That things that stopped me this time, was I didn’t have anywhere to display any items that wasn’t directly inside my house and I don’t sell the things I make so what exactly was I looking for with exhibiting in this event (which does lean toward sales)

I’ve always used the term maker to describe myself, partly because making self designed items is still relatively new for me and partly because my mediums are things that people don’t necessarily think of as art

I’m still considering which of my items are considered art and which I might want to continue to make enough of to display one day.

But one thing that I definitely took away from ‘threads of life’ was the use of embroidery in community art and action is longstanding and underrated. And where I live has a strong community arts scene so I’ve been trying to find ways of getting involved, which has been tricky this year as I balance health, work and participating in anything else. But when I saw the call for people to embroider their reaction to the theme of women and domesticity on a duster from the SwindonStitchSocial group for an exhibition, I knew I wanted to be involved. This craftivist project is being run in conjunction with DomesticDusters.

And so I made my duster.

I changed my mind about the original middle section, but the flowers are made of the classic embroidery stitches so for those in the know they add to the message

I had so many different things I could have said on this, but I needed to make sure I could complete it by the deadline

I love embroidering text, it’s slow but there’s something incredibly intentional about it

I’m looking forward to seeing the exhibition and everyone’s thoughts and there will be more ramblings from me on the theme of art in the future

June 2023

May has been warmer finally, so I’ve been making the most of being outside. Ive not done much crafting as I’ve been away a fair bit so doing other lovely things instead.

1. Jumper – No change
2. Chinese landscape cross stitch – No change
3. Large mixed media embroidery – No change
4. Clamshell draft excluder – No change
5. Mandolin quilt – I’m still working on mandolins 10 and 11
6. A beaded Christmas wreath – no change
7. The mixed media quilt as you panels – I finished a 4th fully epp’d square and have started the fifth
8. A beaded bauble – no change
9. A cherish quilt – I basted the pieces for the first section

There’s been no pottery this month, but I’ll get back there.

My feature image is from Chelsea flower show one of the things keeping me busy this month