The Coy Craftsman

Preparing for workshops. Thinking about the format, getting the publicity done.  Then, endless lists of materials and possible directions. Endless checklists. Endless, tedious, resolving of small questions, endless, finicky, decisions.

But yet, somehow, the enthusiasm persists and the contours of life become more vivid with plans and participation.

I get so much out of doing workshops: will I get anything at all out of giving them?

workshops

I have decided to plunge in and offer some slabbing workshops, hoping to bring together a few people who can see their manipulation of clay and fire as a vehicle for ideas and connection. It is hard to imagine the leap of faith necessary for people who have never touched clay to see how they can produce something that is not blobby and disgusting. It is my job to offer real boundaries to someone's aspiration: not too ambitious, but ambitious enough. We will probably not find anyone who is totally a beginner and perhaps even come up with some people who have ideas and know their mind. But I have no expectations one way or another, in this regard.

In fact, it is patent that I have very few expectations: I am sure of what is on offer and positive that it is good value and worthwhile. I am sure that the experience of working in a group towards a three dimensional object that you create from a blank material should be richer than working alone in pre-formed substances that offer much more limitation from true outset... so long as you are not too intimidated at the prospect!

The reason for insisting on slabbing is that you have to have a solid starting point given that everything else is open to interpretation.

We will see who takes up this challenge and what the end product will be.

Workshop will be on 22nd and 29th June and on 13th July 2012 in Holymoorside Village Hall.

Ancient Rugs

Under my feet, a beautiful Persian rug. The angular designs are full of movement and expression. The fine threads stand perfectly erect, side by side, all absolutely identical, a deep blood red ground contained by exquisite black lines, columns, boxes and hatchings.

Our smart living rooms are a fit context for these superb works of art. They sit there and give us the feeling of great luxury and affluence. But where did this serene artefact start life? In such a different place, in such different circumstances! Can I imagine where the first crossing of threads took place? The room, the village, the family? what sounds were about, what smells? What payment? What inspiration? What cause and reason? Why this and no other pattern? This and no other colour? How is it done, this perfect example of this ancient craft?  How was it arrived at?

There are records of patterns, names, descriptions; it is known where a rug comes from; its value can be estimated from the number of threads per inch and the quality of the material employed. There is a whole field of scholarship dedicated to this ancient tradition of rug making.

But the people who pursue this scholarship do not necessarily dedicate much time to considering the hands that do the work, or even those who profit from it.

I think of ancient patterns being handed down in families; I imagine small children and fine-boned women working the looms day on day, year on year, their slender fingers playing the described tune of their templates on the weft and weave; I think of dusty floors, cavernous, solitary, dusty workplaces and dimmed eyes counting threads,  choosing the next hue, putting in a mistake, unpicking a piece.

These books are full of nostalgia and wistfulness; they are sad and deliberate;  they have endured and survived many a mishap. They definitely take the long view; but they are fragile and vulnerable in their old age.

Team and Solo

Is it better to go it alone or team up?  The question has arisen so many times lately and in such different contexts, that I feel the need to take a good look at it, turn it around and give it a whirl.

I find that potting has been firmly in the back seat for a long while.  I have ideas, I sketch, I make space and time, I plan and yearn to go to work, but there is always some other activity pulling me away from the worktable. And all these 'urgent' things have to do with other people.

Last time I spent some time with the clay, I produced a series of objects that I was very pleased with - as a starting point to something; at the same time, I noticed that I started to receive a series of emails asking why it was that I was not responding, or turning up, or pulling my weight...

I don't actually resent this or find it irksome: I feel very energised to be working with others. It is just that I seem to be doing a lot of the organising and planning, and enjoying being thanked for it.

The Cruzader

The Cruzader is a figure of the imagination. He abandons home and safety to travel far away into dangerous lands, full of enemies of all kinds and traps. He seems naive, sad, depressed and lost. He is shrouded in the great christian zeal - Defender of the Faith, Hammer of the Infidel but  to look at he appears puny, vulnerable and bewildered.

Behind him, the shadow of the Inquisition:The fortress to be conquered, the fear to bear and die under.

There is something of the clown in the Cruzader, for the modern person. It all seems so pointless!

As a Portuguese person, I have in my past the shadow of these Cruzaders as well. They started the obcession with North Africa that would be the equivalent in England of Britanny: we have to have it, occupy it, conquer it, but can't and it took time to give up the idea.

Dark Material: a box for fears and doubts

Cloth is the theme of this box. I have been involved in textiles all my life.  As a child, I learned to sew and crochet, embroider and knit. It was supposed to be what a woman contributed to the family: the skills in household craft.

In Guatemala, the women of the countryside sit on their heels on the dusty ground, tie themselves to the nearest tree by the waist and weave intricate family patterns into huipils for themselves and their children. They are surrounded by chickens, children and chores, but there they remain, tied up and in control of all the family.

In Japanese painting, often cloth is the star of a picture. Cloth drapes, floats, lends stature or conveys languid, sensual pleasure. Its colours and patterns are a message, coded. Geishas wear multiple layers of soft printed kimonos; Lovers get lost in the profuse confusion of patterns and folds.

In Africa, women wrap themselves with lengths of Indonesian printed cotton.  Sometimes the prints are abstract and of strong contrasting colours; sometimes they wear the portrtait of their favourite ruler or visitor. The capulana serves as cover against the cold, shroud, swadling; it makes a good pad to protect the head carrying the water pot; it hangs at the door like a curtain, for privacy; it is a picnic cloth, a flag, a sofa.

When cloth is pushed and bunched, it drapes and curls mysteriously. I try often to  reproduce that movement but it defeats me every time.

The glaze in this box ran freely and carried separately each of the elements of the slip beneath. It chose its path capriciously and so it flames and quivers, consuming itself in light and shade.

Inside, the first of the strip poems. The innaugural vessel of memories and secrets, first of many.

Derbyshire Arts Cooperative in Cromford

I have been for months preparing for this pre-Christmas show at the gallery in Cromford Mill, Matlock Bath.  It has been about opening a different aspect of the work that has gone into making the books: if books are about sharing stories, then I need to know why the stories are important int he first place.

Inevitably, I ended up with boxes: when I think about how a book referring to oriental rugs symbolises for me child labout in some countries around the world, then in a box I will put my feelings and memories about children being subjected to unjust pressure. Terror and despair at a tender age can be hard to bring out into the light of day, so it may end up inside a box, with very little sign of it permeating to the outter decoration.

The challenge is to maintain the tie without becoming too particular and personal; to express the acceptable and universal in a whole-argument way.

The show will be on from 12th to 19th November, at Arkwright Cromford Mill, Cromford, Derbyshire
http://www.arkwrightsociety.org.uk/All+event+details/AS+Events/Derbyshire+Arts+Co-operative