Category: Peak District

We live in time

I’m  pleased to say that I am in the Fronteer Gallery Contemporary Textiles show in Sheffield, running until the 6th March.

My greatest, longstanding friends came to the opening yesterday at 4pm and I want to say thank you to Verity, Janet, Jane, Sue and Wendy.  It’s my first showing in Sheffield and I hope, not my last.

opening night
here it is
We live in Time

 

‘We live in Time’, is a knitted textile piece incorporating a hand- knitted vest and two photographs of sisters from 1970.  The work is about the gaps in the relationship between me and my sister and me not being able to reach her which also takes into consideration the Japanese concept of Ma, the spaces in between (間 )  the silences, the unspoken, past and present.

I was born on 26/06/1963, my sister 11 months later on 27/05/1964. Our mother dressed us identically for about 12 years until we tried to impress our own tastes upon the clothes we wore. My Grandad enjoyed the latest photographic technology available to a working-class man.  He took many photographs, particularly in 1970 when I was seven and my sister, six years old.  In these photographs, my sister and I stand beside each other but rarely touch – there is an unspoken physical and emotional space between us. All of the images were ‘set up’ in a way for my mother to show that her daughters were ‘well turned out’. 

There are hand written words over one of the photographs – ‘What about our Julie?’, which is what I always asked if I was ever given anything.  There is a poignancy from then to now, where there is still a wide gap between us.

I have knitted a vest in nine dark colours chosen by my sister as an expression of her choice now. When I asked her what her favourite colours are – she said, black, navy, dark red and mustard – I had to knit with some contrast. We were cut from the same cloth but with totally different personalities.  I knitted the same article for myself but it has 100 colours.

‘We live in Time,’ questions the discouraged individuality growing up in a working class home in the 60’s / 70’s –  and the ever growing space between sisters.

Here is the making of it –

If you would like to join me in a workshop to help you make your own vest, here is the link  and I created a chart of all the motifs and colours I used for the jumper – it is here. 

I have also been chosen to be part of the FarField Mill Contemporary Textiles Exhibition, in Cumbria,  running from March 19th to 1st June with two pieces.   I am very excited about this.  There is a ‘public favourite choice’, so if you get to FarField for the show, then, please take a look at mine – the two pieces to be exhibited are below 

It’s faintly snowing outside, her in Sheffield.  Have a good day wherever you are 🙂 

Fog bow

The cat woke me with his heavy weight transferred through his fat kneading front paws alternately pressing into my sticking up right shoulder.

Alfie joined in the attempt to get me to feed them by his repetitive bipping noise.  The old, cheap, mantle clock chimed six so I turned face down in the pillows.

The forecast (a habit I have from Shetland of checking) read that we were to expect fog in the city first thing, then a ball of sun most of the day.  I lay there for a while, my tired body ignoring the purring and bipping cats.   At 7, I gave in and got up, fed and watered the boys, made tea then dressed hurriedly to get out onto the moors.   Fog in the city is boring, I wanted to remember what fog was like in Shetland –  to remember some part of it that used to haunt me for days on end, so I drove up to Burbage fog chasing.  But, at the edge of Ringinglow, bordering on the Derbyshire boundary, the fog started to clear and within seconds, I’d driven through it into pure blue sky and bright sunshine.  Another world.

At Burbage, both the moon and the sun hung in the sky casting their natural magic.   Fog was nowhere to be seen. A real warmth came from the sun high on the peaks at 8:30am.

I walked towards Stanage Edge where the clear moon tilted over the rocks in a beckoning way. The path was bordered by long dead bog grass, heavy with water, looking like a prairie. Then the fog started to drift in below Stanage rocks, blown gently and slowly from the left, in a long soft ribbon, thick enough for the most magnificent natural thing to happen created by the collision of two things – the bright unhindered sun hit the fog and created a fog bow.

I actually squeaked with joy, turned to look back at that sun, then saw all the fronds on the low-lying fluffy grasses hanging in tiny droplets of water shining like glistening small crystals.

The fog bow came fully into sight.

High up on the rocks, at the Edge, the fog rested in the valley over Hope and Hathersage. Every passing person had a photo at the trig, including me. And every passing person was excited by the energy of the sparkling light and visible moving shifting fog. Until, finally, the gentle wind pushed the fog up and over the edge of Stanage, covering both left and right and finally the trig.

What a beautiful world we live in.