Gathered (2022). Fabric, thread and cord. 1m drop, 350mm width.
I have been making these bags throughout the HS6 as space fillers, I used them to gather and hold collections of teeth, hair, rags and dust, but now they are empty! This emptiness now gathers and holds personal affirmations and intentions ready to be activated and to be manifested at my will…
This body of work from our final show Morph at Northart (so privileged to have all of us together and to finally show the fruits of our labours, a simply stunning show), after a collaboration of 17months, seems to me to sum up the whole experience of the Handshake 6. Intentions, affirmations and visions morphed, all transmuted for me, creating a cauldron of ideas and work fuelled by chats with Iris and her guidance; along with having the confidence to be pushed off the cliff face and float around for a while, ‘your practice will catch you I’m sure my dear‘! However, the work I produced for Morph really did seem to tick the boxes and come full circle to my first statement; that I wanted to create work with simplistic simplicity and elegant accuracy. Its creation simply occurred through happenings in my domestic life, and, at times, happenings beyond my control, hence the Covid work shown below ‘After 10,000 kisses it will go!’ (2022). I’m not sure it was to do with any state of otherness or survival, but more to do with having a goal to achieve 10,000 cross stitches while in isolation. I couldn’t go out, I couldn’t do much at all, just sew, maybe Louise Bourgeois would call it emotional repair? 17months of emotional repair? It seems time to step away from the sewn life raft I have made myself for the HS6 and explore the next chapter of my making…
Gathered (2022). Detail (Image Amelia Rothwell)
Bound (2022). Fabric, thread, human hair, menstrual blood, lipstick. 400mm drop, 100 mm width.
My great aunt suffered from a prolapsed uterus; I remember at the age of 4 my mother and grandmother would change her dressings. My great aunt was a staunch woman, living through two world wars and raising six children…she always washed the bandages out herself, drying them on the line between two sheets, so no one could see. After they had dried, we would roll the bandages up, ready for use. Our unconditional love for her bound us together too.
Bound (2022) Detail (image Nikki Perry)
After 10,000 kisses it will go! (2022) Fabric, thread dyed with lipstick. 400mm drop, 200mm width. (Image Amelia Rothwell)
Covid hit our home… From 2nd August till 15th August! I cross stitched from the beginning to the end of our isolation. My lipstick marked the thread as it passed through my lips to thread the needle. This process became my sympathetic magic; by the time I finish, this virus will be GONE from us….