New beginnings

with beauty before me, it is woven

with beauty behind me, it is woven

with beauty above me, it is woven

with beauty below me, it is woven

And in beauty, it is finished

Navajo weaver’s song (Spider Woman’s Gift)

Coming to the end of a project brings me round to starting something new. I’m not looking to reinvent myself rather my intention is to mine a yet untapped area of interest, to reacquaint myself with an old friend or dig deeper.

So many metaphors…..

Digging deeper

Shining a torch

Mining for treasure, hidden gems

Looking through a lens

hidden corners

Spades, light bulbs, magnifying glasses….I often think of myself as a detective looking for evidence, clues to what lies hidden. Looking to reveal the unknown. Gathering documents, presenting the information giving form to feeling, a hunch, being sensitive to the phenomenological.

Words as a alternate way of thinking about images I’ve collected in collages boards

pale, silvery hue

Dried ashen wood

Crumbling, chalk plaster….limestone wash

Perforated iron

Desiccated branches fallen

Hoisted structure, frame

Marked lines on metal forms, scratch the surface

Worn, rubbed indigo pleat with yellowed, smocked paper held

Mapped, diagrammatically lined,

time documented through collection framed.

Winter keeping time, frozen

Wooden casement warm and handled

Metal type on paper transparency

Patchwork, faded yellow, woven

Made.

The studio becomes a place where evidence is gathered, placed according to a personal, internal sense of correctness.

An internal compass that directs me to handle, place, replace and observe.

It’s a quiet time; feeling my way in the dark, using all my senses and tapping into a deep sensorial knowledge…..maybe magical understanding of the correspondences between objects and materials.