Month: July 2024

The space between all things

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My field of Art has been knitted textiles for a long time, including a Masters in Knitting at Nottingham Trent University 2016 – 2018.  I often placed my knitted textiles into the landscape to create site specific photographic art which explored the social histories of women and the making of knitted articles.  

I am currently working on a wall based knitted jumper piece called, ‘I Cannot Reach You.’  It is taking into consideration the Japanese concept of 間 （Ma)   – the  silences and the spaces in between all things, and relating it to the relationship between me and my sister.  

I would like to learn about the meaning and concept of the Japanese word Ma 間   and relate it to the way in which I experience life, don’t you think it would make life fuller? We do not have this word or meaning in England and to look at the spaces is as interesting as looking at the solid things. 

I would like to explore what ‘Ma’, looks like to me, in the space between all things and use textiles and print to express my new understanding of this. If you are Japanese and have and wisdom to share, please do.

I have recently started to develop Cyanotype prints using pressed wild flowers to create images that are often  half present, a little ghostly.  I am looking at making wallpaper strips to utilise the cyanotype printing process to create the deepest blue papers with hints of British wild flowers, to look a little at the spaces in between in the prints.  Yesterday, I made to sample strips out in the yard at bloc studios, where I have a small space to work.

Currently, I am experimenting and, as you can see,  the process is open to risk and failure, but the two wallpaper strips are becoming more loved by me because of the spaces in between. One has less impressions of the flowers than the other due to both my impatience of removing the flowers and due to the wind shifting them but maybe just pure blue is lovely enough with a hint of a story of flowers in smaller areas – less ‘gilding the lily’ to speak.

Today, I hung the papers on my wall at home to really look at what is present and what is a faint mark only, and what is in the spaces.   I like the results, in some way, they remind me of the Japanese screens that I saw in the temples in Kyoto. But maybe I need to make them more sparse.  Let me know your thoughts. 

If you would like to join me in my next online workshops, they are in the link here.

If you would like to contact me about hand printed cyanotype wallpaper strips, please do so 😊

If you would like to follow me on instagram, where there are lots more images, then, I am in the link here

間 （ま、Ma）は、the space between.

I have posted previously, that I am currently working on a textile piece called, ‘I Cannot Reach You.’ 

It is a piece about the space in the relationship between me and my sister. The knitted piece will also encapsulate the Japanese concept of Ma, the spaces in between 間 （ま、Ma)  the silences, the unspoken past, the misunderstandings in the past and present, it could be in the silence when I hear the sound of a cup being placed in a saucer during a visit. Ma is, the things we know but never say.

My sister and I were born eleven months apart, I on 26/06/1963 and she on 27/05/1964. Our mother dressed us identically for about 12 years until we probably tried to impress our own tastes upon the clothes we were wearing. At that time, my Grandad enjoyed the latest photographic technology available to a working class man – a small camera then a polaroid camera.  He took many photographs, particularly in 1970 when I was seven and my sister six years old.  In the photographs, my sister and I are beside each other but rarely touching – there is an unspoken physical and emotional space between us. All of the images were ‘set up’ in a way that my mother wanted to show that she dressed her daughters well.  In the empty space between my sister and I, there seems to be a lack of intimacy or connection, we are not smiling in any of the images.   I remember very little of growing up but I do remember the feel of every fabric of those clothes.  Clothes carry so many unspoken signifiers – wealth / or not, clean / or not, fashionable / or not, comfortable / or not. I cannot remember much about my childhood.

Here, we are ‘well turned out’, as my Mother would say.  For years, our Nana, my mother’s mother, knitted us identical cardigans to match the identical dresses.  She used the wool available to her in those days – nylon from Woolworths. 

For one month – from the end of May to June 2024, my sister and I are both 60 years old and are very much ‘like chalk and cheese’.  I love my sister dearly and carefully, and she loves me, but I cannot reach her. Our love is not one of laughter or discussion or going places together or tea time calls or spontaneous catch ups or quick visits or trips away together – it is one of careful organisation of a preplanned time and place and length of visit to suit my beautiful sister, who has begun to shut the world out. And, believe me, I can understand that.   I cannot reach her but I try.  I wait, I hope, I try to reassure but, all I can do is be beside her for just slightly more than one hour at a time that she can manage and I have learned to understand that gift of time. Being with her makes me very happy.

I have initially, knitted something that is recognised as a jumper but it isn’t only that.  The wearable, knitted jumper sits well within the intersection between craft / skill / materiality / wool/ textiles/ conceptual art / family / sister’s heritage and cross cultural discussion.  ‘I Cannot Reach You,’ is an expression of the space in between us, using the medium of a skilled knitting practice to produce a jumper, that could be for me to wear but that it has a name – ‘I Cannot Reach You,’ it has one sleeve knitted slightly longer than necessary, ending in a knitted glove. The second sleeve knitted in plaited and aran knitted stitches – I chose the Fair Isle for its intricacy and my love of Shetland culture and I chose the Aran sleeve to represent how I plait my hair. Giving the jumper a name, never wearing it and placing it upon the wall, makes it art, right? Textile Art. Now, I am knitting a matching jumper in identical patterns as the first 100 colour piece but this time, it will be knitted in the colours my sister likes, with a blackberry or plain knit sleeve to relate to my sister and how she wears her hair.  I hope that one day, we can both wear our respective pullovers and stand closely side by side. Without a space between.   But, at the moment, I feel that when the second pullover is finally finished, both will be hung side by side, not touching but with a space in between. Ma 間 （ま、Ma) 

If you are interested in the Fair Isle Pullover worksheet, it is here in the link

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/fair-isle-chart-2 you can knit it for yourself in any colours that you choose. I would love to see your projects, please use @traceydoxey on instragram, then I can see your project oo.

I look forward to showing the two pieces together but for now, I am busy working on the 2nd piece.

Sheffield, studio space

This weekend, I have watched two films online – the first, Jo Jo Rabbit and the second, ‘Hunt for the Wilder People’, both directed, (amongst many other things ) by Taika Waititi, a New Zealand Film Maker, then of course, I looked up Taika and watched his TedX talk from 13 years ago and already saw the influences from his part Jewish back ground in his writing of Jo Jo Rabbit, and in which he stars as Jo Jo’s imaginary friend, Hitler.

In his TedX talk, Taika, says all of the things he does, ‘they’re all tools’ he painted, wrote poetry, made films, travelled, was a comedian and all these things visibly influenced his work then and now. 

I looked around at my tools, knitting, crochet, travel, drawing, photography, writing, sewing, colour, landscape, and noticed that, of course, these are my tools.  The tools I am bringing to my new studio -which, at the moment looks slightly hopeless on the output front.  I am playing with cyanotypes from attending a small  workshop here in Sheffield. My hands are dry from washing papers out in water, the washed out liquid colouring my fingers.   I wondered if the studio is one expense too much for me because I will not earn from it. And yet, here I am, on a quiet Sunday afternoon, after visiting the Buddhist Centre at Walkley’s, Summer Fair, I am here, present, in this tiny room with windows on both sides, sunshine pouring in, Gorecki Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, playing to me and I am content.

I’ve opened my tin of Lomo photographs from when I lived in the Hutongs of Beijing, the winter of 2010/11 to remind me of the far off places that I have been and to bring a thread of future travel here in to the old steel works building – which embeds me in Sheffield.

I am learning new things and Ideas are coming, practice led ideas but for now,  I am excusing my inability to produce anything profound, by say, ‘ I am playing’, though for how long, I do not know.

If you are in Sheffield and want to come and visit me, get in touch. If you would like to support me, then please buy a knitting pattern, this will help pay for my studio 😊 the patterns are here, and very good. The patterns are here

I am making cyanotypes with all the pressed flowers from my garden and from hanging over walls in the city. This is my favourite one so far.  I actually like the accidental finding of washi tape that is holding the tiny daisy in place.

When I moved to Shetland, I just flippantly mentioned, ‘write to me’ in one of my instagram posts after I shared my writing space in the croft house. Over 100 people sent postcards, this time, it is different. I am in the city, but I am still me.

Today, I am in an old steel works in Sheffield, If you fancy sending me a postcard from where ever you live, then I would love to receive it. I am in

Studio 10, Bloc Studios, 4 Sylvester Street, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, S1 4RN

Have you ever wanted to know what it is like to sell up and go and live in Shetland?

Tiggy out on the lane outside the croft house I bought in Levenwick.

July, I made the decision to return to the city and share the reasons why.

July starts like this:-

July – Shetland

A month of sea swimming at Levenwick, at Spiggie, then on the west side.

Vegetables growing in builders’ sacks that I filled with sieved soil, in the roofless byre.

Speckle of Wild purple orchids peeping out of the long grass.

A long line of sea urchin shells residing in my newly painted deep bathroom window sill.

I return to sit upon a hill, by the sea, where the gulls drop the sea urchins to crack open for dinner – it is, Sea Urchin hill.

The old flagged back yard is dug out and cleared of a hundred years of weeds.

I cradle a large hedgehog curled in a great ball in the palm of both my hands, at Sumburgh Head where the fog horn sounds and the light spears out in the night.

The beautiful gift of a full Fleece from Francis, shorn from a ewe that I greatly admired daily in his field.  

The most exquisite incomparable morning light over sea and sky.

The return of heavy fog for days and days.  

I write ‘worry’ in the sand at the beach and let the sea wash it away but my worry still lingers in every moment.

The ‘Dear Susan’ jumper is finished – it glows upon the sands

I met with Hazel Tindel in town.  She lifted my spirits and didn’t know that I had felt so low

Reading Saturday’s guardian on the bench on Sunday, a Sheffield potted baby oak tree at my feet.

The inside of the understairs cupboard door is papered perfectly with the wallpaper that I lifted from the derelict house.  

My first intrepid knitting visitors to the house for a colour blending workshop are welcomed – A hint of things to come.

A visit back to my city of Sheffield, where a daughter meets me for 3 hours from London and I know. I just know.

Here is the beginning of July’s post – extract

Moments on the edge

Have you ever driven to the very edge of the rock upon which you live, so that you can see the curvature of the earth on the horizon in the fading light of the day? To sit, to knit, to think, to feel? To Be grateful for this roller coaster of beautiful life? Have you sat still long enough to hear the call of a thousand birds beneath the whir of a lighthouse light gently turning and the sea slightly roaring below your feet? This is where time stops and the world slows down.