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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!

This week I went on a little trip.  Around 150 miles in total.  In retrospect, I would have gone a lot further.  This exhibition is most definitely worth it!

Labcraft is a touring exhibition under the auspices of the Crafts Council. Currently, it is showing at The Civic, Barnsley.  The participants are makers from various disciplines from woodwork through textiles to jewellery and sculpture.  What they all have in common is the use of digital media to assist in the creation or design of their artifacts.  Obviously, seeing as I am a weaver, I was drawn to the woven pieces, most especially that by Philippa Brock.  I am delving in the same field as her with dimensional fabrics and her Self-Folding #1 and #2 were based on paper-folding ideas and realised through her knowledge of weave structure and a computer jacquard power-loom with the assistance of elastomeric yarn in addition to silk, organzine, paper and silver lurex.  Wonderful!

Other items that particularly caught my eye were Zachary Eastwood-Blooms’ “Information Ate My Table”,  table of beech with chunks ‘eaten’ from one corner.  I loved the humour!  I also loved seeing Gareth Neal’s “Louis” table - I remember seeing an article in Crafts on him and loved his approach to construction of furniture. Daniel O’Riordan’s “Ripple Tank Table” was also a covetable piece.

In the metalwork area, I fell for Drummond Masterton’s “Terrain Cup” which holds a topographical formation within it, and his “Decagon” which reminded me of relief maps and Chinese rice fields ranked in rows up a steep hill.  Lynne MacLachlan’s Bubble Jewellery was very topical as I’ve just read a book on the science behind soap bubbles and films!

In glass, I really loved the concept behind Geoffrey Mann’s “Cross-Fire Wine Glass, Teapot and Knife, with the shaping influenced by sound waves caused in an argument.  Who would have thought that the sounds of an argument could lead to such funky pieces?!  And Shelley Doolan’s “Iteration 512″ appealed to my love of sand dunes.  With the rippled effects happening dramatically on the back of the work, I was drawn in to see the close-up effects on the surface.  Very engaging.

Also interesting were Michael Eden’s “The Babel Vessel #1″ although I preferred another piece of his I saw at the Ceramics Biennale two years ago, and Daniel Widrig’s “Cloudlike” sculpture in polystyrene.

It’s really good to see the marriage of hi-tech digital technology with traditionally based craftsin a quality exhibition such as this.  It’s a marriage I think is particularly exciting and one that brings crafts’ contemporary relevance to a technology-savvy audience.  I was converted years ago, but this may be an exhibition that brings new people in and raises the profile of contemporary crafts.

I don’t know about you, but around this time of year, I get lots of inspirational emails from online marketers and various business ‘gurus’, some of whom are suggesting ways for me to live my life to be more productive and balanced.  I’m all in favour of balance as I’m a bit of a workaholic.  Well, if weaving is your life, then what a good reason to be a workaholic!!  :^))

I sometimes look at some of these emails and one that struck my eye was from Early to Rise.  The editor, Craig Ballantyne, has a regime of getting up at 5 am, doing things to a routine and going to bed at 9pm.  I know that getting up early is thought to be the most productive thing to do if you want to get quality work done, and I sometimes do, but the more I thought about these regimes, the more I wondered about how many people try to adopt something that really isn’t in synch with their own body clocks.

Craig gets up at 5am every day, whatever the season.  That’s something I can’t do.  I’m a seasons person.  My body clock works with daylight, so in the summer I’m up bright and early and get loads done with lots of energy.  In the winter, my body doesn’t want to get up until it’s light, (just as well we don’t live in the far north!!) and I spend a lot more time thinking than weaving.

I’m also a person who thrives on variety and gets bored with too much routine.  I know, we all have a certain amount of routine in our lives, and it takes me around 2 hours in the morning to do my visualisation exercise, get myself washed and dressed, dog walked and breakfasted before I can get down to some quality work.  I do try not to look at my emails until later in the day because they can be a great swallower of time, and I do try to do the task that is most important to me first of all.  Of course, this can’t always be followed - sometimes you just have to check for an email that you are waiting for, or other stuff arises that just has to be dealt with there and then, but on the whole I do try to focus on the most important thing first.  And it is important to put your head down and get on with things rather than procrastinate.

I have tried various ways of organising my day - weaving in the morning, paperwork in the morning, bits and pieces in the morning - and find that some days I am at my weaving best first thing.  But sometimes, it’s more important to get the paperwork out of the way so that my mind is freed to concentrate on weaving later.  And sometimes you just have to spend a whole section of the day on sending images and filling in application forms.

So for me, it’s horses for courses.  I will continue to listen to my body rather than try to discipline myself into a regime that doesn’t give me the versatility that my brain needs to function at my most creative.  If I am scheduled to get up at 5am and I wake at 2 with an idea that I just have to try, am I more or less likely to get up and try it if I allow myself to sleep a little later on?

So whilst that kind of regime will work wonders for some people, I think I will give it a miss, and continue to allow the seasons to influence my work patterns, just like farmers, working hardest and longest in the summer and relaxing and thinking more in the winter.

This week my fellow masters students and I visited the Lost in Lace exhibition, curated by Lesley Millar, which is being held in the Gas Hall of the Birmingham Museum & Art Galleries.  The Gas Hall, along with its sister building across the street - the Water Hall, is a beautifully elegant, tall, spacious room with two side ‘aisles’ of practically equal size, one either side of the main section.  The lighting was low, but not too low, and photography is permitted (although no flash of course).  The pieces are beautifully laid out with plenty of space surrounding each one to allow you to walk around them and experience them from different angles, which really helps to appreciate them.

The connecting theme, as you might have guessed, is lace.  The museum holds a lovely collection of laces from many countries and centuries and some of them were shown in an associated exhibition, Concealed and Revealed, elsewhere in the museum.  The artists all responded to the lace in different ways, some producing items of lace-work but not made in the traditional ways of needle or bobbin.

Where to start?  Each of the works was evocative, compelling and rewarded close inspection.  My particular favourites included Piper Shepard’s Lacing Space; Atelier Manferdini’s Inverted Crystal Cathedral, incorporating lots of Swarovski crystals hanging in ginormous spider’s-web loops; Michael Brennand-Wood’s Lace the final frontier, in which he had worked his lace in motifs of war and weaponry and based the formal patterning on a fusion of Islamic and Western geometry; Annie Bascoul with her Moucharabieh and Jardin de lit, lit de jardin; Katharina Hinsberg’s Perceids; Ai Matsumoto’sNo Reverse, which used impressions of lace in silicon embellished with embroidery; Tamar Frank’s wonderful spirograph A thin line between space and matter which used phosphorescent thread, and different lighting conditions; and Alessia Giardino’s Polluted Lace which involved printing onto light-sensitive photo-catalytic white cement which uses UV light to oxidize pollutants and odours in the air.  This last piece gradually became more and more visible over a period of time during which it had been exposed to the environments of Italy and Birmingham.

This is an exhibition that one can return to again and again - happily it doesn’t close until 19th February 2012 - but the fact that the stewards I talked to find it the most interesting and engaging exhibition they’ve been in for a long time, and that since it opened, the visitor numbers have well exceeded the estimate of visitors for the entire duration, I think you might begin to get an idea about the sheer quality of this exhibition.  Stewards have to sit in an exhibition for a long time and shows quickly begin to pall when you are in them for long periods.  If the stewards love a show because of the different perspectives they get and the visitor interraction they get, then you know it’s a well-curated show!

I would urge you to visit the website http://www.lostinlace.org.uk/ and buy the catalogues.  There are two, a small one (£4) which has lovely in situ photographs and interesting nuggets of info (generally those provided on the interpretation boards in the exhibition), and the more expensive but more expansive £25 Lost in Lace: Transparent Boundaries which is a treat for anyone’s book collection!

Also, don’t forget to visit the Birmingham Museum & Art Galleries site http://www.bmag.org.uk/ and see their collections (which are extensive) and the other exhibitions on, including the famous Staffordshire Hoard of gold!!

We are so fortunate to have wonderful museums in the UK and Birmingham’s is a jewel in the city’s crown!

A little while ago, you may remember I posted that a new weavers’ website would be coming online to signpost everyone to all things weaving in the UK.

Drum roll, please….

THE WEAVE SHED is now open for business….

A few weeks ago, I hurt my back.  It’s an old injury and one I can usually keep under control with regular yoga, but I had a period of two weeks where I was driving a lot, and moving heavy boxes, looms, and equipment then more driving for several hours, and at the end of the two weeks, I did a session clearing leaves and fallen apples in the garden for an hour.  That was the last straw for my back, and I was unable to move for a couple of days.  Happily, visits to the osteopath, and regular stretching and gentle movement is now having the desired effect and I should be fully mobile in a few days.

The upshot of that is that I couldn’t weave on my AVL - a bit of a problem as I have a research warp ready to go - but there’s more than one way to skin (or swing) a cat (which is a really odd saying, and not fair on the poor feline!!!  My two would have more than something to say if I tried that!!)  Anyway, feeling the need to weave, but not physically able to manage the large floor loom, I turned to a small table loom and decided to try my hand at Miniature mountains!  Using two different techniques - woven shibori and overshot - I am trying out all sorts of weird and wonderful weft yarns on a warp a mere 2″ wide.  I’ve got just one more sample to do on this warp, and will then be washing them, steaming them and tumble drying them.  It is always such fun to see what happens.

After that, I shall put on another mini-warp in a different yarn, and with a different threading order and have another play and see what comes out of that!  These are for my masters research.  I never thought I’d have so much fun with this, but it’s really exciting.  I can’t weave more than 3 hours (with a gap) on this little loom, and it’s really slow, but it’s proving to be as much fun as doing the larger stuff on the AVL.

Hopefully, over Christmas, I’ll be able to get back on the AVL and get on with the research weaving on that!  For me, research weaving is so much more fun than weaving something to use - but that’s just me. What about you?  Are you someone who loves to create functional cloth or objects?  You have my admiration!  I think I’m just an overgrown kid who just loves to play!!!

Whatever you prefer - have fun this winter!!

It’s December, and that means no-one can escape from the commercial aspects of Christmas if you happen to live anywhere in the western world that requires going to shops, listening to commercial radio, watching tv (whether commercial or not!), reading magazines, etc., etc.  My hushand works in schools, so he has been hearing and teaching Christmas songs and carols for several weeks already and the school concerts are in full swing.

Now I’ve left mainstream school teaching, I try to ignore the encroaching presence of Christmas until December hits.  And the first weekend in December is when I sit down to write my Christmas cards. I’m not a religious person, so Christmas does not have any meaning for me in a religious sense.  But for me it is an opportunity to create cards to connect with people in my life who I haven’t seen for a while, as well as for those I see more frequently.

I love to sit down and make the cards.  The process of getting the pieces I’ve woven earlier in the year (if I have the time to weave them - which I haven’t this year, I’m afraid!!), or selecting the image that I want to use, framing it for each card, and writing the card and addressing the envelope is one that connects me to the recipients, whether or not they know it at the time.  That moment when you are thinking of each person as you write the card, and the moment (of which I shall probably not be aware) when they receive and open that card and think of you, is important in the greater scheme of things.

It is these kinds of moments, also when you are making presents, that is what Christmas is about for me.  Personal moments, private moments, but which makes me realise and reflect on the important people in my life.

Weaving is a small world, but also one spread wide.  My weaving friends are scattered all over the world, and I love the image that always comes to my mind of lots of spider threads stretching from me to them all individually wherever they happen to be, and then all the other spider threads stretching from each one of them to all the people they know….   It’s a wonderful image that warms my heart every time. Sometimes the threads are lit by fairy lights, sometimes they are frosted like the cold winter early morning scenes on the plants in my garden.

Ok, so now we have social networking sites like Facebook that do this all the time, but still the annual ritual of Christmas cards is important to me.  What’s important about Christmas to you?

PS..   Bon voyage to my dad who is on his way to experience a different kind of Christmas in Malaysia!!