Places in between

Stitching together a website is much like stitching together any piece of work. There are bits that get left out, bit’s that don’t quite fit into other pages. The ‘ Places in between’ bits.  

This is where some of my in between bits are. Without being preachy, none of us work in a vacuum, we are all influenced by others. A word or a sight, a glimpse, a colour, it all comes together somehow. Sometimes after years, sometimes without us knowing where that particular spark came from. I spent years hanging on to my mother as she went round the cloth merchants on outdoor markets in our bit of South Yorkshire. Being the child of a City and Guilds Taylor comes in handy decades after when I match a colour, find a thread or feel that a fabric isn’t what it recons it is on the label. I certainly don’t remember all that was passed down to me -without me even knowing- but it’s still a bit of a pleasant surprise when I go looking in the stashes and come back with what’s needed AND remember it’s name.

Some of this page is a tribute to my inheritance, there is also the bit when I went off and did my own thing. Here’s a thing. I didn’t mention before that I also owe some of my teachers for being kind enough -and patient enough- to make me sit down and look, concentrate and record what was infront of me. Oh…the hours spent looking at Tomatoes cut in half, or having art history drilled into a head already full of alsorts of redundant information. It’s very telling that tomatoes cut in half are part of salad and I can’t remember most of who painted what. Short cut….remember where the book is that has it all writen between it’s pages and eat the tomatoes. With no connection to anything else. I still drink quantities of Tea, not because I grow tea, it’s the other way round.

While I’m collecting loose threads. I didn’t just inherit from my Mother, Dad was a dabhand with anything mechanical, Grandmothers sewed, crocheted, knitted, Aunt’s made toys, Great Aunt’s embroided, Uncles made things out of wood and I was lucky enough to be growing up in and among this very talented family. Oh, and most of them dug a very fine garden too. I have no images of their work most is long gone, a remembrance.

Perfecting the Art of throwing a damn good pot lasted well over a decade. The workshop was packed up and given away.  Another chapter, repairing the work of  others, pretty good, even though I say so myself. Then…..the garden, or what was to become a garden. When the World crashes in, do as the Ancient Chinese and go sit in a garden.

Here we are with  patchwork of life. Some of the images are still to be attached, some have faded, some needing a little attention and repair. The garden is the big central image. Some of the memories twine together in the borders, others flower in shelterd corners. There’s new work to be done and I have hopes of it having merits of its own but what ever the work is it will be connected to the things that went before. It will turn and twist through the past, surface and bring with it something half forgotten, half remembered. There will be oceans of tea, cascades of fabric, the odd box of memories on paper and card, notions, threads and ribbons. Probably more tea. Old skills, new ways……..