These are the lines
One of my latest diddly pieces from the Swirls course, taking shape:
Yes, I’m still creating and filming - and they’re catching up with me! We’re a couple of weeks off the end of the course (not that there is an end, but the end of the new-lesson-drops) and while it’s been a bit of an epic thing to put together, and I’m so very near the end of the creation process, I’m not sure what I’ll do with myself when it’s all done. Actually, that’s a lie, I know exactly what I’m going to do.
And then these are the loops…
and the knots
The other week on a scorching hot Friday afternoon when I had too many other things to do, I ventured westwards to the Ditchling Museum of Art & Craft - only half an hour away, but for some reason, I’d never been. Probably because of all the other things I always seem to have to do. But I was absolutely determined not to miss this particular exhibition, and so obviously left it until the antepenultimate day.
I first heard of Tadek Beutlich years ago, when I was taking my City & Guilds machine embroidery. Can’t remember why my tutor mentioned him - maybe it was during my ‘burn holes in everything and lace through with machine-stitched cords’ era - but at the time, the internet was still in its infancy and I couldn’t really find out any more about him. All I knew was ‘colourful knotted things’ and 3D textiles using cords and stuff. Honestly, I should be an art journalist.
Anyhoo, transpires that Polish-born Tadek and Ditchling are very much linked. It goes something like: born in Poland, art school in Germany, World War II, prisoner of war, demobbed to Great Britain via Rome, lived in south east London, more art school, discovered tapestry weaving and got hooked, learned from an absolute pro who happened to live in Ditchling, Barbara Sawyer.
Eventually he was offered a workshop space here in Sussex, made massive great works of art, moved to Spain, came back, died in 2011, and his work is now part of the museum’s collection - and finally, I go to visit.
That’s nearly 3 metres tall…
And so now of course I’m completely obsessed with knotting things. Pam was right, I really did need to investigate Tadek Beutlich.
I took time at the end of the exhibition to wrap a seedhead, to be added to the collaborative installation created by Julie Rignell:
I didn’t stop for a coffee, but I did pause to straighten out the books…
But it’s all going to have to wait. Those knots and loops and wrapped grasses sadly fall into the category of things I’m ‘not’ able to spend time investigating just at the moment, while I finish Swirls. There’s a whole lot of other things I’m also ‘not’ doing at the moment, for the same reason - things like my tax return, or tidying my studio.
Unfortunately, much like the bits and pieces I brought home from the exhibition, not having time doesn’t stop me accumulating the stuff to do the things I can’t do. There are little heaps scattered all through the house: a tell-tale trail of all the things I want or need to do, but haven’t had the time to properly pursue…yet. It’s a bit like geology - if I delve down through the heaps, it’s like a timeline of what’s caught my attention over the past few months (the heaps of unread books) or what’s been urgent enough to get me thinking about making a start (printing off receipts) but not quite urgent enough to actually do it (doing my accounts, putting away my fabrics).
I’m very much looking forward to the summer break and possibly even the autumn - something I never thought I’d ever say - when I’ll be able to get to all these other projects (apart from the accounts, I detest that task)! By which time, of course, there’ll be something else entirely that’s caught my eye and I’ll be on to the next thing.
What’s your latest obsession and/or project for this summer?!
Until next time,
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Wow what coolness! Just stumbled on your
News! That ‘certain someone’s’ book is in our library and I have just ordered it!! My apologies to him that I’m not actually buying it.
Didn’t you have an interesting visit! Don’t know that I want to add another craft to my long list but it does look fun. I would love to do some weaving but I can hardly fit in my sewing room as it is. 😳