on show

The Credit crunch doesn't seem to have reached Suffolk yet. Local artisans gathered under the high eau de nil ceilings [embossed with intricate blindingly white plasterwork from an earlier era] of the nearby posh school to show our work this weekend. For some unknown reason persons flocked in and we took a record amount of boodle, nigh on £3000.

My earnings were a small percentage it is true but still it was a warm feeling to be swished by the waves of approbation, increasingly swirled by the sharp elbowed under current of bargain hunting .

Our strict Baptist farmer always benefits from these predatory urges to find a classy Xmas present that looks classy and costs so much less than if you were shopping in London. He turns wood, and produces remarkably beautiful bowls and vases, excellent to send as unbreakable gifts all over the country. Monkey puzzle trees are his current prey.

This bowl is "spalted" [elm or sycamore maybe] which means, I learnt, that the tree dies and a fungus sets in amongst the grain. It has to be killed as the spores can be carcinogenic [as is so much it seems] and then when the wood is turned you end up with these impressive markings.

Recently villagers have complained about his wood pile, as mixed with other farm detrius it was accused of bringing the neighbourhood down, so he had to sort and display it in a more refined manner. Didn't stop them coming and snapping up his bowls of course.

His Baptist life style means he can't steward on a Sunday, but I notice that as his bowls play an increasing part of his income he now bowls in on the Sunday evening to pack the remainder up and totter home. On Saturday he wore scarlet cordroy trousers, black shirt and scarlet patterned bow tie, that's new too.

The potter here is a German lady, Usch, who throws these wonderful jugs and then glazes them in startling colours. I couldn't resist taking the photo with Maggie's quilt behind, stunning.

Maggie sold the quilt to her plumber when he came to do a job at her house, not sure which way the money went in the end. Mags usually flies to Houston for the quilt fair around now with empty suitcases and comes back with them full of fabrics and one or two cheap tracksuits from the A&P that clothed her while she was there.

melt down

I am exceeding Monday morningish today, threatening migraine and achey limbs. Could be because I spent most of Sunday melting plastic.
Embroiderer's Guild ran a workshop on recycling - in a creative way - via an iron, some parchment paper[is that what you call it, not greaseproof, but used for baking i think, don't know as i don't do any]and plassy bags.
Recycling is a hindrance to our gig actually as the bags with built in recycling don't melt and meld as successfully; now one has to increasingly buy the shiny, stronger bags for life, xmas tinsel, shower curtains, even plastic table cloths and doileys, great fun.
The tutor is a patchworker, which frightens the bejabbers out of me as I am so un-neat and am genetically unable to plan my work ahead.
However she was very encouraging, and we soon started chopping up with abandon and melting the bits together in what we hoped would be an interesting manner. I have done a bit of this before, but the key to more flexible creating was to use a cheese grater to shower slivers of wax crayons on the surface which would then melt into painterly shapes and squiggles.
Then stitch.
The key it seems is not to plan too much ahead but to see what happens, so i was fairly happy, if still nervous.
These situations are just endemically competitive, 16 self effacing and generous minded women of age and experience, put them all in the same room where they have to each follow the same instructions and produce a piece, the mental claws come out.
I try very hard to be laid back, absorb the info, play a bit and do it later at home if interested, but before I know it I am head down beavering away.
Now I am climbing over the additional clutter to get into my room and looking for the napalm.
The last 2 workshops have been excellent, but there is also that discipline of working and developing in the sacred "Series", and as i get older I wonder just how many side streets of different Series I can go down.
I no longer want to achieve"art" signified by the fact that it sells [in London] for thousands, but I do want to sell some so i can still get Into my room. I do want/have to keep making stuff. I find if I just piddle about making one thing here, another there it starts to feel so unfocused and meaningless.
So ......................dunno. meld all the experiences/techniques together into a series of pieces that will knock peoples socks off, or at least keep me making.

connections

Tottered off to Sutton Hoo on Saturday, not to visit the Anglo-Saxon ship burial, not even the slightly effeminate golden mask [not that they are there any more, whisked off to British Museum years ago, only copies left behind] but to see yet another textile show. patchwork ladies gave us their all, and quite impressive it was. Dispiriting really for poor wanna-bes like moi.

This for instance is pretty good. And this is clever.

Personally I like using fabric and thread as if it is paint, so i admire the foxgloves more.

These standing stones from the Outer? Hebrides reflected the clear light so effectively I wanted to get on the night train there and then, and I will one day.

Going to too many of these shows will make me hang up my needle for good soon, in an enormous sulk. No positive or encouraging murmurs please. lets just admit the ladies are good

These bathing beauties are probably more my style but i think i would have made them bigger and bolder.

The Salix uses "breakdown" screen printing which I have yet to define. The colours certainly are joyous.

Have just googled and it seems to be a mixture of dyes paints and discharging. Obviously I need the book. Also found an arty blog describing it to add to my favourites. Connections, connections, life is all about making connections.

This one of my favourites too, as I like the layering and merging of form - and stuff

These daisies are stylish, pretty without being cloying. Reminds me of that line in PG Woodhouse when one of Bertie's fiancee's describes stars - as god's daisy chain the sky.................

Allison, made the thin blue line. It is a bit like her - precise yet complex. The title was a theme for the Birmingham quilt show which she entered. Most of it is computer printing, intriguing how the very old tradition of quilting now twins with computer based art.

At the Knit and Stitch there was an exhibit of crochet which explains the hyperbolic maths theory. And then there was that novel about a patchworker who had worked out another geometric theory via her stitching long before the mathematicians got round to it.

tripping again

I am sitting in the sun, which is a small miracle in itself in October, admittedly I am behind double glazing but there are still flowers within and without, the doggy is stretched out with a contented sigh at my feet and if I hadn't just knocked over and broken my cup of tea, it would be perfect. Which would be frightening, so just as well I am clumsy.

The wireless is spewing out financial disaster, not much I can do about that except keep my fingers crossed that the pension funds hold out.

Daughter in America is expecting her first, her husband is on a 4 day week now so they are nervous. Hopefully the Bailouts and interest rate cuts will help steady the ship.

Son, also in the States, is part of a Messenger Co-operative, so he needs businesses to keep growing and communicating so his bicycle wheels can keep going round.

So, yesterday, in an effort to graduate into the Age of Irresponsibility I betook myself, and mother, up to the Big Bad City, ignored the steam rising above the Stock Exchange, or was that smoke, and joined my peers [and commoners] entering Alexander Palace to see the annual Knit and Stitch exhibition.

Actually Ally Pally is a bit like this conservatory, only a bit taller - and with a Palm Court. The textiles are shown in two huge halls - or maybe more, ma and I are rather dyslexic re. direction, and usually have no idea where we are, or how to get there, thank goodness for mobile phones. One hall has a large and colourful Rose window, so we can tell when we are in that hall, and we Know that in one of the corners there is a cafe, just not which one.

We had a potter round the individual and group shows, plus the graduate shows. Each ridiculously young woman has an alcove decorated with the fruits of their years of study, usually highly decorative and accomplished [graduate and work]. I have just realised i should have taken some pics of the ubiquitous knitting for Heide, I will ask Allison. The latter is so dedicated she is going up tomorrow and staying overnight B&B so she can spend two days indulging herself in fabric and colour.

I took some pics for the lacemakers of my acquaintance

and this

For myself i liked these dancers [life size].

My ma liked this quilt [below], with the Diver appliqued. Instinctively I take the opposite view partly because we have unresolved issues [which she is much too old to have any interest in resolving, [the new bus time table etc demands much more attention from her and needs angry emails to whoever] and also because I think the black -what do you call it, silhouette is too .........easy.

The stalls seemed to be arranged more by theme this year, so I was able to dive into an orgy of thread buying, without getting distracted by gadgets, and a wonderful dyed and combed Finnish fleece which I am convinced I can turn into a Mistresspiece or two.

I took a pic of a patchwork piece to remind me to be more adventurous. obviously i have a room full of half finished bits and pieces and I would love to think this would inspire me to combine them in a contemporary manner. Equally obviously no-one would then be interested in taking them off my hands as "contemporary" is not a style that goes over big outside the Big Bad City.

This is really when i miss the presence of my daughter whom instinctively goes for the jugular - in design and all other matters.

five go adventuring

Two textile exhibitions [Two!! count them] in one day. Five ladies [how old, count them - over 300 years between them!!] motored out of Suffolk into the depths of Essex, for my foreign readers this has vast class significance, which rankles with me as I am originally an Essex girl, and I can get defensive.

The conversation, all crammed into one car [for my foreign readers British cars are small, as are the roads] got a bit interminably WI [foreign readers look it up as i may incriminate myself, and the WI has been proven to have some firepower in unexpected places].

Two young persons had flown the family home only days before to fledge at University, so there was much chat and competition about angst and food parcels involved. I become insensitive and irritable after the first five rounds of repetition and reassurance, it is all bonding i know, but these young peeps are off on quite a well upholstered ride, even in these days of huge loans that will cripple graduates in future lives. And I got mine for free, oh dear I am old and guilty, and worse still envious.

anyway back to us older peoples break for creative freedom [not financial success, not if you are a textile artist mate].

The first to be seen was this Dress of Memories, it stood at the entrance, next to a window so the light shone coldly through [it is ruddy cold this week] next to it's sister dress that has crumpled fragments of paper stitched into it.

It was rather beautiful and romantic, sad, ethereal all those words. The sister piece that I didn't like so much has been bought by the Museum in which it is presently it is exhibited for £300, so much for my moans of textiles not being dignified by oodles of monetary recognition.In times of Financial Crunch too.

Janette has been doing some years of research at the Foundlings Institution of largely Victorian times and probably too long afterwards, where women had to leave their babies to enable them to have some food and warmth and thus a future. Not University Students then, which of course is good progress.

The women left little tokens and messages to be kept for when their children grew up, to remember them by. Each little pillow, nestling in the basket records a message. Say no more.

Margaret has done some pieces focusing on the sea shore, i really took to this one as it reminded me of the time I was on a boat going up? the Thames to Hampton Court Palace and we stopped in Teddington Lock. It was so peaceful, a sunny day, peace and quiet with just the trickle of water as the lock filled and we could pass through back to the City. probably an experience that will not be repeated. But this perfectly recalls it when ever I look at it. Not the art works itself, just the pic as i rarely spend money on textile art either................

This last piece [detail]appealed to me because I thought I could use the framing textured edge round my next doggy walk stitching, and reduce the actual walk to about this scale. I'm afraid I was too excited by my ah ha experience to note what the piece is actually about, or by whom, but it is obviously rural - and accomplished.

Mine was more primitive.

As it happens second show will have to take place after this "short break" as I have to take said doggy for a walk she tells me, and as she is an older lady one must not delay these things.

mellow bellow

The Boiler man cometh today, with Henry his hoover, Henry certainly gets around as I see him in lots of places.
Bman also cleaned up the tube that shows us how much is left in the depths of the oil tank, I had perched a plastic mask of Tony Blair on top of the tube [once I had finished with it as the face in a village scarecrow competition, he didn't win] and stuffed it with straw to hold it on.
Somehow earth and insects and all manner of detritus curled up in the warm space and then plunged down the tube.
So I have been expecting the heating to belch and blow up at any moment.
Fortunately we are now sparkly clean and TB is in the bin, where he belongs.
The day started cold and grey but warmed up and the sun shone, the river sparkled and doggy and I had a good tramp thru the bright green grass; we met two very lively greyhounds and Hatters would have loved a race, but she has to make do with a few excited circles now she is an older lady.
The runner beans are still flowering and we are still eating the results, so the rotation of sun and showers is doing some good, likewise the corn on the cob is finally swelling and becoming delicious.................I just keep forgetting to harvest it. G'dad in law had his posthumous birthday posy of Michaelmas daisies on his grave, it all feels very autumnal.
Tomorrow I am hoping to get to a couple of textile exhibitions and next week it is the Amazing Snit and Bitch show at Ally Pally [knit and stitch] so I am buoyed up with anticipation. Hopefully lots of luscious threads.
At my stitching group meeting yesterday I promised to do a Sketch Book workshop next month, I am mad, why do I do these things, I will only get obsessed and desperate.
I guess it is the Only Childitus again, rearranging my dolls. Twit.

soapbox

I am always ready to respond to an invitation to "say more" except for my brain which refuses to co-operate.
I went to my Stitching group monthly meeting this morning, it was our AGM.........oh dear.
First i had to find the way, only having been to our new venue once before. Obviously i got lost then, as I am crap at following maps, or any instructions. This time I went wrong in a different place, perhaps when I have exhausted the possibilities of whizzing by muddy fields and startled cows I will eventually settle down to a route.
They claimed on the wireless today that dyslexia can be genetic; mother has no sense of direction, even tho she has been practising for 87 years and my daughter is a spelling disaster zone.
Fortunately she is expecting a boy, so maybe he will be able to guide us around in our old age.
Unfortunately ADD seems to run thru the boys in his father's side, so we may have to tie a string to him first, so we can keep up.
His dad had Ritalin, and now so do his 2 little cousins, I am hoping that a good dose of distracted creative mother and g'ma will encourage him to realise his existence probably depends on him shaping up for his self survival.
Back at the Stitchers jamboree I had to read out the Minutes in a serious voice, but 20 women soon find something to say, so we plunged out in various unexpected directions ourselves.
We plan to use Bridging the Gap as our theme for next years exhibition, as we show our work in an ancient Maltings which is rapidly turning into expensive apartments, thus we hope to muse on past and future.
Also we have also pledged to each create a "vessel" - that strange objet d'art, beloved of textile artists. As I usually have a Female bias i think mine might show a pregnant women with a hinged tummy....................back to daughter again.
The Tory Boy Toff is on the wireless at the moment pledging to run the country to all our advantage, I doubt it, but the Labour Bother Boys are doing no better, thus my agreement with JG of the Grateful Dead.
Last night i watched a programme on the gog about Jack Kerouac and On The Road, apparently we hippies got it all wrong, it shouldn't have been flowers, drugs and rocknroll........we missed out on the Spiritual Revolution.
Probably did, tho I do remember trying tramping round London on a few marches. But then I had babies and concentrated on the Feminist Revolution, don't know if we won there either.
Now I just sit on my hill. maybe when I become a grand-mother I will resurrect the need to fight -for personal freedom+ personal responsibility.....................or maybe I will just pray the babe grows up and lives a life that he chooses, with a granny flat of course.

wise words

Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us. - Jerry Garcia
Need I say more

Virtue is it's own reward

Went up to Suffolk Norfolk border on Saturday to see the Seven Deadly Virtues exhibition. Not very deadly at all, rather agreeable in fact, except for my crazed creations. This is screenprint & patchwork is by Helen, whose gallery and workshop it is. We tend to call her Helen the Rottweiler [behind her back] to differentiate from Helen the Meek who is also a patchworker.

It was a lovely day in the rural flat lands, corn all gathered in, potatoes' browned off heads waiting to be lifted. Recently we were asked by a couple from Texas what these strange plants were, presumably they had not been to Ohio, - is that where potatoes come from?

Other exhibitors were a mixed bunch, I liked the automota by John, Helen's large and silent partner.

Lin has never shown her work before, one of H's deadly virtues is bullying people into having some confidence about their work. L uses pen and ink and water colour by the look of it, and does calligraphy quotes to frame it. Her literary references didn't seem to be mine so I didn't have to try and squeeze one of her pieces onto our already over crowded walls.





John2 takes and prints rather wonderful digital photos, and only jealousy stopped me buying one, no matter how little room their might be.






















Finally Heather stitched and dyed, in a not very exciting way, but perfectly competently. She called this Homage to Tiamen which does lend it more gravitas.

We stopped off on the way back at Walberswick for tea and cakey, lovely pub amongst the salt flats leading to the sea, and all was gorgeous - till i realised I had left my bag back at the gallery, which lengthened the return journey considerably Four times through the one way system of Beccles is 4 too many.

winged chariot

Hastings was good, as was the sunshine, I wonder if we would be different people if we all had sufficient of sunlight and ............holidays.
Lots of bossy magpies up on the East cliffs; a couple of determined crows quartering the grass every day - they found an abandoned apple and spent a merry couple of days pecking it to the core and beyond.
The seagulls screamed from chimneys and all high points, often the top of cars which they strutted around on as if the car was a ragged rock round which we ragged rascals ran.
All the birds soared in wonderful swooping glides on the thermals, what kind of people would we be if we could fly in the sunshine, and scream and curse whenever we feel the urge.
Couldn't resist a couple of fish and chip suppers, scrumptious, I had forgotten how good hot fat batter and starch can taste.
Also a lovely spicy lamb casserole and another night an even more scrumptious cassolet - duck and herby sauage squeezed among the beans at the Dragon. Nothing like it at home - a kind of wine bar, but a down market arty one with odd tables and chairs. low light and jazz on the vinyl. Almost like being young and intellectual again with black eye liner and nail varnish. Though my mother told me once that she wore black nail varnish when she was young, [with shoulder pads and a big hat and 3" heels clambering over the ruins of London to the office, she claims]
Why can't we stay young, only our thoughts and understanding maturing, then when we finally get bored we can switch off.

The value of old things did raise a finger for attention as old town has many, many junk shops. The lady in flibbertigibbet [or some such] reckons she could sell anything, even wet fish, to anyone. She didn't stock wet fish but maybe it was in her experience. I bought a double white cotton sheet, presumably from a failed hotel of which there are probably many as Hastings is not what it was, one look at the poor old pier gives you a glimpse of the ghost of past glories. The thick white Egyptian cotton was irresistible, one day i will dye it.

red with anger

It is blustery today, sudden sunshine then black clouds, the washing was almost dry when I lost my nerve and brought it in.
Big push to finish work for the Seven Deadly Virtues exhibition.
Have done a triptych on Awakening Anger, unfortunately it is a bit more Awankening as I first spelt it. It was a long horizontal work, which might have interested Coffeespooners present interior decorating requirements, but I thought sagely - who would want a long horizontal piece, so I cut it up..........Timing is everything, as we know.
Finally I stitched each face to a gold fabric covered board and sent them on their way [not rejoicing]. The scarlet threads of Anger flood the photo as usual, not sure what it is about red, or how to deal with it more successfully.
Another piece is also lengthier than high, Envy Lurks, takes a remarkably clear pic, as it is rather dark, in all senses.
Eastern Region Textile forum has a competition [saints preserve us] to stitch a postcard on the subject On The Doorstep. It has to be 5" x 7" which is an odd size to start with.
I did think of a Stabbed Body lying across the doorstep, but may settle for a Rough Sleeper. I suspect there will be many beautiful garden views so I have to think of something different, or be upset when my garden isn't up to scratch.
I should be thinking of making some more traditionally sized fabric postcards and bookmarks for the local craft show. I don't think Envy Lurks will quite cut it.
We [me, him and Hattie] go away fro a week on Saturday, maybe the South coast will inspire me, if i can see thru the rain.

playing skittles

I receive emails from the Cancer Charity that I support, todays asked me if I read the e-newsletter and what ideas I had for revamping it.

I never read it, and don't usually read the emails. I coped with my breast cancer by being frightened out of my socks, slowly recovering some equilibrium and ever since, about every six months, descending on the doctor witha new ache that i want to be reassurred about. Not very mature perhaps but that's the best I can do.

I reckon spending the rest of my life fighting morbid thoughts is burden enough, without adding new information on which to brood.

The cancer was twenty years ago now, and I don't think of it every day, but getting newsletters doesn't help this rickety fence of denial.

I am willing to support the ladder to help out others who find themsleves in a similar hole, but in the main I want to get on with Life.

The shock did make me re-assess to some extent, I became much less - discontented, less ambitious, not so full of myself. But of course I also have become much more full of myself, hugging myself close..................that's only human, being able to hold fast to two totally opposing positions at the same time.

It is heartening that throughout this time others that have been skittled by the dreaded Big C mostly seem to still be with us, so I guess the money is at least going to good effect.

PS Didn't have a piece involving skittles, so this merry romp is meant to remind me to have fun.

grime and crime

Sunshine after rain - couldn't really avoid doing some gardening.
We inherited these tall daisy plants [White Choristers?], which spread like billio, but are useful at this time of year, displaying an elegant sea of white. Very fresh.
However, once they have gone over, it is just a junk yard of dead heads towering above all else, so had to get out there with the secateurs, heaving some of them out every now and then, when the rest weren't looking.
Hidden below are other late summer plants requesting their turn for some sun, but also a carpet of the many varieties of grasses, some short, some long, all defiantly rooted and clinging on for dear life, cunningly they delve their roots under "proper" plants resulting in minor earthquake if I try and yank them up. I have the broken black nails and 3 plasters to evidence a battle well fought.
There is also creeping buttercup which i intend to spray with nasty stuff. We did have terrible Ground Elder, which has driven many to despair, but I upped the solution and frequency and for now it is subdued, it has obviously called up reinforcements.
We have a brown bin, which means once a fortnight the local council comes round and empties said bin of weeds and composts them. We have various composting arrangements in the garden involving worms in one and gentlemen peeing occasionally [at dead of night] on another, but weeds need the compost to reach a certain heat to destroy them so we assign them to the authorities to do with as they wish.
Sort of Vegetable Guantanamo.
Which leads me to our own home grown terrorists, who struck last night, presumably after the pub closed.
They ran amok down the lane destroying house signs and chucking solar night lights as they cavorted along. They ignored our doggy and the two dogs of our neighbour [fair enough as all doggies ignored them] and broke the Mercedes insignia off their elderly car. Lady down the hill lost her bird table.
The community policewoman has been informed so I expect developments.
I always fancied writing a crime novel so maybe this is the beginning.

fitting in

Have been invited to contribute to an exhibition on The Seven Deadly Virtues. H the gallery owner has done a fair bit of wikipedering to nudge us into pastures new.

Lust is already born,

and I have this lady

which deadly virtue I wonder?
My boxed ladies can probably be despair, it can be a creative emotion at times.

The Warring Angels must fit in somewhere. Obviously I just need a weird title and all my stuff finds a place!

tracy 4 coffeespooner at 10th August

Thoughts have been well manured, buried deep, time has passed, result may not make a beautiful plant.

dancers

cats and dogs

PS Just checked the Orwell diaries blog and he had similar weather "today", but more acceptably it wasn't cold and dark when the hard rain fell in Kent [with snakes].
Since my complaint the sun has come out and Hats and I had a lovely walk and met a cockerpoo, or spoodle, whichever you prefer. P craves one, I had been dismissive, but Chloe was very sweet and scampered gamely around as Hatters bowled her over and tried to roll her creamy, newly trimmed fur in the mud.
Owner - new to the village, otherwise i wouldn't have expected conversation, obviously - has problems in that her husband seems to be allergic to the house they have just moved into. Had to take him to A&E a few days ago, hopefully the surveyor will uncover the sacrificed outsider, or whatever, under the floorboards and all can be exorcised.

august

My environment has suddenly changed, which has at least jolted me out of neutral.
It is pouring with rain, and so dark with heavy clouds at 9a.m. that the lights have to go on.
This is August, I cannot believe it.
Already this month is a strange one, everyone with kids goes away, is getting ready to go away, getting over going away. This is pointless to older persons who have just got their garden looking nice, [though actually it is going over a bit now], but one does expect to sit out there beneath the sunshade and read the odd crime story.
But no it is dark, cool and wet.
In a way it is cosy to be in with all the windows pulled shut and the lights beaming out, but it all feels wrong.
Now the wind is gusting and the yews and hollies in the churchyard are writhing in quite an alarming manner. In the garden some of the hollyhocks have bitten the dust/mud and the passion flower I am trying to distract, so the wisteria can take over, is whipping around flinging hard little green fruits [full of pale little seeds], does anyone do anything with them?
The postman has been and gone accompanied by much barking from Hattie. She knows perfectly well who it is but she likes to remind everyone that she may be old and grey, but, like her mistress, she can still raise a racket if need be.
This postman is a locum, and rather than toil round in his baggy shorts, complaining that my herbaceous border gets his legs wet, this one speeds up in his red van and drops a load of pamphlets through the cat flap [we don't have a letter box] and roars off again.
I rarely get mail, as i rarely write letters.
God's business however often appears on the mat - hidden behind the window of an anonymous white envelope, fortunately addressed to the Treasurer of the Church - not me.
It would be disconcerting to actually receive a bill from God[dess] I would welcome the reassurance of a metaphysical being, but quake before its demands no doubt.
It would only end in an argument, there is, after all, much to complain of, despite the get out clause of free will, - starting with the current weather.

composted for coffeespooner

I have been reading various reviews of the Tracy Emin exhibition, which is frustratingly in Edinburgh, rather a long way to go.

I have seen quite a lot of her work, starting with the tent with the Names of Everyone I have Slept With stitched all over it at the Serpentine some years ago. It was quite a shock in a challenge kind of way, the rest of the exhibition was progressive textile work, but I kept returning to circle and peer into the little enclosed space.

At first I was dismissive, anyone can stitch, not very neatly, names of far too many men onto this unprepossessing surface. It took some time to twig that the names included Everyone she had slept with, - her family, her friends, the foetus from her abortion.

The enclosed space, womblike itself, became a more tender enclosure, the rough stitching a much stronger expression of all the feelings that the names anchored into the fabric. I had never heard of her, but I thought she had used the shape and the stitching to communicate so much to me. Moreover it was textile art, definitely not craft, [the materials and finish were not paramount}

As with most of her work I felt it wasn't just her life, it was an aspect of female experience that she was representing. She gave the terrible mess we make of our lives from when we are adolescent - status and understanding, instead of guilt and dismissal.

Since then I have tried to see what she does next, not usually too difficult as she also has excellent skills in doing work that gets noticed by its notoriety rating. As with most contemporary artists she deals in life & death and identity and sex, but perhaps she gets more stick than most because it is female angst that she explores.

I find her work disturbing because she excavates all the feeling and fears I have experienced and now try to forget, and don't have the courage to explore in my stuff. I sit on my hill hoping I won't have to face any more hard work, just yet.

Contemporary art requires we bring our feeling and thoughts to the piece, it literally doesn't "paint a picture" . To make themselves heard artists have to have a status in this celebrity culture, make a splash. damian hurst's diamond encrusted skull says it all to me death and terrible beauty - the futility of trying to grasp riches, at the same time that he does it himself an annoying contradiction that worms and burrows into ones consciousness.

Tracy Emin is confessional, on one level exploitatively so, but also honest. I am not sure how I would react to rooms and rooms of her howls of out rage, it may seem too one note, i would love to find out.

water ways

Have been away for a couple of days thanks to the Queen Mother [long story] no doubt influenced by our birth signs we set course yet again for water, and ended up cruising up [down] the Thames in the rain. More fun than it sounds.

The boatman, stoutly Chelsea, intoned the list of interest, MI5 - not where I thought they were, MI6 - who were.

Lord Archer's somewhat dilapidated penthouse suite raised a small communal raspberry as the road bridges slid overhead - painted sage green, pretty pink with gilded fripperies.

This one, for good measure, has worthy Victorian statues. This is Art, they were all women which was rather sweet or irritating..

The railway bridges are more solid and serious. Many more trees than you would expect when pounding the fume filled city streets.

The splended power station is Listed, meaning the main structure must remain; after many attempts to turn it into a disco, may now become guess what, luxury apartments.

Gradually the trees win through and there you are in Kew.

If you are lucky and have caught an earlier tide you can slide thru the cool green locks at Teddington and end up at Hampton Court. But it is a tidal river, which I should have remembered, [after all we live next to one here too], and we couldn't get that far this time.

Three men in a Boat has always been a favourite of mine, Hattie could be Montmorency and I would definitely remember the tin opener, as I like pineapple a lot.

Next day it was raining rather more aggressively, if in spurts, so we ended up at the National Portrait Gallery as a reverse oasis.

The annual Portrait Competition was on, rather irritatingly it was obsessed with painting of the photo realism variety, huge and pockmarked faces gazed soulfully out. Rather clever but boring IMO, everyone looks mournful as if they can't remember where they left their smoothie.

Foyles provided further shelter, now swept clean of all idiosyncrasies; no more running around with slips of paper to at least three different pay stations before they would deign parting with a book.

I bought two of the long list Bookers, no display of the collection as yet, Foyles does at least maintain the dignity of less haste - Case of Exploding Mangoes [reportedly funny about general Zia, neat trick if true] and Child 44. This one is the first ever? Thriller to make the Booker lists. It is unremittingly tragic - it would take a heart of stone not to roar with laughter or curl up and whither away. Only those with a strong sense of humour should take the journey.