count down

The countdown continues with just a week to go now before the residency exhibition.  I've spent most of this week quietly stitching away on Spurn Cloth #1 in my studio at home.  This 4.7 metre long piece is a patchwork of rust-dyed silk and I've used stitch to add further texture to the marks already there.  Some parts I've left without stitches: this space is important.  The stitches confirm the creases in the cloth giving movement, like ripples on the ever-moving water out there, or the ripples set in the sand each time the tide comes in and then out again. 

In the lamp room this will be hung in a curved form so you can't ever see all of the piece at once.  The visitor will walk round it on their way to the platform to look at the view.  This piece quietly reflects that view, with a horizon of sorts along the whole length of it.  Soon it will be time to roll it up in my studio ready to go back to the lighthouse.

let the stitching commence

I started stitching this morning.  I have rather a lot of it to do.  Of course I knew this, but it is only in actually starting the process and spending a good part of today on it that it is clear just how long it will take me to do it all!

The stitches serve two purposes: they fix the silk pieces to the felt and they add texture and marks to those already in the silk.  They can help to blend the different pieces together and accentuate certain areas.  I am purposefully keeping some of the creases in the silk as the reflective qualities of these are what give a similar feel to the reflection of water and wet sand.  My stitches can help to fix these in place and add reflective qualities of their own.  In placing the stitches I am responding to the marks on the silk, using the boundaries of colour already there and thinking about how material is sorted and arranged on the beach.

ghosts

I've been developing some collagraph plates to print from.  This is a slow process as things have to happen in the right order, with one layer or process being completed before the next.  I'm working with two different ideas: one is to use collected items from the beach, glued onto a base; the other is to build up texture based on my drawings using collaged paper and stitch.

I'm experimenting with different types of found item: plastic fragments (which should make an interesting print but are not easy to glue down effectively), textile fragments (which glue down beautifully) and seaweed fragments (which glue down with mixed success).

 At this stage things can look disappointingly boring but there is the hope that they will produce some really interesting textures and marks once printed.

Everything has to be sealed so that when it goes through the printing press with damp paper it all holds together.  Some things also need a kind of primer to help stabilize them for when ink is applied.  The gesso I use for this transforms the plates into ghostly versions of themselves (see the image at the top).

My hope is that I can use the textures to print onto both paper and fabric, the second of those to feed into the 'Spurn cloth' that is developing from the fabric dyed on site.   

sun and wind

The sun is shining on Spurn today and the air feels warm.  There is also a strong wind from the south, blowing up from the point.  A walk on the beach in sandals means windswept hair and glowing skin but this is the first time I've been here and dared to walk without a waterproof jacket or socks!  Bright sunshine and a keen wind make for animated clouds, rushing over, rapidly changing colours and tones of the water as they pass. 

The air is incredibly clear and views across the Humber to the south bank provide detail I've net seen before. The sunlight reflecting off the water is stunning; both over the sea/estuary and on wet sand:

As ever, it is the detail of the bands of texture on the beach that fascinate me; the way material is sorted and arranged by the water and, in places, separated out in a very marked way.

I'm looking forward to inspecting some of the fabrics I left here last time and finding out what marks have been left on them by their time here.  That comes tomorrow...

more weaving

I've recorded a couple more beach walks by weaving little squares of colour and texure from things collected on the beach.

A little snippet of plastic rope was found and collected.  As I carefully tease it apart I end up with little lengths of green that sit nicely on my narrow warp.  

These then become a block of colour in between strips of other ropes, a piece of red fabric, black plastic and held together with the linen I'm using as a base. 

 Another group of items from another walk have a very different feel to them.

Working with these gaudy bits and pieces forms an interesting contrast to my focus on the naturally occurring patterns in the Spurn landscape.  People visiting my studio over the last few days (I've been doing an open studio event) have asked what these pieces are going to be.  They aren't necessarily going to become anything other than what they are now!  I see these as a way of recording a walk; bringing together the colours and textures of a moment on the beach; combining the natural and man-made items that are mingling in the sea and on our shores.

sorting textures

I've been sorting through some of the textures and ideas I collected at Spurn last weekend.  One of the main things that strikes me about the place are the bands of texture and line: linear arrangements and almost always horizontal. 

As the tide comes up and goes down there is this constant change of the bands: 

patterns in the sand, 

the strips of salt marsh on the estuary side, 

never-ending sequence of waves rolling in on the seaward side, 

lines of groynes.

As a way of focusing myself I sorted the images that I'd had printed into three groups of textures:
ripples and wave patterns in the sand;

the waves themselves and the marks left when the water sorts and drops the material it is moving;

  

bold textures of the rusty, weathered groynes, the saltmarsh and other debris on the beach.

 

collecting textures

Another grey day and lots of layers are needed to keep out the relentless wind.  But at least it's dry. 

The space I set up yesterday on the second floor of the lighthouse (in front of the big window in the middle) has been really useful as a place to spread things out and do some experiments in wet media.  The room is painted black, as is the room below.  I'm not sure what the significance of the darkness is.  It has a large window which gives enough light to work by.

I decided on Friday's drive over here that this trip must be about collecting textures.  So that is what I've tried to concentrate on.  I've drawn a lot, using pens and charcoal when I'm outside and started to play with making marks from some rusty metal found on the beach.  I tried working on a larger scale yesterday but nothing seemed to work so I've gone back to working on small sketchbook pages, removed carefully from the book to work on so that I can put them back together once things have dried.

beach walk weaving

When I walk on the beach I am always noticing what is around my feet and the Spurn beaches seem to attract a particularly interesting mixture of items!  I am constantly fascinated by the intermingling of the items that wash up on beaches, the interweaving of the natural and the man-made.  Sometimes it is blindingly obvious into which camp something falls, but other times things can be so combined that it is confusing to try to separate out the rubbish from the natural detritus.

As I walk I collect things in a small scale way, being quite selective.  I pick up items that I think would be suitable to print with (either direct printing, relief printing or to make collagraphs), these might be scraps of plastic or textile; and I pick up things that might be possible to weave with: bits of rope, fishing line, seaweed.  I am only choosing very small things, just enough to experiment with and explore the possibilities of.

When choosing what to pick up I'm not sorting by colour a all, just concentrating on the shapes and textures.  It is really interesting to see how the plastic rubbish gets worn by water and weather, in the same way that natural items, wood, stone, shell, are being worn.  The fragments are slowly being weathered down and broken up, becoming more and more like each other.


This was the contents of my pocket on one day:

and then the next:

I have experimented with weaving found items quite a bit before and I know the frustrations and limitations of some of them.  Therefore when I got home I used a linen yarn (not a found one) to make a small warp and also used this as the basis for the weft, to secure the found items in and give the little pieces stability. 

Beach walk weaving #1:

Beach walk weaving #2: