imprint

Imprint was the theme of our recent exhibition.
Hattie the dog and I imprint our footsteps/pawprints in repeated rotations thru and around the fields about here. There are many footpaths, some sign posted and some just invitations of flattened grasses.
The one up the hill to Hill farm is deeply rutted and then back filled with horse poo. On occasion the farmer adds sand and gravel to the mix.
When we have heavy rain, the run-off drags most of the ingredients down the steep path, across the road and into the drains and gardens of the "new" houses below.
Once upon a time there used to be allotments on that site, many gooseberries and peas were grown and delivered to the village shop to be sold to the village populace.
Everyone was happy with the arrangement, but somehow the land was sold to a builder and a Close was built. The Closees are not amused when they awake to a mucky lawn, so after some years [complaints have to compost for some while in the country] the farmer found some evil tarmac concoction and covered the sand and poo for about half the distance of the path. Presumably his half.
The village awaits results after the next rain storm, hopefully tonight as it has been very hot for a very long, un-English time in this corner of the country. We could do with some air freshening.
Another path leads thru the horsey field, now without the entertainment of horses, with a side turning off thru the cows or sheep depending on whom is renting the pasture that month.
The Grindel runs across the bottom field, so feet can get rather wet if following this path, the cows enjoy this feature and stand about hock deep in mud and contentment gazing dreamily at passers by, such as Hatty and I. Unless they are young and curious, in which case they lower their heads, bat their long silky eyelashes and advance in a inquisitive semi-circle, if they were children they would be holding hands.
If we keep walking down the hill, one way or another, we reach the river, then we can go right and inspect the houseboats, or left and to pass the yacht club and boat yard. Hatty doesn't mind which we choose just as long as we keep moving on.
The path up [or down] the Long Fields has been officiously designated a Cycle Path, and has the signs on tall poles to prove it. This advent was largely ignored until Tonka type earth movers arrived and proceeded to surface the path with flinty stones, presumably so that if a cyclist ever did use the path [none sighted so far] they would be unseated by the strange terrain and then receive everlasting scarred knees to record the adventure.
The horses that carry riders down, and up, the path [it is also ordained a bridal path] reject the sharp, shifting stones and have made a new imprint by the side, thru the farmers crop.
Walkers, including Hatty and I, also reject the unsteady and noisy stones and take refuge in the soft earth and horse shoe prints.
Thus a new imprint is added to the pages of the country journal.

an alternative view

I was about to walk Hatters the dog today, with an extra purpose - to post a couple of letters. Even tho the main aim was to take a walk I couldn't bring myself to go that extra 5 mins. and walk up to the pillar box on the main road.
Also would Hatty appreciate that extra excursion thru the village was not poo territory, she's a smart dog, but basic needs tend to gain impetus in us all, when the need arises.
I have not taken the trip down the Drift and thru the horsey field to the river for some time. The two horses who grazed there were quite friendly Except when their sense of humour led them to thunder up together behind the unwary walker and then just as instant death seemed nigh beneath their flashing hooves, swerve off into an adjoining field, flicking tails in derision.
However we seemed to have reached a mutual non proliferation treaty that allowed all to progress with dignity, when their owners suddenly started appearing with wax jackets and peaked caps, and opinions on doggy poo.
Not horsey poo.
Signs began to proliferate and snappy arguments ensued, I can doggy-bag when required, but every day seemed to take the shine off, so I took an alternative route.
However, the other post box is at the bottom of the hill, by the river.
Lately I seemed to have met said horses, not the owners, carrying persons of differing proportions from the new stables up the hill [one horse, like one car, looks much the same to me,] so I wasn't sure - but we decided to risk it and set out for the nearer post box.
Excellent, the apology for a fence round the ever present potential bonfire had fallen down, not to be resuscitated. Previously the horsey owners didn't approve of horsey snacking on delicacies such as broken fence posts and brushwood, but it seemed they reigned no more.
And so Hatters and I made it to the river and post box unaccosted , the nettles got dumped on without comment and all was peace.
But as we wandered on it did strike me that there have been quite a few checks introduced on our wilful ways.
Doggy poo was the top topic when I was on the tenants council in N London twenty [whoops nearly 25] years ago, when actually the abandoned syringes and fledgling gangsters may have required more attention.
But the only open space then was the car park smeared around the base of the flats, with occasional holes to allow spindly trees to poke up among the brickwork. Kids got mucky enough without the dog, cat and rat poo.
But now dog poo is a middle class campaign and like seat belts, drink driving, smoking bans, attacks on happy hour, it seems to have become part of a new tradition, for better or worse.

journeys

It's been a busy day. P came over with Jpeg [black lab.] to walk round the Clamp with Hattie [grey and white collie/lab] and me in the sunshine.
Didn't see much as we were talking so hard, but the fresh air was good.
Then we picked up the ancient Tortoises and took them for a meal down at the Shipwreck. Lunch tasted like it had been in a real shipwreck for some time, but again the fresh air was good.
It was strange to find stories that I have told to describe my relatives are not in fact strictly true. I am sure I was told - by my mother - that P & G taught ball room dancing for years. However P informs me that they told her that it is not so, they "call" at square dancing things.............and G, I was told taught in Special Ed. no says Pat, just ordinary Ed. [she drove G in her car, while I had P]. I am confused, what else is not true?
The Ancient Ts are due to fly back to Canada tomorrow, goodness knows where they keep their stamina, maybe they store it all up in a pocket, and that's why they walk so slow.
Who needs to walk when you can fly.
I am getting restless, need a different horizon myself; got to drive out to take down the exhibition tomorrow, but that is just more of the same now.
Nobody with any sense looks forward to the A12.
P, Jpeg, Hattie and I decided we may make a day trip of the ferry over to Harwich [at least 10 mins.] and back some time, scarcely foreign parts but it will have to do.

binned

They emptied the bins! [see below]

live long Amy

There is a garbage collection strike today. I have read most of Ragged Trousered Philanthropist - the present offer is less than the rate of inflation, keeping in mind they are only earning just above minimum wage now, should I support them when they are faced with threatened redundancy if given a better pay rise? - or should I put out the bins and hope for the best.
Or should I sit on my hill, accept my impotence and read a book. P has lent me the newish Plum, kill or cure.
My mind is moosh, I have no definition, I may recant some of my previous musings.
Today I am miserable and there isn't really a good excuse [discounting the perfectly reasonable existential angst that should be the basis of every thought word and deed]. Nothing much has changed from the day a couple or two back when I was cheery to the point of smuggery.
Oh Amy Winehouse is singing Cupid draw back your Bow on Radio6, life suddenly got better, amazing how wonderful she sounds when you don't see her pottering about with wonky beehive and a big glass of something pink on the stage.
Gone now, that silly noisy man is on for hours......... back to a CD and misery.
I suspect that my moaning is largely hormonal, so maybe memory doesn't make us who we are, maybe it is just the pineal gland.
Also I wonder if I am feminist who doesn't like women, maybe I live in a cosy glow of theory which Correctly defines the gender position in the country IMO but perhaps due to eons of conditioning women really can be a pain.
It could be in the genes, we had/have to compete with each other to attract a mate and continue our line, but that has got corrupted over time into habitual cattiness and back stabbing.
Told you I was fed up.

memory lanes

Picked up mother from the station today. She and sister plus husband have been cruising on the River Elbe, then 3 days exploring Prague.
She was not best pleased.
Ma is 87, sister is 84 and sister's husband isn't even 80 yet, but the youngsters were not sprightly enough for my mother. Far too much sitting back, letting her make all the decisions, or go on side trips without them.
I suggested that ma always took the decisions, and if not, immediately insists on an alternative of her choosing.
She grunted that I was wrong, of course.
Anyway she is home, with a cold, refusing all support as usual.
She reports that sister's husband has dementia, I claim he just forgets things and sometimes gets lost. It made me wonder if she says the same about me, I don't usually forget where I live, but often forget what I have done. Complete black hole about whether I have done it at all.
Memory makes us who we are.
We remember the things we do and think [or most of them] and that linked narrative we tell ourselves is our identity, isn't it......?
Hattie the dog is an old girl now, old and knobbly. Sometimes, if she feels tired after an exuberant walk the day before, she will halt and refuse to go further, until I acquiesce and turn round.
Then she bounces with pleasure and sets off home, tail wagging, nose to the ground sniffing eagerly.
She understands a lot of words and phrases, and much body language and tone of voice. But how much does she remember, is her memory deteriorating now she is nearly as old as ma in doggy years.
I don't remember anything, except tiny snapshots, before I was ......10? I used to have a memory that I thought came from early on, but i have worn it away in the remembering and now I only have the words of telling myself the story.
I do remember chanting my times tables in Infant school - being so bad with numbers I would guess that is because I was so terrified of being last to get a red shiny paper apple on the tree collage on the gloss painted tiles of the classroom wall.
I remember my 2 last teachers at primary school, Miss Gretorex and Mr Endicott, both young, tho I think he had been in the War so he must have been in late 30s at least, I suppose. Fifty two in our class, ruler across the hand if we talked too much, I worshipped both of them.
Each time I type the word "remember" I leave out the second m.
I have noticed this before, once a mistake is repeated it seems to stick and I have to take conscious care not to continue thus. So I imagine that memory is some form of electrical charge that forges a path linking synapses, an alternative spelling starts a new path.
Our exhibition theme is Imprint this year so one of my mistress-pieces is plan of the various walk patterns Hattie and I make round the surrounding country side. Then I stitched the names of all the tress and birds we see. Very satisfying.
Think the other textile artists were a bit non plussed tho.

Did Eve stitch the fig leaves together?

On Friday I went up to London to see a couple of textile art shows. It was so sunny I didn't take a coat!
Today it is cold and raining.
The first exhibition was by the group I run with at times trying to get myself to make art.
They hold the show in galleries in the City, which is nicely posh but costs half your limbs in hanging fees etc. if you want your work shown and sold there, so the best you can do usually is come out even, if you are lucky.
This event was by about a dozen graduates, mostly they work part time, distance learning, so it takes years and much perseverance, moaning and groaning. Tutors come and go as i think they don't get paid much and find more and more work dumped on them. Having doyens of the stitching world on their books is very inviting to tentative students, who find that by the time they have signed up and shelled out -the likes of Alice Kettle, or Gwen Hedley have shaken the dust.
This year there were 3 or 4 students who had really done well IMO, and I was very tempted to just "do it".
I was overheard talking to one of the artists by another woman who was teetering on the edge of signing away her spare time and savings, and we started egging each other on in that supportive way women with mutual interests sometimes do.
I say sometimes in view of "comments" a previous blog attracted which didn't seem to share my experiences of female solidarity. I certainly never experienced it with my mother, but i have been helped a lot by the friendship of other women.
Maybe the personal does affect the political so strongly that it influences the way we perceive our lives. But perhaps being on ones own, trying to earn a living, without the financial support of a partner, opens ones eyes to the power of patriarchy outside the domestic experience.
I also went the Haywood Gallery on the South Bank to see the Crochet Coral, displaying the reality of hyperbolic space so colourfully. No photos allowed and no cards, so a memory only.
All of the above is usually women's art, or is it craft? It is certainly B list in the Art World.
Textile degrees are largely getting transmuted into some kind of Fine Art degree where work can be done with needle and thread, if one is stubborn. This is a good thing in the way that the art training can lead, but not so good that experienced textile teachers find it hard to get employed to pass on their skills.
Likewise City and Guilds stitching courses are closing all over the country, they don't fit into the curriculum funding or system, so the apprenticeship in practical study is also lost.
Some women somewhere have always stitched, always delighted in putting parts together to make a whole. I moved from sculpture to stitching so that I could pick it up at any time, fit it into my day. Maybe that is why it is so rarely Art, not sufficient tunnel vision, too much compromise.
Like my blogger friend who has changed her profile to mother and grandmother first, I think I will not sweep all aside to do the degree, but I will keep picking bits up and making something.