Welcome to Musings - The Loom Room Blog

Maybe it’s because of the milestone birthday I’ve reached, or maybe it’s because of studying for an MA and being challenged to challenge and think deeply about everything, but I’ve become more and more aware of how little we appreciate the ageing process - unless it’s to do with antiques, that is!

Why does our Western society worship youth?

Yesterday, a reminder letter arrived from my dentist.  Nothing earth-shattering there - just a reminder to schedule a 6-month appointment.  But on the letterhead was the announcement - in bold and capitals -

COMING SOON - New Service: Facial Asthetics (line & wrinkle treatments)

At my hairdressers, (which I only visit about once a year!), you are urged to take waxing treatments for all parts of your body, electrolysis to remove body hair if you don’t fancy waxing, and botox and other methods to remove lines and wrinkles.

Other societies revere the wisdom that age brings and lines and wrinkles are a sign of a life that’s been lived, with highs, lows, laughter and tears.

Yes, most of us do want to look as good as we can for our age (!) but how far do you go to look younger than your life experience?

My paternal grandmother was 101 when she died earlier this year, and her face showed her longevity and her passion and enjoyment in living.  She had dignity, wisdom, gentleness and steel and all was there to see in her face.  A wonderful book, a fascinating read.

Facelifts create a mask - sometimes like a death-mask, it seems to me!  In the effort to wipe away the trace of the years, life is wiped away with it.  The face’s myriad expressions are paralysed.  Visual expression is vital to our human mode of communication, along with body language and verbal/aural language.  Without the use of tiny facial muscles, how can we communicate effectively?  Lines and wrinkles are merely the result of repetitive facial movements. They express us more clearly than any words.  They can tell the lie behind words sometimes.  Perhaps that is why people want to eradicate them.  Perhaps their faces betray what they really feel as opposed to what they say they feel.

I must confess - I have thought of botox to remove the depth of my frown line.  I frown when I concentrate, and I concentrate a lot, so it is a deep line.  But it is mostly visible to me.  Other people see the laughter lines, the tiny expressions that show humour, passion, love of life, interest.  The frown line is mostly employed when I’m looking at the computer, or reading, or thinking deeply, so is not really an expression of who I am to others.  Would I really contemplate injecting a poison into my skin to remove such a line?  In my less confident moments, yes I would.  But when I really think about it, my face is a record of how I live my life, my communication with others, my outlook on life.  Would I want to eradicate part of my own history?  Remove part of what makes up that entity I call me?

So here’s to lines and wrinkles.  Raise a glass of whatever you like to drink and let’s toast life lived!

Over the past couple of months, life has been challenging in a number of ways.  But one constant throughout all the challenges has been weaving.  Whether teaching, preparing for workshops, or planning and weaving my own projects, weaving has kept my thoughts positive, my mind actively planning, and my hands occupied.

I have come to realise that people with a consuming passion in something, whether it be weaving, family ancestry, cars, bird-watching, have an advantage when it comes to hard times.  That part of the brain is busy and distracted from whatever else is proving difficult, and you can switch to that part of the brain whenever you need to re-charge your batteries.

For me, various deadlines with weaving have proved the anchor to keeping things in perspective, although sometimes the deadlines have also felt a little like a noose round my neck!  Happily, most of those deadlines have been met and I can now relax a little and smell the roses!!  They have helped me stay focussed on things other than my other challenges and kept me in the world instead of apart from it in my own little bubble.

Having students has forced me to stop for breath and concentrate on their needs and, in doing so, has totally refreshed me in a way that I hadn’t expected.  I have always loved teaching, but never expected it to be a therapy as well!! Thanks to all my wonderful students who are now weavers themselves!

I feel so grateful that I have weaving in my life - for my mind, for my soul and for my sanity!!! Here’s to all us weavers - whatever life throws at us, may our weaving prove a solace and help us get through the rough times.

Happy weaving!

Time has a compulsive curiousity for me.  Why, for example, did I feel the necessity this morning to lie in bed for half an hour when I was wide awake and wanting to get up?!  It’s because it’s a Sunday, and somehow I feel programmed to have a compulsory ‘lie-in’ on a Sunday!  It was beautiful outside, and during my walk with Charlie, I was delighted to see the buds bursting out on the trees and bushes.  And yet, psychologically, I was resisting getting up to enjoy the start of my day purely because it’s Sunday.

During my weaving this week, I was thinking about geological time.  I was weaving a long piece for my masters.  I have no idea how it will turn out, and was feeling a little panicky at times because it is so open-ended.  If I wanted to change things, how quickly could I change them?  Would it start to look a mish-mash if I changed too many things too quickly?  I am focussing on rock surfaces exposed to the elements that were first created through the actions of plate tectonics and mountain building.

Just thinking about how those processes occur and the length of time it takes to accomplish such a thing got me slowing down with my weaving decisions.  The further I got on with the length, the less concerned I was with making changes, and more aware of serendipitous happenings such as a shaft not lifting when it should and what effect that would have on the end result.  I am using multiple wefts - in fact four - to create each pick, so the weaving is very slow.  In fact it’s taken me 2 1/2 months to weave this 6 yd length.  I did have a bout of back problems so I couldn’t weave for a while, but even so, this is slow-going.

Then I had the idea to video the weaving of it, showing the repetitive, meditative quality of this slow weaving.  During the weaving, and nearing the end, I found myself really enjoying the process of placing the shuttles in exactly the correct position so that I knew which one I was picking up next and the inherent rhythms of the piece.  I started to realise that this was my tiny insight into the processes of the earth, the slowness of each pick relative to the whole piece.  A tiny glimmer of light, a flicker of understanding, a tentative extending of a fragile green tendril in spring.

You only have one 50th birthday - well, you only have one of each birthday, of course - but one ending in a 0 always has some kind of significance, whether good or bad!  And I wanted this one to be a little different.  This could be the middle of my life (my paternal grandmother has only recently passed away aged 101!) which means I could have another 50 years left to achieve lots more things.  Or it could just be my last.  You never know - and that is one of the wonderful and frightening things of being human - being able to be aware of your own mortality.

Anyway, one of my dreams has been to go up in a Tiger Moth bi-plane, and my son and husband made that dream come true this weekend.

Flying relatively high above the Gloucestershire countryside with the wind whipping through your hair (and it was certainly windy!) and actually piloting a World-War II bi-plane was a most amazing experience.  With the wind gusting around, the plane felt like it was skittering about on ice.  Even when requesting the plane to turn right, it felt like a frolicsome pony, dancing about whilst thinking about whether to listen to your instructions before suddenly deciding to acquiese!

Not only did I get the chance to pilot the plane - actually for most of the flight which was much more than I was expecting - but my instructor took us into a loop-the-loop and a victory roll!  Amazing!  I can still feel my body’s reactions to those manoeuvres!  But what a blast!  I even managed most of the descent towards the airfield, which entailed flying fairly low over the M5 motorway - a little disconcerting!  Tizi took over for a faultless landing which I didn’t even feel!  Not like some of the commercial flights I’ve been on when you feel like the plane kind of falls for the last few feet before it hits the tarmac with a thud!

The wind was probably at its strongest before bi-plane flight is not considered safe, and in the taxiing back to the hangar, it played more games with us.  Tiger Moths are incredibly light and we found ourselves going in a circle at one point!  That took me back to my first trials at kayaking, when that’s all I seemed to be able to do!  In the end, with a bit of human assistance to keep us on the straight and narrow, and the help of some grass for traction, we got back to the hangar. 

What can I say?!  If you ever want that experience, then go to Tiger Airways and have Tizi take you up in the bi-plane.  I can heartily recommend it!  I confess to being a little chuffed when Tizi wrote on my certificate that I was composed and intrepid!!  Now I can look forward to the in-flight video of the whole thing which should arrive in a few weeks…

One of the wonderful things about teaching is the sheer variety of people you meet.  This weekend, I have a lovely couple with fascinating backgrounds, and so much knowledge about a wide spectrum of subjects.  We have discussed travel, philosophy, geography/geology and many other topics based on life.  They have put me in the direction of new books to read, and ways of thinking that hadn’t occurred to me before, and in return they’ve had different aspects of the same subjects as well as weaving and history, textiles and looms.

Being a teacher is such a privileged occupation when you are with students who are eager to learn, willing to learn from mistakes, and open to new ways of doing and thinking about things.  It’s not such a privilege when your main occupation is trying to keep control of people who don’t want to be there!  It’s not to do with age, but with willingness to keep an open mind and not being afraid to go wrong.  Having been in three different camps - teaching at school to classes, teaching at school to small groups/individuals, teaching at workshops to small groups/individuals - all three have their challenges and their blessings, but I have to say that I really enjoy teaching in workshops.

For starters, your students have elected to be there, and are usually paying to be there.  That means they have shown faith in your abilities as a teacher and expect a high standard of tuition, patience and competence in you.  I love guiding new weavers through the initially daunting first steps of becoming competent, enquiring weavers who are able to trouble-shoot for themselves and work things out because you’ve given them the tools to enable them to have confidence in their decisions and choices.  I love watching them blossom as that confidence grows and they start experimenting at the loom, with the delight that comes from seeing a new design grow as they weave and their realisation that they understand the relationships between warp and weft and can play to develop new designs.

It’s the same guidelines as being a parent, really.  Give your students roots (i.e. a good grounding in the basics), then give them wings (i.e. the tools to allow them to develop under their own steam), and watch them fly!!

What do humour, the rings of saturn, landscape and passion have in common?

Stumped?

Well, they’re all books that I have read this week.  And what diversity - from an excerpt from On Humour by Simon Critchley; The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald; The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes ed D.W. Meinig; and finally The Element - How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything by Ken Robinson.

Humour takes a philosophical look at what we find funny.  Whenever you start to take apart something as seemingly spontaneous as humour, there is a very real risk of everything that makes it funny disappearing, and sometimes that is the case here, but in taking a look at something as deeply personal as what makes us laugh, chuckle, roar, or be in helpless giggles is actually very interesting.  As you might expect, there are elements that seem individual to each person but which are generic in how we respond to a joke, and I enjoyed my brief journey into the book.

It was in contrast to The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald.  This is a book set as a recounting of a walk in East Anglia, and I was never quite sure what was fiction and what was autobiographical, but it was all mixed in with a dose of history popping off at tangents.  I found myself being drawn into it and creating images in my head of the characters and histories recounted.

The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes, edited by D.W. Meinig, is a series of geographical essays, and what I expected to be dry and academic was in fact absorbing and enlightening.

The last book The Element by Ken Robinson immediately had me wanting to buy copies to send to Michael Gove (Education Secretary) and all the bigwigs who make decisions on our children’s education!  I hope that they have read it, but I doubt that they would - it makes far too much sense!!!  If they did, they’d have to re-think the whole school focus on maths, english and science and be much more inclusive, bringing the arts and vocational subjects into the same level of priority as the favoured 3! Ironically, anyone who’s an entrepreneur in business could tell them (and probably does!) that creativity in how we approach business, negotiations, daily life, is what it’s all about these days, and adaptability and imagination is the key to developing businesses and lives that are vibrant, growing, and fulfilling.  The old educational paradigms actually became defunct years ago, but the education system keeps hold of them for dear life.

I was in the position, when my son was around 9 years old, of teaching class music to 8 - 12 year olds at a middle school.  I’d never done class teaching, but they were desperate, and my knowledge of music is generally pretty good, I’d say.  I have to confess to being terrified at facing a class of 30+ youngsters who didn’t want to be doing school music, but I was blessed with colleagues in other subjects who were willing to try things out.  The curriculum stated that the children had to learn about instruments.  To me, an oboist, what better way to learn about instruments than to learn how sound is made, design your own instrument, make it and play it?  The art teacher allowed the students to design their instruments in art class, the physics teacher taught them about sound production, and the technology teacher helped them to make their own instruments.  Many children took the partially made projects home to finish off at home, and then they brought them to school and we composed little pieces that they then played on their own instruments.

It’s a simple enough approach, but one which required co-operation from other staff who had their own curriculum parameters to cover.  I was very fortunate that they were so willing to help this rooky teacher, and the kids got a tremendous amount out of the whole process.  That, to my mind, is how teaching should be - allowing teachers to work on collaborative projects which gives great enjoyment and fulfilment to them, and gives the children a holistic approach of how everything works together and also allows them to participate in a practical hands-on way also with great enthusiasm and passion for what they were learning.

One small example, but why, oh why, can’t the politicians and top educators get their act together and move into the real world with what kids need NOW to equip them for the world that needs them to be adaptable, versatile, imaginative and happy in what they do!!!!

If you haven’t read this book, do, and then go out and tell anyone in education - headteachers, governors, HM Inspectors, Michael Gove, about it.  I’m off to write that letter right now!

An eagerly awaited conference, allied to the Lost in Lace exhibition, this was not a disappointment.  A wide cross-section of people attended the conference, hosted by Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery with partners, the Crafts Council to hear quality speakers.

The key-note speaker was Gijs Bakker, designer and co-founder of Droog Design, the famous Dutch design company who have done so much to change our perception of craft in design.  His presentation, based round lace, as were all the presentations, was informative but above all humourous, dry and beautifully ironic.  Taken from the notes that were given to all delegates, Gijs’ talk was entitled, Without Concept, No Craft.  ‘Form-giving’ is the Dutch word for design. He talked about craft being a tool for communicating conceptual interests, and that without concept, craft is merely a mastered sill, for skill’s sake.  His talk was stimulating, amusing and thought-provoking, drawing on his technique of jewellery making (which he loves and hates in equal measure, I think), but encompassing many of Droog’s innovative ideas and methods.  He mentioned “for me, designing is a way of thinking, a way of observing - intuitively understanding by continually questioning the subject and avoiding preconceptions.”

He was followed by CJ Lim, the founder of Studio 8 Architects, a practice in urban planning, architecture and landscape.  His presentation was a new experience for me, with his designs focussing on “multi-disciplinary innovative interpretations of cultural, social and environmental sustainability programmes.”  He uses, among other things, paper, carbon and glue to build prototype models in 2 1/2 dimensions of his futuristic, fantastical and eco-sustainable environments.  I am definitely going to buy his book “Short Stories: London in two-and-a-half dimensions”.  For me, this talk was of particular interest as I am investigating further the world of fractals and fractal geometry, although CJ freely admits that there is no science behind his use of the term 2 1/2 dimensions.  His is purely an artistic terminology where the work is not confined to the flat plane of 2 dimensions but is not a 3D model either.

The panel discussion with the two speakers was ably MCed by Grant Gibson, who many people know for his editorship of Crafts magazine, and also for his writing in various high profile publications both in the UK and beyond,and he oversaw the running of the day.

During the lunch break, and amidst the networking that was going on, delegates had the opportunity to be taken round the Lost in Lace exhibition by Prof Lesley Millar, the curator.  This was a chance to hear the rationale behind many of the works (although this can also be found in the catalogue) but was enhanced by Prof Millar’s passion and enthusiasm for the works.  It is the second time I have visited the exhibition and I was just as entranced the second time.

After lunch, Michael Brennand-Wood gave the story behind his piece in the exhibition, as well as showing us his close connection to lace throughout his long career.  I first came into contact with his work back in the 1980s and was intrigued by it then, something which has continued to this day.  His talk was called Pretty Deadly which reflected the use of military motifs integrated within lace-like and Islamic patterning.

Then came Kathleen Rogers, who explained the development of her piece in the exhibition which is a video installation of black Chantilly lace seen through a scanning electron microscope.  It is accompanied by the sound of silk worms chomping their way through mulberry leaves heard through headphones, and leaves you wondering if you are listening to a tropical storm in a rain forest or the silk worms.

Finally, the team of Kira O’Reilly (artist) and Janet Smith (biochemist) talked about their joint work on working with living cellular materials in the laboratory.  In the past, Kira has created artwork based on creating a living lace from skin cells, and together with Janet Smith , they have been working to culture cells onto spider silk.  This talk was very interesting, especially in relation to the ethical issues raised, and how the development of the work they are doing ’sits within larger lace, craft and textile practices.’  This is indeed thought-provoking.

A very stimulating day, which left delegates with plenty to think about!  Also it was a very successful day in terms of attendance, even with problems on the mainline from London!  Hopefully the Crafts Council will be encouraged to put on more events like this outside of London….

One of the things about a university education which pushes you out of your comfort zone is how it opens your mind and your understanding.

At the Lost in Lace conference (feature post to follow) today (3rd Feb 2011) at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, I met up again with Professor Lesley Millar, the curator, who was also previously a speaker at a conference in Wales in 2010.  Prof Millar is a dynamic lady who is passionate about promoting contemporary textiles in the UK, and has spent the past 16 years tirelessly and effectively pursuing her goal through curating some wonderful exhibitions which have broadened countless people’s perception, introducing people to textiles in a new way.  She is truly an inspirational figure who I respect and admire immensely, and I was dismayed and embarassed when she expressed strong feelings today about a blog I posted after the Welsh Warp + Weft conference.

When I got home, I revisited the relevant blog post (Warp + Weft Symposium, 14th September 2010).  The passage of 1 1/2 years can change levels of understanding, and through studying for an MA, I have had to become familiar with a more reflective, more academic way of thinking, and a new vocabulary to boot!  So I am now more conversant with Prof Millar’s world and, I am sure, if I heard the same presentation today, I would understand it in a very different way.  I also have no doubt that in another two years’ time, after two more years of rigorous thinking, reflection, research and practise, I will appreciate it in a deeper way.

I’m sorry that Prof Millar was upset by my blog.  If it was my comment about her presentation style that was at issue, then I can only say that that was my observation on the day and it is only my opinion.  I am sure there are people who would completely disagree with me.

However, if it was my comment that at times her talk completely lost me, at that stage in my life I didn’t have the necessary knowledge, understanding and experience to understand her presentation at the level she was presenting it, which more academic people would have understood ((and probably did).

On a related theme, one of the major lessons learnt, for me, during this first year of study on a multi-disciplinary course where I am one of two textile practitioners amongst ceramicists, fine artists and sculptors, is how different audiences require different approaches.  The level of tacit textiles knowledge, tactile knowledge and subconscious awareness of textiles in a textile-savvy audience is truly amazing.  I took this knowledge to be universal - in fact, I hadn’t even thought about it until I realised half way through my first presentation to my fellow students and professors that my audience wasn’t on the same page.  Right there and then, I had to rethink the whole of my practice from a different perspective!  However, I have also learnt that my university presentations would not have the same relevance outside of a university setting.

This issue from my perspective, and as a speaker myself, does stress and re-inforce to me the importance of knowing my audience and presenting for that audience, without either ‘dumbing down’ or being too rarified. I have two more years on the MA to try to get that right!

A precarious balance!!

I belong to an organisation called Designer Maker West Midlands, and from time to time they organise various seminars.  In the Peak District, an area which stretches across quite a lot of Derbyshire, Cheshire, South Yorkshire and the Staffordshire Moorlands, and which is surrounded by a number of large towns and cities (Buxton, Macclesfield, Sheffield, Manchester, and many others), there are a fair number of historic houses and estates which are a wonderful day out and a chance to see our amazing heritage in land, architecture and objects.

Some of these historic houses are now owned by the National Trust, whilst others are still in private hands, but open to the public (a much-needed source of income!).  Other places are under the protection of English Heritage.

In the UK, we are so fortunate to have many of these wonderful properties still available to visit and enjoy, but they are not preserved in aspic!  In order to keep them attractive to people, and as a way of providing extra interest to visitors, and gaining repeat visitors, many of these properties are becoming sites of contemporary art, utilising house, gardens, and landscapes.

This particular seminar was to introduce designer makers in my area to the inside story of how to work with these various bodies to get the best results for both contemporary art and the historic site.  On this occasion, there were three speakers, curator, Kate Stoddart;   jeweller/public art maker, Laura Baxter; and contemporary artist/public art maker, Linda Florence.

Each speaker presented their work with the various historic houses they have worked with, giving the audience insights into how best to put their work across to volunteers within the historic houses, the funding bodies and the audience.

The most important element is two-way communication - ensuring that expectations are managed from everyone’s perspective.  There are many restrictions in what can be done (usually Not done) to the fabric of the building, for obvious reasons.  However this can lead to creative solutions for siting work.

Everyone needs to understand what the work is about and why it is there.  That means all the volunteers who help with the stewarding of the work, everyone involved in the installation, and the publicity people who are helping to educate the public.  There needs to be lots of integration with the publicity department so that the visitors are not taken aback by suddenly coming across contemporary art which they weren’t expecting in a historic setting.

This was something I hadn’t appreciated.  If the public aren’t aware that there is contemporary art in such a setting, they may well dismiss it before considering further.  If they are made aware about the art before the visit, or at the beginning of the visit, they are much more accepting of the juxtaposition.

So to my mind, this is a way of acclimatising a broader swathe of the general public about art.  Many people visit period houses, and this is increasing as a result of several high-quality productions of period dramas such as the recent Downton Abbey series on ITV.  People expect to see a certain style of building and gardens.  If there is contemporary art within these settings, it needs to be done in a sensitive way that allows the two styles to work well together, sometimes in obvious juxtaposition, sometimes very discretely.

It’s certainly something to think about as a maker, especially with such a diverse range of properties, gardens and landscapes that we are so fortunate to enjoy in the UK.

Hmm.  It seems to be conference season!  Nothing for months, and then several come along in quick succession - just like metropolitan buses!  In the country we’re lucky if we get one an hour (each way)- buses that is…

Anyway, I digress!  Where was I?…. Oh yes, conferences.

This week kicked off conference season with a day’s conference hosted by the University of Derby on Joseph Wright, painter, otherwise known as Wright of Derby.  He was no mean painter and a bit of a polymath too, with interests in science and industry as well as considerable prowess with the brush.

Now Derby is not London, and, as is still the case too often today, that is seen as a problem if you want to get on in the world!  You may have heard of the North/South divide in the UK, but in those days it was more a London/Not London divide.  Derby, being in the Midlands, was most definitely Not London, and Wright was often not taken as a serious painter because of his provincial roots.  But this was a man who was proud of his heritage and, despite having fallings out with the powers-that-be who were in charge of the Royal Academy, his reputation as a painter was undisputed, but typically valued more after his death than during his lifetime.

The conference was a very interesting affair, looking at different facets of his life and the place and people who were important in his life.  So we looked at the artistic composition of his work, geographical locations of his landscapes, his relationships with the important creatives and scientists of the time, including Rousseau, Hayley (the poet), and Erasmus Darwin, and the music in his life.

There is a wonderful collection of his work at the Derby Museums and we were also treated to a peek behind the scenes by the Keeper of the Collection.

The day was rounded off by a performance of music (flute and harpsichord) which would have been played in the music society of which he was an active member.

Next week, I am attending a conference on Contemporary Craft in historic settings which will “explore ways in which makers can work within historical contexts”.  Then there is one in February, in connection with the Lost in Lace Exhibition that I talked about last month.  So I’ll keep you posted!