Tag Archives: Creativity

Unaccustomed as I am…

I’ve given two talks in the space of a week. The first was to the Milton Keynes Embroiderers Guild which coincided with our new textile art exhibition there by ‘FIVE’ (here’s a photo of part of the exhibition – more about that in a later post). The second talk was to Wey Valley Workshop Textile Group in Godalming.  I’m delighted to report that I actually enjoyed both of them! No need to lie down in a darkened room to recover, although that bottle of wine later on in the evening did hit the spot. Both groups were lovely and welcoming, and everyone was really friendly. I was pleased with the response to both talks, and I’ve been pondering over why I was apprehensive about it beforehand.

Surveys asking what people worry about seem to suggest that fear of death only occupies the number two spot. Fear of public speaking comes in at number one. It’s that 3am kind of worry, when the house is silent, the dressing-gown hanging on the back of the door in the darkness is someone lurking silently in the shadows, and the people you are going to speak to the next day are definitely going to eat you.

I’ve done my share of giving evidence in Court for work, so I’m used to preparing myself for cross-examination by a hostile barrister whose purpose in life is to make you look stupid, or contradict yourself, or lose your thread, or burble. You do gradually learn the tricks that the barristers employ such as ‘The Withering Look’ or the facial expression that says ‘I Cannot Believe You’ve Just Said Something Quite So Stupid’. I have to remind myself that when I’m speaking to a textile group I am actually talking to a friendly group of like-minded people who have come along because they share the same interest in textiles, and who have come along in a positive spirit. Old habits die hard though, and it is lovely when I have got started and begin to realise that I’m not going to be eaten for breakfast. I start to see nods and smiles and no Withering Looks. The icing on the cake is that the questions are friendly and interested, not critical.

I think part of the apprehension is also an element of ‘So what do I know’. I get invited to do these talks on the strength of having won the C&G Gold Medal for Excellence in Stitched Textiles, rather than because of the years of exhibiting, teaching and publishing experience that many speakers have. I find myself thinking ‘If I had more years experience in textile art, then I would have more to say’. Let me confess something. Once, the night before giving evidence in Court, I dreamt that I was standing in the witness box dressed up in my formal Court clothes except that I had forgotten to put on my skirt. ‘Beam me up, Scotty!’ So, what actually is the worry? Being exposed, like the emperor in his non-existent new clothes? Being caught out? Being found lacking in some way? All of the above, I suspect. So it’s really exciting and liberating to have a positive response to my talks from these two lovely groups (and I’m pleased to say that I did remember to get dressed beforehand!)

I based these talks on exploring questions about why adults so easily lose the creativity that they had when they were children, and how we can get it back if we do lose it. This is something I’ve thought about a lot, because it connects with both my professional working life and my re-discovery of creativity and textiles later on in life.

When I did two previous textiles talks last year I found it very distracting using written notes. It was like someone switching on a fan that blew all my ideas around into heaps of chaos. Those two talks definitely had some Grade A burbling!  ‘The mind is a wonderful thing. It starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public’. (Roscoe Drummone). So this time I decided to use the digital images as the prompts instead, and to have no written notes at all. This worked much better, I think. It did occur to me that it would be good to have a Plan B in case of technical failure, but hey, they say adrenaline sharpens the mind.

I guess it will take some time until I lose the unnerving feeling that when I speak about textiles, people are secretly wondering why I forgot to get dressed! I’m not quite sure where the transition comes between being an enthusiastic amateur and being a professional artist. I have a kind of reverence for ‘proper’ textile artists – the ones who earn their entire living through their art. I’m coming into this quite late compared to the bright young things who emerge from art college, so I think I’ll just carry on bumbling along and developing my work and I’ll see where it takes me. In the meantime, with these latest two talks I feel I have dipped my toe into the water. I’m so pleased to find that the water was warm and there weren’t any crocodiles lurking below the surface.

Article in ‘Be Inspired’ by Workbox

Be Inspired by Workbox Article

Be Inspired by Workbox Article

I am really pleased that I have just had an article published in the Workbox Annual Magazine, called ‘Be Inspired’. This is an ‘extra’ annual edition that is longer than the bi-monthly Workbox magazine (130 pages) which they release in time for stocking-fillers for textile addicts. I am delighted by the editing and the graphic design of the article. It’s very strange sending off an article as a text document and some Jpegs, because at that point you lose all editorial control over how it is presented. I opened the magazine quite nervously, wondering what they had done with it, and I was so pleased to see how they had used it. All in all they gave it 8 whole pages (!) including some whole-page photos of my work. I can only include some ‘fuzzy’ images here, because I own copyright of the photos but not the text, so if you would like to read it you’ll need to buy the magazine.

Be Inspired by Workbox Vol 3 Article

Be Inspired by Workbox Vol 3 Article

Be Inspired by Workbox Vol 3 Article

Be Inspired by Workbox Vol 3 Article

Be Inspired by Workbox Vol 3 Article

Workbox Magazine Nov/Dec 2014

Workbox Magazine Nov/Dec 2014

I was asked to write something about ‘My Textile Journey’ after Workbox put a City and Guilds Press Release about me in the Nov/Dec edition of the magazine (forgot to mention that on the blog, but they gave it a whole page which was nice – see left). I wasn’t sure how interested Josephine Public would be in the details of how I learned to sew, so I thought it would be more interesting if I linked it to something more general about re-finding creativity later in life. Over the last year or so I have had so many people commenting, quite sadly I think, that they would love to be creative but they feel something is blocking them from this. Sometimes it’s time, and sometimes it is a lack of confidence in their own creativity. I am always struck by the way children don’t suffer from this – they just jump straight in and use their imagination and creativity in a spontaneous way. It seems so sad that something about modern life means that adults often lose their confidence in creative expression. I firmly believe that if we have it as children then it must still be there as adults, just buried so that it feels out of reach. My article tries to suggest some reasons why that happens, and what people can do to try to get back in touch with the creative freedom enjoyed by children.

Be Inspired by Workbox Vol 3 cover

Be Inspired by Workbox Vol 3 cover

This is what the magazine looks like on the cover. It’s slightly difficult to find in newsagents, but I did see it on sale at a big branch of Smiths although some of the smaller branches don’t seem to have it. It can be ordered online http://www.workboxmag.com/shop/be-inspired-vol-3/

Changing the subject: I’ve been enjoying decorating the new house for Christmas. At times I’ve wondered why I was doing it since it’s been a period of really intense pressure on time for various reasons. However, I think I cling to Christmas rituals in defiance or denial of time pressure. Taking out the Christmas decorations each year is like greeting old friends after an absence. It reminds me of a different era as a child, when there really was time to enjoy it all properly. I don’t think I’m romanticising when I remember time to wander the Devon fields collecting dried grasses to spray gold, making hand-made decorations, and making danglies for the Christmas tree. There are times when this hits me as a sad time-warp (usually in a supermarket, when I hear tinned carols and ask myself where we all went wrong with modern life and why we are under such time pressure and things are so pre-packaged). But at some stage I always enjoy decorating the tree, at which point I am a small child again, gazing up at all the sparkles and pretties. Roger laughs when I keep going in and saying ‘pretty, pretty’ and says that middle-aged Jane has been replaced by three-year-old Jane.

Anyway, many thanks to those of you who reply to posts or who email me separately with comments. It’s great to hear from you. Wishing you a very happy Christmas and New Year one and all.

‘…a heaven in a wild flower’

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.  (William Blake) 

People ask me why I’m setting up a website and blog. Sometimes I burble something about creativity and joy, but I often trail off in favour of the ‘sensible’ reasons, such as ‘I hope to develop my textile art more professionally’ or ‘I plan to offer work for sale’. Occasionally I talk to someone who ‘gets it’ straight away, which encourages me to carry on with my rather vague and half-hatched ideas (thank you Holger in particular, for insight and encouragement just at the right point). 

Dali's clock

Dali’s clock. What a sensible way to organise time.

Anyone with a passionate special interest may know the intense pleasure of being totally, ridiculously absorbed. I find that a strange thing happens when I’m involved in art or stitch. The annoying, insistent logical left brain gets blocked, and the more diffident, easily intimidated creative right brain finally has space. Irritating things that get in the way are quite simply shut out (clocks, timetables, sharp or jagged noises, and all the insistent things that bleep, ping, flash, ring and insist on our attention right now). Time quite literally seems to stand still; but at the same time, in a way that I don’t understand, an hour can expand to become a day. Whoever decided that the day could only have only 24 hours in it is tricked into allowing some secret extra hours to slip in. You really can go to Narnia, have adventures for months, and get back in less than a minute. There is time to really look. Eventually something from the so-called ‘real’ world forces itself back in, and the volume of the ticks and tocks gets turned up again. But something wonderful happens when you share this total absorption with other people. The two worlds become less separated, and it is easier to cross from one to the other. I’m grateful to my fellow students on the City and Guilds Stitched Textiles course at Missenden Abbey for their shared obsession and absorption in minute details of important things, like colours, textures and shapes. I appreciate things that other people share on their websites or blogs (images, ideas, original work, thoughts and observations). So it’s time to add my own offerings.

Kevin, the magician who set this website up with me last week is away travelling, so I’m like a brand new driver out on the motorway with no instructor. I promised to try not to break the website while he’s away. I did manage to delete the whole Gallery instead of one image, but thankfully I found a way to reinstate it. Please bear with me if strange things happen. Anyway, I’m glad you’ve found my blog, and I’d love to know who you are and how you got here.