Pink Tulips - because I need them!
Creativity has been a bit thin on the ground lately what with all the clearing out and packing that’s been going on. However I have turned up one or two bits and pieces you might like to see, and I thought a couple of ‘before’ pictures might be good so we can all be amazed at the eventual transformations.
I’m hopeless at dates, and the years rush past so quickly I can’t be positive about how long I had my studio. I was certainly using it before I went off to art college as a mature student so it must be around ten years. In that time the prevailing wind off the big field behind it ripped the roofing felt off at least once, and the whole building comprising the studio and Tim’s adjoining shed took on a drunken lean towards the house, making the doors ill-fitting and draughty. As I progressed through college and got bigger ideas and more ‘stuff’ the studio got more and more full and eventually went from being a rather small studio to being a very big cupboard.
You’re probably wondering where the Fairy comes in. She turned up during the excavations – the pleistocene layer I believe – while sorting the studio. About eighteen months ago I was staying with my mother while she recouperated from a knee operation, and the Fairy came into being when I was being creative with a limited supply of materials.
She started as a piece of embroidery, a short length of buff coloured linen and toning coton a broder thread, and grew from the need to give the embroidery a purpose.
Her body is calico, jointed with wooden beads and her hair, Wendesleydale fleece.
Her little socks were knitted with the remains of the lace weight Shetland wool with which my mother knitted a shawl for her first great grandchild. And if you are going to wear socks, well, I’m afraid it’s Sensible Shoes.
As I usually work in colour it was a challenge to use a limited pallette and to forage for materials. Now she’s going to preside over the kitchen while waiting for her new home to be built. She’s already threatened me with several nasty spells if she ends up stuck in a scrap bag again and it’s far too cold for me to end up in a pond with a lot of other frogs.
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