The silence here has been no lack of ideas, drafts or edits on my textile journey but loud echo of the thud of recent accompanying health challenges which have meant any completed chapters would have had to be viewed by the proverbial blind eye. My paper copy of the first module of the C&G course is very well thumbed and annotated with doodles and scribbles galore in the margins and on the backs of pages and I find no reason to abandon ship before I have really headed in to open ocean... metaphors and medication do appear to come hand in hand:0)
In the silence there has been much thought and I have definitely decided a few false starts do not an end make however they do point to the undeniable fact that health is not something that I can either ignore nor forget to accomodate in ways that meet need not want.
So for another few months C&G course will be gently zipped into it's portfolio and will wait for new start and concious awareness of the right moment. In saying that I do know there is never a right moment there is just the moment to begin again. i certinly do not wish to approach the course as half arsed as I have thus far, it and me deserve better:0) So, I am leting it rest whilst I do too and we will meet again in a few months refreshed and renewed and ready to go - ever the optomist that's me even as I reach for pain meds or some such. Thankfully Distant Stitch and my tutor Sian Martin agree with my postponement and we will engage once again when I am ready. In the meantime I will keep a eye open for the short courses Distant Stitch is going to be offering in the coming months plus anything that is actually going to be happening locally to me which will feed in to the C&G course and other work.
One thing I am very clear about is that enrolling on the course was not a bad move, that its contents and challenges are at one with a need and that I will do this course not for a qualification or some such but for me to explore engage and embrace new understanding not only of textile skills and techniques but how to translate those in to communication with others and my self.
I have definitely found the enforced rest and stillness a real gift for thought and space to begin slowly putting in to place more support mechanisims to help me not only do as much justice to the C&G course as I would wish but more importantly to underline the fact that this is but an element in a whole which will feed into and off of the rest of my daily life.
The strap line of this blog describes me as a textile student which is true but only really if I add that I am a cookery student, gardening student, paper arts student, walking student, thinking student and on and on and on... a student of life learning only daily, moment by moment, how to create something called living. All the knowledge in the world does little for the wisdom of utilising it and transforming it in to living unless I take a day moment by moment and understand my whole life is only ever going to be that days length, it is just I have not yet learnt how that is really measured and have a strong inkling that I'll still be learning that at final breath:0)
This blog was never going to just be a dry record of sheets of paper filled, paint sploshed, fabric transformed. If I felt that working with my hands with needle or paint brush, scissors or ink pen, or that techniques attempted research noted etc was the 'why', then I know my gut recation would be F***K that.
If what I attempt to do, even sometimes succeed in doing, doesn't feed into that whole then I waste precsious moments and all together they only come to a day in the scale of things so unless I think, analyse and discover ways for their execution to feed me and others then no reason to continuing seems possible to find.
One of the things I have pencilled in to attempt is to visit Wonderwool again this year, now only four weeks away. I have enrolled in a 2 hour workshop on the Sunday afternoon, here's the blurb - "'Beautiful Dorset Buttons', with Carolyn Mace. Students will learn several variations on the basic design, from simple to sophisticated and embellished. No previous experience needed." As well as creating buttons ,scaling these up is something I'd be interested in trying and using alternative materials but first to watch and learn from someone who really knows what they are doing :0)
A friend is going to join me for the weekend who will sternly tell me when I've had enough and need to sit/lie down ha-ha. I will attend both days but only for the morning on the Saturday and the afternoon of the Sunday. We are going to stay nearby so my friend can do some serious walking and I can sit and contemplate the view and read through the leaflets no doubt picked up at the show. I am looking forward to seeing the work on show and aquainting myself with the myriad of fibre available. My textiles, paper and gifts savings tin will be travel with me as I hope to purchase a 'Bodger' from Jenni Stuart Anderson who I was fortunate to meet last year at the show and purchased a beautiful hardwood speed shuttle hook then. I love any art/craft that encourages recycling and Jenni's rugs are definitely truly The Art of Recycling.
But for now this blog will be quietly snoozing along with me but may snuffle from time to time with a photo or quip so do come back from time to time to check or subscribe to the blog feed:0)
