Tag: creative practice

Fiona Blue

One month of knitting, writing, remembering and the colour blue.

It is the 30th April – It has been one week and one day, since the sudden death of a great Shetland friend and two weeks since I received a message from her telling me that she had just received results from a CT scan and ultimately, her diagnosis. The above post on Instagram by her daughter, Susan.

Fiona was kind, loving, supportive, honest and intuitive as well as being creative. She reached out to me when I was living in Shetland and offered me the hand of friendship and the loyal ear of a friend.

Just before I left Shetland, we arranged to meet on Bressay, where she lived.  I caught the seven minute inter island ferry from Lerwick to Bressay and she met me off the boat.  We did beautiful ordinary things – we went to the Speldiburn café for a cuppa and a look at her many weaving, knitting and sewing projects on view there, particularly the lace. She bought cake for Peter and us.  With her, I found a safe harbour in which to share my thoughts about leaving the island.  To be able to share thoughts in words with others whilst living on the island, was rare for me.  A couple of people were the only ones I could share in what I was feeling at the end of my stay in Levenwick.     Fiona already understood without me saying anything.   


After I left Shetland, to return to the city, we kept in touch and she supported me in every way, checking in on me and joining my online workshops and follow up re group sessions.  We both supported charities with our ability to sell creativity – and even at the end of February, we both sent £625 each to the British Red Cross to support the earth quake disaster in Turkey / Syrian border.  I sold knitting patterns and Fiona wove cloth in the colours of both countries and made the fabric into little cosmetic purses. In February, she seemed well and active.   So, it was a great shock to me that Fiona messaged me on Sunday 16th April with the saddest and bravest message I have ever read in my life. I couldn’t understand the message – read it three times then asked my friend to explain it to me.  It highlighted her scan results and that she wasn’t angry or frustrated. That she had lived a beautiful life with love around her in a beautiful home. I messaged her back to ask if I could call, but Fiona had family staying and was understandably tired, so we arranged a call on the Thursday, only four days later.  I sent her a little gift.  But things changed, by Wednesday, Fiona was in Lerwick Gilbert Bain, hospital in and out of consciousness, so I couldn’t call on Thursday and by Friday, she had stopped eating and drinking and on Saturday morning, 22nd April, 6 days after her message to me, Fiona died. Understandably, her partner and daughter were devastated by this shocking loss; they had not left her side for a week.

I was also devestated at this cruel turn.

The decline was so fast straight after a shocking out of the blue diagnosis that I was left sifting through a thousand thoughts on loss and waste and why and how?  I could hardly breathe and felt winded, almost punched by extreme sadness.  The strength of my feelings, I now understand coming from experiencing the kindness of a woman who cared about everyone, her family, community and even me and now she was gone. Gone. She was one of life’s unconditional givers, she was positive, engaged and engaging, creative, loving and enjoyed her life. She was too young to die – yet, in her message to me, she said that she wasn’t angry or frustrated by the CT scan findings.   But I was. 

I now realise that the message she sent me on 16th April, was a goodbye.

After Susan (Fiona’s daughter) messaged on the Saturday, to say that she had died, I drove the car from the city to Bretton, to a little pub called the Barrel Inn overlooking the valley and there, the hang gliders were swooping low and rising high in the thermals.  It was cold and windy – just like Shetland, and there, sitting on a bench, periodically crying, below the gliders, I truly felt the presence of Fiona rising in the winds, swirling, swooping free.  She was in the wind, then, she was the wind.

gliding below a great sun and sun halo

Fiona had the bluest of eyes. So blue. 

I haven’t knitted anything new for some time, haven’t felt like it or had the need to but I felt compelled to try to make some attempt to capture the pure blue eyes and the joy of Fiona.   I am adapting a previous pattern of mine – Smola beanie, scarf and gloves – from when I lived in Shetland.  I was going to knit socks but thought they would  be too chunky in shoes or boots so I adapted the pattern into little mitts. The pattern has developed into symmetry.

It is called Fiona Blue

There have been days, before and since her death, when I have heard Fiona’s words, gently correcting any negative bias I have into positive thoughts.  She had a knack for doing that, like, ending some of my sentences with – Not Yet.

Here, is to a wonderful woman – Fiona – sadly and greatly missed 1,000 miles away.  Just thank you for being kind.  I think I will find you in the winds. 

22nd April – Max Richter – Earth Day – the day Fiona died, I started knitting.

8th May – The little pattern that I have knitted  is here.  It took many hours to design, write, balance, make symetrical for two hands, and knit to as good as I can make them for Fiona. A wonderful test knitter (Karensprenger on instagram has test knitted these mitts, Karen is from Sheffield and both she and Erickaeckles on instagram have gone over the text and charts of the pattern for me – both of whom have taken my online colour blending workshops and both chose their own colours for this pattern and I will share them on Instagram.

Friday 19th May – I have finally finished writing, photographing and knitting the little Mitts in honour of Fiona. Here they are with the blue glass star that Fiona gave me as a leaving Shetland present. Here is the pattern

In total, I knitted 3 mitts. The first one, needed alterations on the thumb placement and cast off. Then I made a new left mitt and then a new right one. The last one is the neatest.

The pattern includes photo tutorials on how to make the little thumb and here is a quick clip of those stages.

make a little thumb

I have decided that after paypal have taken their cut and after Ravelry have charged me for each sale – I will donate 50% of the income money that this little pattern makes (about £1.50 per pattern) over the next month over May and June to Macmillan Cancer support.

Macmillan Cancer Support | The UK’s leading cancer care charity

wallpaper #peggyangus.

I called the pattern, Fiona Blue, and it is here https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/fiona-blue

A few words on designing something that you would like to make.

whale bones, flowers and mittens – Shetland

A few words on designing a knitted piece that you would like to make. (including mistakes, errors, bodge)

swatching

When I was a child, I always made stuff.  No one taught me, I just went for it.  I remember seeing a large yellow cloth hard backed book on the shelf at the newsagents with 365 things to make in it.  I ran to that book every time we went in that news agents and poured over the photos and asked for for the book for Christmas – I remember my mother answering, ‘You want a book?’ I was about 8 years old and loved that book.    I sewed rag dolls, made resin ashtrays, made tiny doll dresses and sold them to my sister for her pocket money (which my mother made me give back) collected four / five / six / seven leafed clovers, pressed flowers, made cards – you name it, I made it.  A loner’s kind of life then too.

I also remember my mother getting a Singer sewing treadle machine and I used  it to make the entire miles and miles of the bunting for our estate jubilee party in 1977 – I was just 14 and could hardly reach the treadle peddle – no one taught me how to use it – I just got on with it coordinating foot and hand movements for miles of bunting, which seems simple but not when you embark on it as a young person – there is a responsiblity that I was unaware of. I also made very unattractive, shapeless, square t shirts for my dad out of the left over fabric, which were never worn.

Later, I taught myself to knit. There was no Youtube.  Then I got a knitting machine, then I started knitting intricate patterns by hand, going directly ‘off piste’ every time with my own alterations.  Making stuff has been a lifestyle.  Now, I spend hours and hours ‘designing’ a few knitting patterns for small knitted articles. I’ve tried to stop but I just can’t.   So I’ll share how I think I will make something – from scratch, from an idea, from a light bulb moment.

Just now, I want to make a very intricate pullover in an infinite number of colours, using traditional Fair Isle motifs – so to test how this will look, I will make a cowl.  Already, I have learned from this exercise of knitting in the round, where the yarn tails end up after knitting blocks of different blocks of colour – not in the right place – that’s where.

My initial ideas are inspired by any number of things. Honestly, my ideas of colour and pattern come from deeply inspired thoughts of connecting to a person or place in history – ie my ‘Dear Susan’ jumper, or from the sunrises when I was staying on Fair Isle – how the light cuts between the horizon line of the sea world and sky in ‘Fair Isle Sunrise’ or from the beautiful natural crustation of sea urchin shells that I collected from the discarded meals of gulls on Sea Urchin Hill in Brindister, which became the ‘Sea Urchin’ pattern.

But now I don’t live in Shetland. So what of inspiration? I’m still taken by how the light falls, both on my walls or even on the roof top of my daughter’s flat in London.  So, I never stop. The excitement of light and colour never stops.

Lately, I have been really taken by a traditional fair Isle jumper that I saw in a museum because of its quality and integrity.  Each motif in the row was different and repeated randomly in other rows.  I counted about 15 Fair Isle patterns in the entire project. So, I studied them and began to graph them with an idea to draw on my love of colour (blending) and my memories of knitting Patricia Roberts intricate work in the 80’s to drawing on my use of Shetland yarn and love of traditional patterns. 

I am wondering if you would like to join me on a journey of making your own design pattern? Go for it.  Let’s start with a cowl.  Easy.

I’ll show you how I have started project and what it looks like now – admittedly, some weeks have already passed and due to my writing schedule, many more will pass before it is finished.  People can think that buying a knitting pattern from Ravelry for £3-£4 can be expensive, but behind it, for me, is hours and hours and hours of trial and error to find the right colour, tension, feel, drape, size and outcome.  Then, I’ll let you know, that Paypal take a cut, quite a big cut and that Ravelry then charge at the end of the month for the patterns sold – so a £4 pattern can end up being about £2.90 and if I offer a discount, which I often do, then I will end up with about £2.00 for each sold pattern (they are cheapter than a cup of tea in town) so, you see, that Pattern designing can be just for the love of it (Unless you are a famous ‘knitter’) Fortunately, Knitting is one  of my loves – and I share that love in patterns.     

I said to someone yesterday, that I am not a knitter – I just knit, then move on.  

So, let’s start at the beginning of this project, which may or may not work. What I used for this project is an inspirational image of a Fair Isle Jumper that I admired and wanted to develop into a project. 

I wanted to use my colours – lots of colours and my methods of ‘colour blending’ and tiny needles to create a Persian carpet look. Already, the starting image will be forgotten within half a day’s developmental work.

Here we go.

What you’ll need for this project ( I am making a cowl – because my face is cold on the bike in the early mornings)

  • Your idea of which motifs you would like to knit
  • A notepad of graph sheets
  • Pencil, with rubber / sharpie, regular pen, tape measure
  • Time
  • Patience
  • A stash of yarn (all the same quality of yarn)
  • Day light
  • and Hello Fresh does work too.

boys and colour

Instructions –

Preparation

  1. Start by looking at the motifs that you like and start replicating them on graph paper. You can also graph out patterns using excel spreadsheets, but that comes later for me, if I choose to put a pattern out. Initially, I like the tactile act of using paper and pencils.   Graph the motifs by studying your image of knitted inspiration and working out the pattern or by looking in ‘The Complete Book of Traditional Fair Isle Knitting’ book by Sheila McGregor or the cute little ‘Shetland Pattern book’ by Mary Smith and Maggie Twatt.  Both books are pretty old. I have a copy of both ( I used to have 2 copies of each but…)
  • Start graphing out your desired motifs and be prepared to make mistakes.   I start with pencil and do a lot of rubbing out.  Then I go over the pencil with a sharpie and still sometimes make errors.  Making errors at this stage is also learning how the motif works, if this is the first time that you have knitted this kind of pattern.
  • Then, start to choose your colours.  If you have attended any of my colour blending sessions, you will know how this goes.  It can be complicated, it can also be easy but if you haven’t – then I suggest to firstly think of harmony, then contrast. And do not buddy up the colours.
  • Knit some of your drawn out motifs into swatches. Use different size needles too, to see how the swatch looks. This is not supposed to be torture, this is the first fun bit after you have painstakingly drawn out the motifs on paper.  The swatch is to check colour then tension (as a bi product)
  • When you have knitted random swatches in varying colours, you can see how the pattern stands – are there too many stitches in the block for the feel I want? – is there a harmony in colour, is there enough contrast? How does it feel? – yes, really, how does it feel in your heart?  Is it better with dark motif on light back ground or vice versa? How the do the colours blend – oh, and never, never choose your colours under tungsten light or whilst watching the tele or not really looking – always choose your colours under natural daylight – ignore this last bit at your own peril.
  • When you have knitted the swatch, then you can measure it to figure out how many motifs you need for the size you want to knit – simples? Using the needles that you like for the outcome you like.  Easy?  Or just stick with figuring out your colours in the swatch. The size will take care of itself – right?

When you have knitted quite a few swatches in a number of colours, then you will have an idea if any adjustments need to be made to the motif or where it falls within the pattern or what motifs will go before or after the main motifs.

Anyway, here is a start –   this is where I am with my project – round 3 of the first round of Fair Isle Motifs.  It looks messy but I am in full control.

It is a cowl with 8 different hand drawn out Fair Isle motifs joined by seed stitches because I didn’t like how geometric the original Fair Isle joining sections looked.  I am using a different set of colours for each block of motif, like I used to with Patricia Roberts’ patterns and even with I used to knit Kaffe Fassett jumpers in the 80’s.

Let me know how you get on. Leave me a comment on your thoughts.

Have a good day.

https://ko-fi.com/traceydoxey

Shetland Wool Week 2021

This week is Shetland Wool week 2021.  The first time I visited Shetland, was for a Wool Week in 2015. I stayed at the hostel in Lerwick and every bed in every room was taken by wool week visitors.  I fell in love with Shetland, its culture of knitting and the tangible, visible history across the islands.  I also visited St Ninians for the first time and squealed with joy at just seeing it.  I still sometimes squeal at seeing St Ninians. 

Since 2015, I revisited again and again – for Up Helly Aa in 2016, a few more holiday trips, an Artist residency at the Booth in Scalloway in December 2017, and an R&D trip to Unst in 2018.  All of these trips deepened my love of the social history across the islands and my love for Shetland knitting.  I remember meeting Hazel Tindall in the Textile Museum one day in May 2017, and I recorded her talking about her Grandmother collecting the peats for the rayburn. (At that time, I had a passion for old stoves left in abandoned croft houses)   I still have that recording and I have always been in awe of Hazel, her skill and her warm character. She makes me smile when I see her. She is a Wool Week Goddess.  I met her for lunch a couple of months ago.  We went to the Mareel.  It was a joy to be with her, such an honour.

Hazel in one of her amazing knits.

Six years after first visiting Shetland, it is once again, Wool Week.  It is not a face to face Wool Week where thousands of participants descend upon Lerwick and the surrounding areas to enjoy workshops, trips, visits to museums and of course both Jamieson’s wool shops, but a virtual wool week. Next year will be real, I know it.   But, in 2015, it was my first experience of being here – I sat by the pier knitting and watched an otter come in carrying a huge fish.  He didn’t know I was there until I moved. I mean, a city girl watching an otter whilst sitting on the pier knitting in the town – who would have believed it?

Here is a blog from that time https://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/Scotland/Shetland/Wick/blog-901174.html

This week, six years later, I am teaching Online Colour blending sessions in the Virtual Shetland Wool Week programme -2 this weekend, 2 next weekend and on Friday, three ladies are coming to the house to do a face to face colour blending session and incidentally, they are from my home town of Matlock.   Seemingly, we are 6 degrees of separation, or maybe just one degree.

I’ve been teaching online sessions since January when one of my supporters asked for a class, in December, for her friends for a Christmas present.  I said that I was busy with the house but would do a workshop in the January.  It happened the last weekend of Jan, – I got in by the skin of my teeth and since then have been teaching up to 4 sessions every month ever since – except when I took a 6 week break to work on the Dear Susan Project.  I would very much like to thank that supporter who truly developed my own Creative Practice.

This weekend, I have met ladies from America, Canada, Australia, Britain, Germany, The Netherlands,  Sweden and Scotland.  Today, I had two ladies join me from Canada and America at 2am and 5am their time – I felt honoured and flattered that they were so dedicated to join me in the middle of their night.

Every time I do an online workshop, I feel warm and happy afterwards.  I get so many messages after the sessions that I know that all the hard work to teach, inspire, engage with and to share skills is worth it.  Some of the ladies over the last 6 months have also become my international online friends – especially Cait St. George, whom I met through a session with Cream City Yarn in Milwaukee.  Cait became my test knitter for Dear Susan and also number crunched the pattern.  The Internet and Instagram has made these sessions possible and I want to thank every one who has attended a session already, everyone who is booked on to a session and to future bookers.   You make my creative practice valued and I value every one who has joined me.   If you would like to join a colour blending workshop, I have a couple of places left on 17th October and I am taking a waiting list for November (dates to be confirmed) If you go to my online workshop tab, here on the website, you can see information of the classes.

Dear Susan jumper

Here’s to Shetland Wool Week 2021.

I look forward to seeing your work – tag me on Instagram.  Tracey 😊

Oh yes, I have 20% off all of my knitting patterns during wool week.
The code for the basket is Wool Week Workshop

and patterns are here

https://www.ravelry.com/designers/tracey-doxey

Fair Isle grass knitting

Fair Isle grass – a knitting resource to hand.

Tussock grass

The light in the croft house dims sooner than at Mati’s house.  The croft’s windows dictate the change in the amount of light within.  Two – feet deep walls hold the place up. The deep walls narrow into the windows – each of which look out to every corner of the globe on this island which is only three miles long.  I look out south-facing to the light house and gauge the weather by the grass waving or whipping in the wind and by the waves crashing or ebbing on the sea.

home for a while – Fair Isle

The intention is to leave no rubbish after my 9 day stay here.  Everything has been bought at the one and only shop at great expense.  Everything has come a long way and been handled by much transport – even from Lerwick, either by the local plane or boat from Grutness. I hand picked all the vegetables and packed them in brown bags.  All of the peelings will be saved for the pigs at Mati’s, which are owned by four people and brushed by Saskia.  I’m learning about animal behaviour from those pigs.  They have grown from shy piglets arriving in a cage to grunting and squealing with anticipation at their one and only priority – food.  One even bites the other.

Even after 3 weeks, Fair Isle is now so deep in my soul that I already miss it and yet I am still here – how can that be?  I miss the island when I am deep in the moment of it.  It’s like I don’t want to lose it or I can’t lose it for to do so, would be to give up on a life less ordinary.

I’m here with Mati as a knitting intern, (maybe the oldest intern in the West at age 56) I’m learning a lot, not only about knitting but island life, the sea, the wind, the land, grass, animal behaviour, the sun rise and whether the plane will come. Where can ‘A Body’ see an unbroken horizon at every window without hesitation.  At every lift of the head, a huge deep basin of silver sea greets you.  Seeing the sea, hearing it, tasting it makes it seep into your soul.  The nights are so pitch dark that my heart quickens at the deepness of the darkness, when I open the door. Nothing can be seen when ther is no moon, except the light house light but even so, it adds to the eeriness of being able to cut darkness with a knife.

There is a book full of old images of Fair Isle islanders here.  I look at the women’s expressions and how they stand unquestionably, stoically face on.  They are all working hard with oxen, ploughs, knitting, or peats.  Maggie Stout of Shirva is the woman that interests me the most. I cannot stop looking at her looking at me.  I can almost feel the middle parting of her black hair with my finger – it is so pronounced.  This place I am living has a long history. You can find it easily. It is written across the stones in the grave yard. On a wet Sunday afternoon, I look for Maggie on the stones.  It’s beautiful.  The names are listed on the stones, where they lived and who they married. Women appear to bear their maiden names even though they are married.  History is tangible here, as across all of Shetland.  How many women moved a curtain aside to look out to sea and wonder about their men out there, wondering about their safety and return. The weather changes at a pinch. The stones bear many stories of death at sea.

In this place are larger than life ship wrecked items of great beauty –  two identical figurines and two mismatched simple chairs which add character and richness to this small croft house that I am staying for 9 nights. 

ship wrecked

On the second day, Marie and I cut tussock grass, which is growing just below the chapel, with house scissors.  We bag it.   I want to knit it and make a lace curtain from its yarn. I’ve long since loved Shetland grass which grows at great length untouched, untrodden on and forms in dune-like shapes carved by the wind. We cut it without knowing its possibilities or strength.  I spend 3 days and evenings plaiting the grass into a long length and a ball of grass yarn. The grass is strewn across 3 floors and stuck to everything.  When knitting and unknitting, because I am dissatisfied with the results, the grass yarn bears the memory of the stitch.

I am using the resources of the island to create something to connect both with the island and with the age old practice of knitting in order to make site specific / site responsive work back in the Shetland landscape.  It will be about the women knitters and a skilled craft  that when placed within the landscape, will create a personally constructed context or narrative. My work is created around the theme of gendered women’s creative knitted work that is often undervalued and underpaid. I work within a place to learn the skills embedded within that area and I position my work back into the landscape to connect place, time, history, women’s craft and that pure moment in the present. If it works, for me, there is a distillation of experiences.

As I am working with the materials to hand – grass – and the thought of the women who lived in the croft houses here and how they knitted to subsidise the crofting income and how they dressed and looked in haps –  I will choose to knit a hap lace edge and find the right window to place the lace knitted grass. It will be a window that women will have looked out of many times, over many generations whilst working on a croft in Shetland.

    Leave No Trace, Shetland

    Place of return

    At every visit to Shetland over the past 4 years, I always take time to return to an isolated, derelict, lonely croft house on Bressay where I respectfully and quietly develop a creative practice that speaks to me of connections and belonging. 

    The deterioration of this 2 roomed croft house has been logged since I first saw hand stencilled flowers painted across the walls at waist height in 2015.  The last family who lived in this small home painted those flowers but now they are gone.  The croft house may be small in size but I have spoken to a woman who was born there, as were her brothers and sisters and her mother and her own children.  It was her grandmother’s house and I heard of three generations of women who went home to give birth to their children there.

    march 2017

    Because I know this, I hear the sounds in the plaster on the walls that is now, year by year, disappearing away down to the stone fabric of the build. 

    For weeks before returning this time, I had made preparation for my reunion with the shell of a house, by making it a gift of hand-block printed wallpaper with a Shetland Bird’s eye and a Brother / Sister lace design.  This wallpaper has been a couple of years in the making from learning CAD knit to using the stitch pattern to create a laser etched rubber stamp to print the design.   Material process and practice led research has always been the core of the development of my art practice.  I have long questioned – is it craft or art and is it relevant today a Contemporary Art arena in a time of changing families, fragmented families, home life, belonging, gendered women’s domestic craft of knitting and narratives of those women.  

    The world is speedily changing and what can we say through art that will make a difference to someone for a moment to stop and think and feel.

    Last week, on my first day back on Shetland, I nipped to see the derelict croft house.  As I was rounding the corner on the hill, my pace and heart quickened at what sight may greet me as it had been 15 months and a cycle of 7 raw weather seasons each taking its toll on the exposed walls since my last visit.   I hoped the house would be standing proudly as before which it was.   It felt like meeting an old friend.  Returning to make work here is not a safe option.  It feels as if I am breaking and entering, although the house has no roof and takes the label of ‘barn’.   I know it was a loving family home that just happens to be falling down on farm land which is owned by another person.  I visit it like an old relative. I look forward to first sight of out and in. Each year, I notice change.

    On Tuesday, I returned again. This time, I carried the wallpaper, paste, brushes and measure to wallpaper around a window that I know so well. I had a hope of making creative work that spoke of belonging and connection to place and women’s domestic craft of knitting, maybe something of my own personal journey to this point.  

    I measured, sized the walls, and hung the strips of paper on crumbling plaster in the hope of creating something that touched on the embedded experiences I had during the making process.   A connection of past and present. I’m interested what other people see.  My critical eye firstly noted that the water based ink ran when touched by water based glue, and that the design would have probably looked better with one style of lace pattern and at best it could be described as imperfect and at its worst – well, you can only say but actually, on a practice led research level, the piece did work because in the right place, with the right print, I know I can create a piece of work that does speak of belonging.

    After I stepped back from it, I recorded my initial responses and photographed the work then I pulled the paper off the wall, folded it and took it away for the bin back in Lerwick and Left No Trace.

    leave no trace

    Leave no trace, only record the moment of a coming together of a conceptual and expressive property which remains personal.  What is this work – is it Art? Textile art? Ethnography? Materiality? Am I telling stories? Am I making stories?  I’m trying to understand it in a way in which textile materials and techniques are expressed in contemporary site-specific art in order to tell a story.

    textile, knitting or art?

    Knitting, Art or just textiles?

    Under a week after handing over this commissioned piece of knitting, I have had time to reflect.  I have a window of time to reconsider what I have made and why and what happened during the making and designing process and the outcome of what seems to some, to just be a knitted pullover.

    The idea for this hand-knitted piece actually came from my thinking son because I was questioning the time involved in knitting and designing one off pieces. He suggested for me to consider intricately knitting something that I loved and to log every hour and minute spent making it.  This type of time is not commercial time but entirely creative, without speed, without a target.  So, to make a knitted piece in this way, with this idea behind it was the initiation that made it a project or a work of art; not just knitting and certainly not textiles.

    A constant driving question of any maker is what is the value of time spent. I question time and the value of an hour of my time because, at 55 years old I may be running out of hours and what do I want to do with my one precious hour? is my hour of more value than, say, a 23 year old who, statistically, has more hours left to live than me.  If we knew how many hours left, what would we do with those hours? Knit?  

    So, the act of writing, logging and recognising time spent whilst making became an underlying, fundamental principal of this knitted piece. I did not lie about time, did not hide time spent in the making process, did not adjust hours to fit ‘within time’ or an acceptable amount of time judged by others to take to knit this item and I did not exaggerate either.  I was wholly honest.

    During the process there was no brief, or contract or even a binding conversation with the person who may or may not buy it, I made a Fair Isle pullover with a woman in mind.  A woman who I know respects hand-made items, understands art and creativity and supports makers.  And, I know that time is precious to her.  Of course, in the end, it is wearable. Win, win.

    There was no design brief or discussion or demands or expectations.

    Carte blanche. 

    There was also no discussion of money due to the fact that this was not my driving force for the knitted project.  Notice, that this knitting has been called many things – a project, a hand-knitted piece, a piece of art but never just knitting or textiles. 

    This whole project was a thought process – thinking about design, experimentation, research in practice, 2 years in an MA to research knitted lace, colours, heritage, Shetland-inspired memories, traditional patterns, blending colours, making mistakes and undoing mistakes, patterns I’ve previously knitted and why I wanted to weave those things into each stitch.   How can you sell that?  In a story? To a believer?  It’s an investment of time and detail.

    In brief, the underlying principle was to create a work of art which encompassed understanding and mastery of the craft of knitting, which I have done for over 40 years now. To the untrained eye, this knitted piece is ‘textiles’ or ‘just knitting’ but,  to the thinking mind it is not.

    So, I started. And unstarted. Designed and redesigned and felt my way through many, many, many hours of knitting.  Each hour was logged and sometimes what I was thinking, what I was feeling and my understanding of developing certain areas of the piece.  The work went everywhere with me and I knitted every day over 4 months. Yes, 4 months – sometimes at night watching things on iplayer. It went to café’s, babysitting, to Sheffield Institute of arts and on train journeys and to different cities but always I stayed true to the principle of logging the hours and to making every loop perfect.  I began to want to hold the work and get back to it.  It became a piece of wellbeing.

    I became fascinated by thinking about how one colour sat next to another and where the pattern had come from and what memories the knitting drew on. I undid anything that I was not totally, absolutely happy with and the happiness came in the detail which fed back to the process of thinking.  The whole process took on a journey of its own.

    The result is like a tightly woven carpet.

    I am partly embarrassed about the hours I spent on this knitted piece and partly in awe of how much time I spent dedicated to something that a knitter would do in under half the time.  But, that knitting, from a pattern would be ‘just knitting’.  This piece came from scratch – from an idea and a bundle of over 50 colours of Shetland yarn.

    On bank holiday Monday – the jewel-coloured surprise was ceremoniously and fittingly handed over

    Creative practice, process and place.

    Studio Space – SIA

    Over a number of weeks, I’ve been developing my creative practice whilst being privileged to have access to the facilities at Sheffield Institute of Arts (SIA) – I am one of the Artists in Residence on the 2019, AA2A programme.  Until this morning, I was here, working with resources, talking with students, pushing my own creative practice boundaries and experimenting with my work.  Then, last week, I presented my creative practice and process to the Extended Foundation students and on Tuesday, I’ll present to the MA, Design Students, on the Level 1, here at the Old Head Post Office (SIA), which gives me the opportunity to give back, in some small way.

    This place, this old Head Post Office, is quite magical. You can feel it in the fabric of the tiled walls, the mosaic floors and sash windows. Being here makes me feel free.

    But, I learn every time I’m within its walls – by learning new techniques, asking questions, seeing what the Students are creating, learning through osmosis and by reflecting and being patient until finally, my practice has turned a corner.  This is maybe how the universe works. Time, experimenting, patience, reflection and energy = creativity  

    Over a number of weeks, I’ve been laser cutting and laser engraving – something I wasn’t allowed to do myself at NTU because all cutting went through the one technician. At Sheffield Hallam, students and staff alike learn to use the laser cutting machines themselves, of which there are 6 here at SIA and more at Sheaf. 

    When I get the chance to spend time with a new technique, the more I learn about process and in turn, the more I take chances and become adventurous and experimental with new ideas and outputs. At SIA, I’ve learned to laser cut. I still don’t know how to do everything and not I’m without mistakes which I build on, but I can cut and engrave what I visualise quite well. It takes time.  I’m on two hours a day, two days a week.

    When I first started at SIA, I wondered how my work, which is inspired by the Heritage Shetland knitted lace industry, its tradition and the knitters themselves, could actually fit within the urban setting of a city in Yorkshire. Four months after starting at SIA I’ve developed a piece of work that is both portable and in keeping with place.  I’ve learnt through time.

    This place of Sheffield is so far removed from that place of Shetland.

    To me, there initially seemed to be no possible link for my creative practice and its links with knitting and Shetland because the work seemed to have been dragged out of context by the two places being geographically hundreds of miles apart.   But this morning, loaded with printing ink, roller, John Lewis bread board, rags and my hand-made, 15x17cm, rubber printing block that I made using my CAD lace knit designs, I have hand printed my tessellating Bird’s Eye pattern across the stairwell wall by the MA Studio.

    The result is a happy one.  Hand printing on the wall made my heart race because I realised what I can do with this idea.  The printing block is portable, it’s accessible, it’s easy to set up and it works.

    I can print on any flat wall, any place, any time.  This morning’s printing was a stepping stone to see how well I could make the tessellating pattern match, if it would work on a wall, does it need to be perfect, I love the imperfect walls of Shetland – so it can be patchy, how would I go round corners, what would it look like in a large block of space,  how long would it take and if it could be possible to take the printing block to Shetland to print across the walls of a derelict croft house that I have fallen in love with and have revisited over a number of times since 2015.

    And, the answer is yes.

    New art, new project. I’m heading for Shetland in May / June and know exactly the wall I will be printing on.

    Artist Residency

    Artist Residency

    I’ve never had an Artist studio for a number of reasons: – it is an expense that I cannot really afford, I live a 4-mile cycle ride from town so to get to a studio and back is a chore, and in the summer, it felt odd to call myself an Artist.  One miserable, wet, dark, raining night in August, I did look at a studio at Kelham Island, but it wasn’t right. I couldn’t find the right place, at the right price. 

    In the end, I did buy a desk and was delighted how that desk, in my home, made me feel and instantly became my work space.  It was enough. It is enough. My flat became exactly how I wanted it –  a live/work space at any time of the day.

    Then, in November, when I was accepted on to the AA2A Artist residency programme at Sheffield Hallam University, I moved old papers and prints into the MA studio at Sheffield Institute of Arts (The Old Head Post Office) It is a small space with a perfect wall area to overlap things, put things up, leave things, remove things, reflect.  So, until the end of June ‘19, that is exactly where you will find me every Monday and Tuesday.   Take this as an open invite to come visit.  

    There is nothing not to like about this gorgeous, strong building which was, for many years, The Old Head Post Office in Sheffield. The floors in the large exhibition space are mosaiced, the walls are still tiled in dark rich brown and cream and everywhere is conducive to creative thought with old remnants of a by gone postal service in town which litters the walls, floors and views. The technical resources are second to none. Space is limited.

    The AA2A residency came at exactly the right time.  I applied 2 days after the closing date, the submission was accepted, I was interviewed and proceeded to naïvely cover the interview table with examples of processes and work. It was a shamble of words and lace knit and photographs and, of course, laser cuts. I was over the moon when I was accepted.

    Now, is a new phase – a progressive time to learn, experiment and develop by using the resources available to me.  In return, I will show work to the current students, do presentations and workshops, be around in the space, ask and answer questions.  I’m also mentoring a little.  Alongside that, there are countless students doing their thing, and we share information.  They’ve got used to seeing me and I look forward to seeing them.  In the new year, I’ll offer workshops and add information to their notice boards of competitions and residencies.

    I did not want repeat my creative practice, therefore, I expose myself to a very creative environment as what can be called ‘A Young Artist’ and I will add – at an older age because I’m not young but I feel it.  But, to repeat is out of the question – where do I start?

    I could only start the residency at SHU, where I had left off at Nottingham Trent Uni but I had never used a laser cutting machine myself as this is done by the technician at NTU. At Sheffield Hallam, the students use the laser cutting machines themselves.  They’re shown how to use them and off they / I go. I collected all of my files from NTU but they are not compatible with the software at SHU. So the learning curve of preparing files started.

    Initially this seemed daunting but, only 3 weeks in, daunting is a memory.  I’m learning by trial and error but the errors are mine and I continue to learn from them, build a new portfolio and a new-found confidence as a practicing ‘Artist in Residence’. Silly mistakes during the process of live tracing an image and digitally cutting it open up steps to understanding what I can try next and how to overcome errors.  When I fail, I try again and again until, after I feel that I have some small grasp of the technique.

     Students come into the laser cutting room, we discuss our practice and technique, we share learning experiences and own it.  Every student fully owns their own work when they create and cut it. After two successful (ish) laser cuts, I needed a location to place the work in order to really see it.  

    I could hear a voice in my head asking myself why I thought that laser cuts of lace knitting which were inspired by Shetland could ever fit into Sheffield. There were no links between lace and Yorkshire. Did it need a link? Could I create a link? Was it becoming inauthentic or decorative? Or, was I repeating myself. And, that would never do.

    Showing my work has previously been an easy act to do as I chose remote extreme outdoor locations to place laser cuts or lace knitting and Only I saw it.  In Shetland, the work merged with the landscape and each relied on the other to give meaning. Pure Symbiosis

    Today, I do not have access to Shetland to continue to place laser cuts into abandoned croft house windows but I have done that already, photographed it, shown it and understood it.

    Now, I only have digital files that stem from my original lace knitting CAD patterns. And I am placing them into Sheffield Institute of Art (SIA)

    I looked around the SIA building, the stair wells, and corners at the working windows – mostly sash, and mostly aesthetically pleasing.  I even used a measure and made diagrams.  In Shetland there was no time for a measure of any sorts – not of windows or of place – I came across places and the site-specific work was entirely intuitive. It was placed quickly, in wind and gales and rain or snow.  Here lies a clear difference, I have the luxury of choice and measurement – though this may remove the rawness of the work.  

    At SIA, location can be more considered than in Shetland.  The work can be left in situ at SIA and not blow away.  Consciously, I knew I wanted a window of great beauty, subconsciously, I wanted a window in a location with great foot fall.  I also considered the view that would be seen through the laser cuts. I wanted people to walk past and either look or not, to stop or not, to think about the laser cuts or not but I did want the work have ‘the option to be looked at’.  I didn’t want it hidden.

    I chose this window on the half floor at Sheffield Institute of Art, between floors -2 and -1 from the reception to the studios and laser cutting rooms. A stair well of much foot fall.

    I must admit, I put laser cut 1 and 2 up quickly because I had no permission and I felt nervous.  Nervous if I could be stopped, or asked what I was doing or, and this was the biggest thing, – was the work interesting enough and would it ‘work’ into this location.  Laser cut 3 went up – doing it felt good and I didn’t hide it but I could no longer reach to place the next row. At this point, I tried to enlist the support of Jim, a technician, who was obviously going to ask the question I had been avoiding – Who gave me permission to place this work in this window and had I had it covered by H&S?

    So, now after the work has been checked and cleared by H&S, Jim placed 3 more panels and I am thinking of placing renegade work across the city and then in galleries.  New Goals. But for now, this window is my canvas. 

    Happy Christmas.  Here’s to 2019 and new things that I don’t know exist yet.

    What makes that one pure creative moment?

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    I’ve unknowingly walked for almost two years to find this pure creative moment – Or, did this one pure moment draw me back to this derelict, abandoned croft house on the tiny island of Bressay to find me?  

    Planning for the unplanned. 

    This morning, I didn’t know that I was going to return to this place.  I was in Lerwick, it was sunny, I spontaneously caught the ferry for one last time over a seven-minute stretch of water between two islands. I instantly feel free, always standing on the steps of the ferry deck to watch the island of Bressay greet me.

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    I walked left to right, my feet bringing me the long way around to a place I know well. In my back pack a tube with a roll of cut paper and no clear plan – just a creative desire to place the paper in the ‘right’ place.

    Climbing the gate at the road side, I break in. Pushing the roped, iron gate, I break in to a place I know has been sold away from a family to a farmer who has made it into a barn. A two-roomed croft house, 8 strides by 4, that has seen births and deaths, and women waiting for men, and men coming home to a place that only towards the end of its lived-in life had running water.  Three windows, a long-gone porch, slate tiles strewn across the ground, roofless and now all traces of painted walls gone. A place I found in August 2016, returned to in April 2017 with a woman who had been born in it, to now – this day in May 2018.  It is not new to me but each experience is different.  

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    Almost two years gone, the walls all turned to white chalky plaster – all traces of the family’s carefully stencilled wall paint in deep rust and yellow now gone.  But I saw it.  I remember it. I draw my hand across the wall. Seven seasons of weather putting an end to colour that I know was there.

    Instantly, on being inside the roofless croft house, I feel at home. It’s sunny and breezy. The ever-present wind on the islands wraps itself around every minute of the day. I can hear it, feel it, see it.

    No time to waste.  I don’t measure, don’t think, just empty my bag across the earth floor to unroll the paper and without much thought, hammer it with a rock and Shetland tacks in to place in the old window that still has glass in it.

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    I step back to experience a purity so pin-sharp that I cannot breathe for one moment.   

    This pure moment of creativity that speaks to me.

    But the paper has been cut into by a two-year long story of my knitting and a search for authenticity. It also contains a technical skill not to be ignored

     

    In reality, to the unseeing eye, it is a laser cut in tracing paper. But look to see, because for me it is not just paper.  The moment of placing the ‘fitting’ and fitted paper laser cut draws on every single thing that was leading to this moment.

    No one else would have / could have felt this because it is my pure moment pulling on threads of two years ago selling a house to go to Uni at the age of 53, to learn something about myself that I already knew but had lost and to learn new skills and to understand resilience once again.

    In placing that laser cut, I found myself in its authenticity – my authenticity.  A language of knitting lace stitches using a computer aided design simulation to create a fine paper laser cut which can rival any fine lace knitting.  It has skill, it has knowledge but more than that, I can hear all of the voices of my past from when an old man once said to me, “never sell these, Tracey, I had them during my grandiose period”  to a woman telling me only last week of her ‘grandmammy’ walking up the hill, using a knitting belt to knit and wearing a kishie on her back going to collect peats for the fire, to a man silenced for fifteen minutes in the wind, the ever present wind on these islands and of course, it is this physical place.

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    It’s not just a paper cut. It holds a physical and emotional and philosophical journey, even.

    But that one pure moment is a visible celebration and a testament of my repeatedly returning to a group of islands, learning the cultural climate, a landscape and how to get around in seasons on my own to a place that holds stories which I pick up and add to with the materiality of life.

    It’s a celebration of all the knitters who have lived in these croft houses over generations and generations subsidising the small crofting income with a material craft and a skill that was given little value.  

    Other people will read  it differently, on a different day, the light is different, the wind, the sounds, the movement. 

    No one same moment can be pure for everyone. This moment is mine only because it is wrapped up in thinking about authenticity, heritage, time past, a woman standing in a doorway waiting for her man to come back from the sea. The pure moment is the placing of something that fits exactly in that space, without tensions and stays there in an elemental landscape until it blows away.

    Like dirty paper.

     

    I place the work, it becomes site-specific.  I feel it, document it, understand it and walk away – without looking over my shoulder.  Such a pure beautiful moment. 

    With Thanks to Making Ways, Sheffield for enabling this trip to happen. And to Sue Turton for hours and hours of laser cutting.