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.

green & purple

I find, reading about Millicent Fawcett [see stitch in time] that there is a difference, jealously guarded at one time I expect, between a suffragette and a suffragist. I have not heard of the latter - it seems they were the non-violent wing of the revolution.
Just goes to show that if you want to get noticed, you have to make a splash, preferably of blood, sweat or tears.
At one time I marched - abortion, peace, ban the bomb, housing-before-townhall-car-parks.........topics large and small.
One thing i noticed even then was the preponderance of young men keen to sweep all before them. In time I began to wonder if the testosterone was the main stimulant, rather than the principle.
It wasn't until I had kids in the 70s, that I began to make sense of it all.
Until then, an only child, then a teacher in my own little empire I didn't really suspect that my frustrations may have political connotations. I just thought I was inadequate; terrified of not having a boyfriend, my main aim to be married and thus worthy.
Having children finally made me realise the dependency of my position.
I was reliant on my man, the system, the culture to support me, as I was suddenly in full time support of my kids, they had to come first.
I have always been self centred, willful but once a woman has kids, I felt I was vulnerable ......... No longer a free agent, had I ever been a free agent?
We moved to Carlisle and in a bid to meet people [women?] I joined a new group, the Carlisle Women's' Action Group, we read Against Our Will by Susan Brownmiller and suddenly it all made sense.
Now, I find when talking to other women my age, they couldn't remember what the symbol for Women's' Liberation was.
The green and purple of the suffragettes also had to be dredged up from the recesses.
This week it is coincidentally 80 years since all adult women got the vote.
What would Millicent say if she knew older ones don't remember and younger ones feel it is irrelevant.

uncle's birthday

Out and about with elderly relatives again today, this time mother's younger sister [84] and her husband who is "one year older" today.
They emigrated 50+ years ago to Canada where he taught in "special" education so that in their spare time they could swirl round the provinces, bemusing all with their ballroom dancing lessons and exhortations to cook proper stews, not beefburgers.
Now they are two small tortoises, peering out of their shells, one with disapproval the other with a genial smile.
We had birthday lunch at the local pub, which was fairly vile but they worked at it solidly until they had cleared their plates, just as they commanded we should do when we were kids - "think of the starving children in Africa"
Now we taunt them with advice to "just eat what you want, leave the rest", knowing that they are congenitally incapable of doing it.
As a child, I used to hate marrow, parsnips and spinach, mother would make me sit there till it was finished, or serve it up for the next meal. Now I love them.
Meal times were often fraught, we had a small metal table in the kitchen goodness knows why it was metal.
The dog , as a bored puppy, left alone most of the day, would snatch out the cutlery drawer in his teeth and shake it all about, so I would return from school to mayhem. It must have made a satisfying racket.
My father was often short tempered, but mother insisted we three sat up together and had a proper dinner every evening, once the cutlery had been replaced, even though she was returning from full time work and I had already eaten school dinners.
Arguments often erupted, especially as I became a teenager, father would throw his dinner at the wall, mother would cry, the dog would cower in the broom cupboard. Such fun.
As they say - every family should have two parents; it makes such a good slanging match. Father blacked my eye, broke my ear drum, generally set about him. No doubt I was intensely annoying with all that arrogance that only a 14 year old can produce.
Benign Uncle would have been a different father, and I would have now been a different person.
My canadian cousin however rants about his termagant mother, of whom he is still scared.
I'm not frightened of any of them now, maybe it is easier for girls to separate as they move alliances; boys are always sons maybe, ashamed of abandoning their mother and trying to be better than their father; girls can't wait to ditch fathers for their partner and become sympathetic friends with their mother - or not.

stitch in time

Last week involved lots of stitching groupings and me with a nasty old cold, thus tolerance levels on all sides were tested.
The Regional Embroiderers Guild arranged for volunteers to go to the Steam Engine Museum at Leiston and do some research, in the hopes that we would cough up a textile response for exhibition next Spring.
I took a short cut by taking lots of pics and coughing up my own claggy immediate feed back, and then chugging off. Hopefully no-one got the lergy as a result.
The cogs and wheels with a side order of spanners were nirvana to the patch workers, but I am not so sprauncy at bodging a perfect circle.
However fortunately the Garretts who started the family business also spawned Millicent Fawcett and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson so hopefully a piece of purple and green and strong jawlines will evolve.
Then we had a work shop on printing on textiles [not computers, pretty colours]. The tutor was muscular in her approach, much like her work. No shrinking violet here, not when raging scarlet can explode forth.
She is of an age now when she would really rather we all pissed off, so she could get on with her own work.
Her spine is bending, a physical expression of her frustrations? There is a time to teach, and there is a time when it gets old. However, presumably she needs the money, which she did give value for, if in a rather disgruntled way.
She makes printing blocks from unlikely materials, and also runs a roller over them which transfers the pattern onto the roller whence it can be rolled off, until the colour runs out, on to the fabric.
This all looks a bit garish, but the trick is then to brush dyes over the lot, which unifies everything and gives some startling colour effects.
Finally I went to my stitching group where we are constructing Big Women, one each, larger than life.
By now I was thoroughly disgruntled myself, or maybe I had been all along, so I left early, lugging "Gertrude" with me.
She sits in the passenger seat quite comfortably [I don't let her drive - she has no head] no-one seems to notice.

aunty is ninety

My auntie is 90, [my mother, her younger sister by three years - middle one, explains a lot] organised a birthday party for her.
The youngest sister [by another three years] came over from Canada, aunty's son managed to dredge up in time, neighbours gathered, friends and family descended on the parish hall and a quiet time was had by all.
The three sisters circulated gravely, two husbands in tow. Elderly dinghies comes to mind, they are used to bobbing in the wake,though they would probably prefer to be thought of as tugs, bravely battling through - bringing the willful liner safely into port.
My father was more of a corvette [he was a torpedo man in the war, and that is not sexual innuendo, however appropriate in his case] smashing through the rough seas and dying off early.
My grand parents despaired for a son, and instead won three male grand children and me. Our parents each had one child [youngest sister married twice], which again says something about being bought up as one of three - sisters.
We four cousins gravitated to one table and circled the wagons against the wrinkles of time lapping at our beach.
Each of us has been divorced at least once, our parents not at all. I was the first of this generation, very embarrassing, but now with the Royal family adopting the technique it feels more acceptable, perhaps, to the aunties and uncles.
My uncle is 90 in nine months, I doubt he will get a party thrown for him. He did play Happy Birthday tho, on the piano, we all sang - auntie beamed.
It was as it should be.

ghost writer

Obviously bread pudding is essential to recuperation, as I still feel wobbly, not quite in focus.
I must wobble up to the shop in a mo and see if they have some.
In the meantime I shall blog, which will reassure me that I do exist.
Maybe blogging is an alternative to appearing on the television - the ultimate endorsement that one is really here?
If so - what has television, blogging etc. replaced ?
Perhaps, once, people were more secure in their own place in society, - you knew where you belonged. Maybe - these days - [probably not a phrase we used when we were younger] a good proportion of youngsters just feel even more alienated from that feeling of belonging
Now we are led to believe young persons just want to "be famous", which no doubt makes some of us feel very smug and virtuous. Especially when the rider is added - "or infamous, tho i doubt they know the difference"
Cultures do move on, I always thought i would be in touch with the zeitgeist, I think am curious, empathic, fairly adaptable and most of all creative, which always supplies the itch to move on, explore further, never be satisfied.
But here I am sidelined and in the main, preferring it. I don't want to take on windmills any more, just photograph them, and then niggle away at the frustration of making something individual of the image in my mind.
Dunno why, should stick to gardening really, but looking at the jungle that has shot up this week while I have been out of it, I understand why gardening is not enough. I want to make things that stay where I put them.
Ceramics is even annoying as the bloody things get knocked over and break.
I want to stay where I am, my utmost creation, never broken.
Silly girl.
So, to stagger after a thought, long since cruising over the horizon, as society gets faster, more diverse, fragmented, all those things which make me feel I never catch up with myself - do ambitions get more ephemeral?
Maybe younger persons feel being famous [in the media] makes one part of the rush, integrated into the glitter.
Whereas old sods like me, just see the negatives. But for the bulk of the ill educated poorly paid, career-less young - there is no chance of making it in the present society we flourish smugly in their faces.
Or do I just need bread pudding?

bread pudding

I have a horrible, horrible cold and I feel foul.
I couldn't go to pottery yesterday nor could I go to the Threads and Fabrics Sale today.
Will I get up to Leiston Museum tomorrow to partake in the Embroiderers Guild response work day, I wonder.
You can bet that on Sunday I will be able to go to Auntie Cinders 90th birthday party.
The only good thing is that I have a yen for bread pudding, which is sold by the village shop, and being as I am ill, I can justify indulging it.
However it transpires that they have none.

in my shed

Very sunny today, so sitting in my shed [with benefit of extension lead].
I have been trying to Do something with the honesty, in a half arsed way. TAGS exhibition theme next month is Imprint so I thought I could print the honesty ?leaves on some see thru material, with white paint, as a starter. hmmmmmmmm needs more work/thought.
I am not good with "fragile", the effect I am after.
Have started reading the Reluctant Fundamentalist, which is either very good or very annoying, not sure which yet. It comes after a medieval who dunnit so a good contrast anyway.
I walked doggy in my crocs this morning [as opposed to the wellies of yore] and then got trapped by a huge lane filling puddle or three. Clambered round the edges OK, but crocs have these magic holes which admit water, sand, stones, anything I would rather not get between my toes. Had to clean same with leaves once on the dry side, and felt very medieval.
Amazon finally tipped up with some hard backs today. I do the free postage if you order more than £15 or there abouts, but the orders seem to take ages lately, so I guess they are trying to dissuade me from this method.
I think friend P has paid for a years free postage, and she gets her books toute suite, but it does seem to be a contradiction. I must stop being stubborn and ask details.

Spring into Summer

Saw the Summer Exhibition at the RA, a bit pedestrian except for young Tracy's room.
She at least did have some contemporary stuff, and most had attitude - so as a viewer I had a reaction beyond the irritated puzzlement most modern art engenders in moi.
The pile of pink willies which shadowed a 2 faced man on the wall was clever, the black balustrades were a poor copy of Louise Bourgeois' "people" [however her own saggy lump was not exciting]. The rampant zebra was trying too hard, in all senses, as was the triangle of pubic hair. Tracy's own painting was bold and delicate at the same time, and unsettling.
One huge painting in the other rooms that I did like was a painted mass of white ovals, which reminded me to try and do something with the honesty which is raining seeds all about me, even now, as it dries. It's clear whiteness reminded me of being in Anthony Gormley's Cloud Room, but the painting was more peaceful {I got the frightened giggles in the Cloud Room]
Lots of RAs had put in lots of big works, much like last years, presumably they sell, there can be no other excuse for boring sexy collages and spiky cactus's repeated ad nauseam. Lucian Freud had a nice low key portrait, pointing up the pomposity of many of the RAs even more.
Most of the other stuff was crowded in at the end, squashed in irregular tiers reaching the ceiling. You couldn't concentrate on one piece, without all the jostling crowd teeming round it, capturing your attention too.
The Anthony Caro in the courtyard is now boring - it might have had more oomph possibly in the 70s, however it made excellent seating for the weary.
We didn't buy anything, the white ovals were on a canvas bigger than my room I should think, and I have enough pubic hair to deal with already.
Having lunch on the South Bank was perfect in the hot sun, and made me envy all those MPs who can have a second house in London courtesy of the tax payer.
The rest of the week has been teeming rain and grey skies.
Unusually I was out stitching in various locations almost every day last week. June and July are frenetic in Sewing Circles, workshops, exhibitions, Open Studios.
I suppose it is all part of the spring ritual, sap rising, birds nesting, England beating New Zealand at cricket, [beating anyone at cricket is a surprise].
Just half listened to Nadal beating Federer, seems all wrong. I tend to favour the oldie in these situations these days.
I took myself to see Sex in the City on Tuesday, it was quite good/naughty fun, but I came away a bit depressed.
In the series the women seemed livelier, more open to choices, in the film it all centred on getting your man, even tho 3 of them are supposed to have careers no import was attached to them except making Miranda too tired to have sex with her man.
Samantha had her 50th birthday at the end and freed herself to go hunting, but I was left with the feeling that from J Austen till today the story seems to stop when the woman marries.
At my age I need more encouragement than that.
Am I am forgetting that men still control Hollywood, or do women still buy that storyline - as Carrie might ask .

broken pots

I hung my big red bath towel out to dry this morning and it hasn't stopped raining since, this is not the way to start a new day/week/month/rest of my life.
The garden has had loads of rain already. The grindel [stream that runs under the hillside and pops up in the water meadow down by the river] is very full of itself, all the bird baths are smugly reflecting the grey clouds, the footpaths across the farm need wellies to make them passable, enough is enough.
We had a dry and sunny day for our local arts and crafts exhibition on Saturday, 14 of us demonstrated our creativity to the gawping public.
Much gawping, little buying.
We covered our costs, bonded affectionately as we sat and worked all day, and bathed in the glow of praise but the result one desires is the committment of passing over money and proudly taking the prize home [seller and buyer].
I sold some textile postcards, and some picture cards of my stitchings, and bought a pair of earrings from Silver Mongoose, on the table opposite.
No change there then.
Lee brought a kick wheel and lots of kids and parents had a go at throwing a pot to general hilarity.
The patchworkers bought their machines but people weren't as interested in having a go as we thought they would be. Nearly sold a beautiful quilt, that would have swelled the coffers.
Everyone was fascinated by the two lacemakers tho.
Jo had made a selection of baskets; of course our woodturner sold most, people really like the gorgeous grains and silky smooth textures. Perfect unbreakable gifts, unlike one of my bowls. I managed to knock the head off one of the ladies cavorting down the sides of one as I packed them in the car boot to bring home. Bloody ceramics, not reliable. Spend hours trying to perfect them, risk consigning them to the vagaries of the kiln, and then break the bloody thing.
Pottery did improve my behavious in one way tho; I used to throw my creations against the wall when I lost my temper, to show my partner how anguished were my feelings I suppose. In the end I realised the only result was a lot of broken pottery.
Gus sat next to me and carved wooden spoons, so nice to have a personally carved spoon to stir ones soup. He claims the skill is just called Spooning, but initially he uses a Bodgers workhorse to saw the rough shape.
Bodging - an activity I practise every day.

behind the .........

It is raining again, the only consolation is that it is raining in Paris too [according to the tennis] so I don't feel totally victimised.
C, who lives in Scotland records that her town is twinned with the Germans, [well not all of them] and that some of her neighbours are not keen.
I found, when in Wick, that some Scots prefer the Germans to the English, a salutary lesson, reinforced annually now by the Eurovision Song Contest.
Here, we are twinned with the French, which leads us to cadge coach lifts when the local junior Jazz band etc. are practising detente. Arras is a market town like us, except most of it was not knocked down in the enthusiasm of the sixties to build rectangular brick blocks all over the place.
We do still have town square with a pompous Victorian town hall and even some outside cafe bars in the summer.
Arras however has two huge and magnificent cobbled medieval town squares, either side of their Gothic town hall. The edges of the squares have ancient stone pillared colonnades and 16th and 17th century Flemish style houses provide the shops and hotels.
Both here and there market days bring in some life, in Arras at religious festival times they have processions and a big fair which rackets round most of the night.
Here we have one small roundabout for the holidaying kiddies and a poor droopy Xmas tree, fenced off in case the local gentry should take a fancy to the few trailing bits of tinsel that miserably cling, until the cold winds whip them away.
Actually Arras town hall and much of the town was flattened by said Germans in the First Big War, but was carefully restored in the twenties when presumably one could do such things without being allied with the likes of Prince Charles.
It is nice for me that in medieval times [and between Other Quite Big Wars]it was a textile town, specialising in the tapestries that Polonius? had to hide behind.
When I was doing my C&Gs creative Embroidery we took an swap exhibition over there to some enthusiasm. We went with the Fine Arts faculty who were very proud of their melted marshmallows dripping down boards etc. The French, bless them, seemed to prefer our more colourful contributions.

a feminist issue

I have spent most of the day making a fat lady, or another fat lady if you count me.[here's one i made earlier}
She is calico bound and stuffed with lots of wadding and old wools which I always knew I would find a use for one day.
She, [must give her a name], is life size but not very demanding as yet, as she has no head, arms or bottom half of legs. She does have, however, a lovely fat tummy and bottom and a fairly fine pair of boobs. I suspect the latter need some help, boobs [and lips] are always more subtle than one would think.
I shall call her Clarissa.
Clarissa comes about because my stitching group, S.L.A.P.P.E.R.S, had a rush of blood to the collective head and decided to make 6 life size fat ladies the centre piece of our next exhibition.
The concept was keenly adopted before common sense could prevail and additionally it was decided that each F.L. should be covered [dressed] in the method of her downfall.
Clarrisa is to be dressed in crisp bags.
Her friends will display the wrappers of sweeties, booze, advertising, cakes and for some reason the last - will be covered in zips and buttons [her maker is a Danish lacemaker and makes up her mind differently at times...........]
Stitching crisp bags together will be interesting, tho not as interesting as sweetie wrappers or cake ?tins perhaps.
I do like making female figures in whatever medium, what to do with them, once I have finished, is more of a problem.
I led a workshop for another of my stitching groups, T.A.G.S,[what diverting names we have, not as good as hairdressers tho] in making wire figures a month or so back, which we will display in a Circle Dance at our July exhibition. Although they enjoyed getting a figure together, only a few really developed the figure further -into something individual and different.
I suspect there is an Art and Craft division there.
I tried to explain to the members that I like to make fat-ladies because they have female strength, rather than be judged as sex objects. They took it personally unfortunately and were not best pleased.
The local exhibition this weekend is with yet another group, Peninsula Crafts, a rather down to earth name,, where we will each demonstrate our art/craft. The plan is that each will have a table and 2 screens behind, where we will do, for the day, whatever it is that keeps us off the streets.
We aspire to sell some of our stuff and also encourage other local people to join. Usually we have a rather pompously contrived "exhibition" where I suspect I provide a backdrop for the wood turners and jewellery makers to sell their stuff.
Truth is that if I try and make cushions or something useful I just can't get it together to make anything worthwhile. What I like doing is to cobble together my ladies in whatever medium happens to be at hand.
I do have some quite nice pottery figures this year, but will have to sell them for twopence to get rid of them, which I should do, but I get shirty and pompous myself about selling so cheap.
Last week I made a rather nice little clay figure, but just as I had successfully fired her once and was ready to fire her glaze, I knocked her off the stand she was perilously waiting on, and she broke her foot.
At least with fabrics I can drop them and the cat can sleep on them and they still come up smiling.
What I am doing in all these groups is - mostly suffering. I am not at ease in any situation in which I am not firmly in charge, and then if I do manage a coup, the resultant responsibility destroys me.
However one must get on with it, or go potty at home.

42

"If we had a keen vision and feeling for all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.
As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity".
Just struggled through Zadie Smith's article in today's Guardian, discussing Middlemarch - and George Eliot's exploration of a search for - truth.
I relate to the thought, as the wind from that roar gets in my head quite often, blogging is one of the activities that quietens it.
GE/ME/ZS felt Spinoza got to the core of the meaning of life with the advice to cling to - feeling into knowledge, knowledge into feeling.
This rooting for feeling appeals to me, rather than trying to rid oneself of all emotion.
GE, Zadie claims, I think [and I am grateful for any help either can give me to unpick what each is going on about] that through our own experiences and imagination we can learn what it is that each of us needs to grow. Not so much through theories or explanations of "facts". Most of all the experience of love helps us to grow.
I guess loving child/partner/friend/parent does eclipse at times the terrible fascination with oneself.
I have read Middlemarch a couple of times I guess, but I think i will give it another go this summer.
I once read Daniel Deronda in it's entirety on a fast train to and from Granada, but I couldn't remember a word about it, and when I tried again recently I didn't like it much, and didn't finish.
Hopefully Zadie and Dorothea will encourage me forward.
Re-reading books at different ages is interesting. I loved the Golden Notebook in my 20s, Womens' Room in my 30s but a couple of years ago I couldn't get into either of them.
Once on a train [again] to and from Cornwall I was reading Mr Pickwick, when we got home I couldn't extricate my mind from the characters and was very confused indeed until revived with a cup of tea, followed by a long sleep.
David Baddiel, again in the Guardian Review today rings the bells for Jane Austen - no it is the Books section of the Times [we have both so him upstairs can go to the pub and do the crosswords].
DB says she has "all the key modern realist devices; ironic narration; structural unity; transparency of focus; ensemble characterisation; fixed arenas of time and place and most importantly, the giving up of the fantastical in favour of the notion that art should represent life as it is actually lived in all its wonderful ordinariness"
Coo.
But I like it.

Marvel

This is my Marvel stitching machine, which I still haven't quite sorted out. It looks more like a syringe for delivering heroin than a lady's stitching aid.

Maybe I should have tried it out today, in one form or another, as I made a right mess of covering some cushions with my patchwork fat ladies.

I really should stick to Art, I am not clever enough for Craft. I expect in 1918, whoever first had this gadget was a marvel of neatness and expertise.

The only needlework I was taught at primary school [or not] was to hem round a napkin [no, no, those stitches are far too large] - encouragement was not yet considered a teaching aid.

When I was eleven we girls all had to make an apron for Domestic science, while the boys knocked up a table or something manly. My green check pinny turned out wonky, as did my later fish pie or fruit salad. Neither of which troubled my parents dining table, as there was no way they were going to survive the three mile trip home on the top deck of the No. 62 bus.