Finished pieces and the end of this academic year

I have finished the last of my machine embroidered tools as part of my series of works based on skills that I have learnt since being widowed. As of yet they are untitled as I need to give this some thought. I am very pleased with the result but there is that tinge of sadness - I have made them in a response to loosing Carl: but that will always be the way my work evolves. However, it is a positive response: we still refer to them as dad's tools so his memory will never fade.

Free Machine Embroidered Screw Drivers

Free Machine Embroidered Hammer

And the result, the answer to my quest to explore the need to be perfect - a very interesting point. Referring back to the start and Henry Moore's quote "... all life is a conflict; that's something to be accepted, something you have to know...One must try to find a synthesis, to come to terms with opposite qualities. Art and life are made up of conflicts." For this reason Moore believes that in great art this conflict is hidden and therefore it is not perfect. 

The conflict in my work is the need to get everything right, to be perfect otherwise I have failed, but with this technique,  I cannot be perfect, there will be a certain amount of shape change and any weaknesses in the stitching will show. Like Amanda McCavour, I repeatedly and compulsively stitched  the designs and I have turned Carl's ordinary hammer, drill, screwdriver and camera into something that is extraordinary. The fragility shows: the thread is dense yet there are loose areas which suggest vulnerability, suggest a new meaning- that these imperfections might make the work successful. 

And for me, I have not left the need to be perfect as this is something that can not be resolved over night. It's Only Bricks and Mortar really pushed this to the limit. I worked so hard on the drawing but when I washed the backing away I was really upset with the result. It had completely distorted, but then I was able to question why I felt like this. I had spent a lot of time carefully embroidering the drill and then within 2 minutes, it had changed, changed in way that I had not expected. But then I realised that I was really on to something. The conflict of needing to be able to draw well, needing to be able live my life well, could stop me from being creative but if I just let go I would be able to realise the beauty in life's imperfections. As Janet Hague from Thinking and Stitching suggests, it is this reflection on the things that have gone wrong that can let the work lead, rather than inhibit and offer a way forward.


So where shall I go from here?  This academic year has been so exciting: I have looked at the work of Anna Glasbrook, which I want to continue exploring whilst I decide how to push further
my painted fabrics and stitch, using photographic images as my source, and move beyond the white canvas and frame as used in 'Together'. Heather Belcher has encouraged me to try mark making on felt and allowed me to make still life images of  possessions that remind us of the fragility of the human figure along with the feelings of loss and dislocation. Naseem Darby and Amanda McCavour have inspired my machine embroidery, but still I want to try sculpting, maybe over more personal possessions, maybe on a larger scale, suspended or in glass. And then there is the idea of Damage and Repair as inspired by Dail Behennaih and Jessica Turrell from the Bristol Museum - Stitching and Thinking. This has been a lot of fun and still has a long way to go such as working with rusty metal and embroidery, more damaged or old fabrics. Perhaps I could work from the shape, pattern or remnants of the damage.

Other artists to explore - Alice Kettle
Other materials - leather, metal