So here I am, starting on my final assignment. I’ve gone over and over the ideas that I have for this next exercise, and I’ve settled on one to run with. I was very inspired by my last assignment on sketchbooks and wanted to develop the myriad of ideas that arose from that exercise.

During the past 12 months, we’ve all being living in a very different way due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s caused me to re-evaluate my place in the world, forced me to focus on my own locality and to spend many hours reflecting on what’s important to me. I also want to say here that I have been extremely fortunate for this crisis to have come at the stage of my life it has done. I have retired from work (well almost!), I have no mortgage or rent to worry about, I don’t worry about how I can afford to put food on my table or heat my home and I don’t have school age children who need home schooling. I am very grateful that I don’t have those things to worry about.

Throughout the last year I have explored my local area like never before. I always knew my local area very well, but my usual default was to go much further afield and explore distant places – both here in the UK and beyond. The pandemic has forced us into lockdowns and suddenly my local area, particularly my local countryside, has become so important and a vital source of comfort and support. My daily walks have taken me to places I knew so well, or so I thought, but I have always learnt more, both about my surroundings and about myself. In my last assignment I tried to create a ‘map’ of sorts which told a story about some of my experiences, starting with the actual earth in my own back garden. This idea grew to include textiles and materials I have collected both locally and from our trip around the world. Whilst I was working on that project, completely by chance I read a review about a book by textile artist, Anne Kelley, called “Textile Travels”.  This appealed to me immensely and I immediately ordered it, but it didn’t arrive until after I had submitted the assignment.

I now have the book! It has now become my inspiration for this next project and has helped me to build my own ideas in relation to the “maps” concept I wanted to use for this next piece. Dorothy Caldwell inspired me so much with my last assignment, and I feel that Anne Kelly will help me to develop my ideas.

In her book, Anne Kelly shows her map project (pictured above) which she developed whilst on a teaching trip in the South West of England. As soon as I saw this idea, I knew that this is where I wanted to focus my piece. I love the idea of marking the map with memories to capture the essence of the place, as she experienced it, on her trip there.

So my idea is to take a map of my local area, and embellish it with things that ‘speak’ to me about my place in the world. I also have an old Bartholomew map of Warwickshire (the county in which I live) which was my father’s (he loved maps!) which depicted the area before the motorways, and I really wanted to use that, but as of this moment, I cannot bring myself to ‘do’ anything to it. I need to practise first …..

My plan is to use collage, both paper and fabric, stitching, gluing and stamping (block printing) onto fabric and paper and then applying it to the map. I want to depict images, using these techniques, which mean something to me about the area. I want to try and capture what the places mean to me.  I have lots of ideas and pictures in my mind about what I want to achieve, but where to start when I don’t want to ‘attack’ the map just yet?

So to warm me up a bit, I got my printing blocks out which I had bought on my trip to India in March 2020 (we literally flew home on one of the last planes to leave before lockdown!), and had never used. Although that’s not quite true as I used one in my last assignment – the simple swirl, which I used with gouache paint. But I have lots of different ones, so I first started by using my new watercolour pencils (new to me anyway – a gift from a neighbour who was clearing out her art materials – another link to my immediate locality) and as if doing a brass rubbing, I went over my block of a tree with the pencil. I then wetted the block with a paintbrush and stamped it onto a piece of cartridge paper. What resulted was a lovely, very muted “ghostlike” image of a tree. I loved it! Then I painted with watercolour paint directly onto the block and stamped it on the paper, which gave a distinctly different image of the same block, and then carried on stamping a second and third time where the image became increasingly fainter, but still not like the first image with the pencil. I did the same two techniques (pencil and paint) with a small flower block. I then took two different blocks and painted different colours, using the watercolour paints, onto different areas of the block.  This took a bit of time and when I had finished the last colour, the first colour was completely dry on the block, so I wetted the whole block with water and then stamped it on the page. I really liked the effect that this gave with the subtle colours coming through and less “harsh”. My intention is to print with the blocks onto fabric and then maybe stitch around the images in some form.

I then printed out some maps of my local area directly onto a special type of paper that I then transferred onto some robust canvas fabric using an iron.  The first thing which became apparent was that the image was reversed and the maps were back to front! I cannot think how to change this at the moment – perhaps I need to change the settings on the printer? But then I thought …. actually, it’s fine the way it is; it sort of sums up everything this last year has been, we’ve literally been stuck looking inwards, as is the map.

I drew on my earlier collage exercises and pieces and decided to use the first map – which was of the footpaths I use almost daily, and also shows my street.  As I said earlier, my head was bursting with ideas – now to get them down on the canvas. I wanted to start with the very fundamentals of what my life has become over the past 10 months. So I sketched out a walking boot, using charcoal on cartridge paper, and then coloured it in with my watercolour pencils, cut it out and stuck it down with PVA glue right in the middle of the map. There is a red line which surrounds the boot on the map and this depicts a footpath which I use almost daily to walk my dog. I then used a scrap piece of fabric to run along the bottom of the canvas – to depict the flora of the countryside which I am walking in.

I then cut out images from pieces of fabric which I have in my fabric collection – of a sheep, a bee, a butterfly and a brightly coloured campervan, from which I had made facemasks from for my friend. The campervan I placed on the road part of the map. This was to depict my own campervan, which we have barely used over the last few months, but which forms a large part of my imagination! The sheep are ever present on my walks, and I regularly use fleece from their backs (kindly given to me by the farmer) to spin and knit with. The butterfly and the bee – they also feature frequently on my walks (although perhaps not so much at this time of year, February/March).  I had the idea, building on my last assignment, of creating images which all meant something to me, and depict pertinent objects, such as the boot, the sheep etc.. But as I look at this first piece, I’m not sure it works as well as I had imagined. But I will persevere with it; as I write this, the glue is still wet on the canvas, but I want to stitch a border around the edge and also the stitch across the whole piece, as I have seen in Anne Kelly’s work.

In total I have three maps of my local area which I have printed onto transfer paper and then ironed onto canvas.

The second map actually depicted the road where I live on the left-hand side of the image (it should be the right side but hey ho) and to the right is the one of the walks I do regularly, in fact I have to walk along at least part of this footpath to access any further afield walks. I decided to use some different techniques on this one; I used a shoelace and stitched it down all around the edge of the map, with the two ends of the lace meeting where my house is.  I wanted to get the lace down quickly as once it was down I could do more things to the map, but once I started I found the process of stitching the brown shoelace to the fabric very soothing and calming. It was like I was walking a route, even though the lace doesn’t depict any particular route, just a generalisation, it is symbolic with boots and walking.

Then I returned to my tree block as I wanted to incorporate this in some way in this piece. I initially thought of using watercolour paints and stamping it directly onto the map, but because of the texture of it, it’s a flexible plasticky type texture, I didn’t think it would work very well, and I didn’t try it as I didn’t want to ‘ruin’ it. So I used green paint and stamped it onto a piece of cartridge paper. This worked OK, but then I had the idea to stamp it directly onto some old curtain lining fabric I had and this worked much better.

The tree image is very powerful to me; many years ago (around 1981) my father planted an acorn in a tub in the garden, and it grew very well. 10 years later, in 1991 the year my first son was born, he planted it in a row of trees in the park close to his home (there was a gap alongside the fence where a tree had died) and over the years we, as a family, have watched it grow into the beautiful English Oak tree it now is. It’s poignancy to me is even greater now as when my mother died in 1999, we buried her ashes beneath it and when my father died in 2001, we did the same for him. I now live in my old family home – where the tree started its life –  and I pass it daily on my walks. Over the past year, I have spent a lot of time reflecting (haven’t we all!) and things like this, the connection of people and places, have become increasingly more important to me.

I digress ….. I decided to stitch the tree down onto a piece of knitting I had done (a sample swatch for some project or other) as it was sort of a shape of a leaf, and then stitched it down where the lace met, which covers the street where I live. This image is quite raised from the canvas, and I’m not sure how I will stitch over it, as is my plan. Then using small scraps of fabric I cut out rough ‘leaves’ and arranged them around the lace , sticking them down with a glue stick – keeping with the tree theme. I had thought of just putting the leaves down randomly, ie mixing different fabric leaves together, but I felt that they looked better in fabric ‘pairs’. I then decided to sketch an acorn, as I had done with the boot in the first piece, using the same techniques – the outline in charcoal and then coloured in using the watercolour pencils. The acorn symbolising where everything begins, literally taking us back to the beginning, starting again.

I thought about using very lightweight fusible interfacing over the entire piece before stitching it down but decided against this as it might have melted the transfer. I want to stitch the piece all over, using my sewing machine. Just not sure exactly how I’m going to achieve that at the moment.

I tried laminating using the technique which Anne Kelly describes in her book, of a mixture of 50/50 PVA glue and water on tissue paper.  I initially tried to soak the tissue paper (reclaimed from the packing in the box of a pair of walking boots my husband ordered!) in the solution and placed it on a test piece, but the tissue kept tearing and the images underneath became somewhat lost.  Once it was dry, I stitched over the top, using a similar stitch to the one Anne Kelly uses, and I liked the effect this gave, but felt that it lost the definition of the underlying image. I’m not sure about this laminating technique for this project …..

For the final piece in this work, I decided to use a map of my town on a slightly smaller scale, and then put images of all the things that have become important to me, or that I have been involved with during the last year.  I found some beautiful illustrations of vegetables and flowers which were on an envelope from a seed company and cut them out with a border of the white envelope around each one. Again, I used my new watercolour pencils (which I love!) and shaded the white in with a shade of green and stuck them on the part of the map where my house is.

Last Spring, during the first lockdown, we planted many different vegetables amongst the flowers in our back garden and the pea pod in particular, linked in with my last assignment. Along the top of the map, I’ve strung a row of bunting, which I found on some fabric I had used for a bag project some years ago. The bunting depicts the way my street has come together over the last year and has become a great socially connected community, which is something which was not there before we were all forced to stay home. We set up a WhatsApp group and since the first lockdown, we have held street parties (when we have been allowed of course – and all socially distanced), competitions for the children and supported the more vulnerable residents of the street. In fact one of the new residents who moved into the street during the second lockdown, was advised by the estate agent that it was a very community minded street and that cinched their decision to buy! The bunting depicts this for me.

I had some beautiful wrapping paper in which someone had kindly sent me a gift, which had abstract images of birds on. This reminded me of the walks we have had where we have gone much further afield (mainly last summer before the mud set in) but all on foot from our house. I stuck this down on the map in the top right-hand corner and in the bottom right-hand corner I put some images of water plants on a piece of scrap fabric I had in my stash; taken together on the right-hand side of this piece hints at the places we went to beyond the confines of this map.

Just in from the right, I placed another image of a sheep (I have quite a few images of sheep on fabric in my collection!) and using some of my hand spun wool, I placed a strand of it on top of the sheep leading down to a piece of Harris Tweed on which I had sewn two images of cotton reels and a tape measure. These images depict the many hours of sewing I did – both in the early days of the pandemic, where I stitched many, many scrub bags and face masks, but also, I did quite a lot of sewing for myself too; mending, adapting and re-purposing fabric. Instead of hand sewing the cotton reel images onto the tweed, I used the applique setting on my sewing machine.

In the middle of the piece is an image of a bicycle, which has been another feature of this year for me. We have hardly used our car and my bike has been my main source of transport. Just below the bike is an image of a dog, although the image blends into the background and doesn’t stand out quite as much as the other images. This was actually deliberate. I wanted to depict that, always there, in her quiet way, someone who influences everything we do, our beautiful rescue border collie, Lucy – although she looks nothing like the dog in the image!  And finally, tucked away in the bottom left-hand corner, is a tiny sketch of a face mask with a splash of pink, which needs no explanation!

And while I still love the idea of laminating the work, as per my inspiration from Anne Kelly, I haven’t got it quite right with my sample test pieces, and don’t feel confident to use it on this final piece. I think it will obliterate or obscure the images on the pieces and it will lose definition.  So I decided to stitch round each image on each piece in Kantha stitch, using threads and wool. I inherited my mother’s sewing box and in it I found various mending threads (a mixture of wool and nylon) which were goodness knows how old! I also found some very old, but very strong black thread in the box and used that as well to stitch round the hand sketched, and painted images. Again, this was very much linking the past with the present, anchoring myself to the place where I live using materials which came from my mother who is no longer with me.

But I still felt that the pieces need ‘finishing’.

I needed to think how to do this ….. maybe to put a backing on each piece and to secure the raw edges with the overlocker? If so what colour? Would that be too dominating?

In the end, I decided to ‘back’ each piece individually with offcuts of an old sheet, and then finished the edges by sewing down more pieces of the wool (I had used a different piece of wool around three sides of each piece already) to effectively frame each panel. I then decided to link them all together with pieces of tape, so that they could be hung up on a wall but also folded together like a sketch book and stored away.

As I’m not sure how well the paper images will hold up; I’ve given each of those a coating of diluted PVA glue to help prevent the edges drying out and curling away from the map.

And I am very pleased with the finished result! I think it perfectly sums up the last year for me; my own personal creative development and the importance of my home and my place in the world.  

None of this work would have happened if we had not have had a pandemic, and that includes me actually completing this course. By the beginning of the first lockdown, I had been disillusioned with the course. Someone had said to me after I had felt brave enough to say that I was undertaking a course in textiles, “Oh, you don’t want to do that, just do your own thing” or words to that effect. This person held a degree in fine art, and clearly creativity came more easily to them than it did to me, and it had a profoundly negative effect on me. What did I think I was doing? Leave that sort of thing to people who know what they’re doing etc., etc.. As ever the little nagging voice in my head was at work.

Just before lockdown, I’d met a wonderfully inspiring 90-year-old lady, with whom I have walked with regularly over the last year (she is incredible!) and during one of our many conversations, she happened to tell me that when she was in her 50’s she embarked on a degree. This inspired me to return to this course, and I am so glad I had that conversation with her. I have learned much from it; I genuinely feel that my creativity has been ‘awakened’ and I have a myriad of ideas leaping out of my head daily. I am not afraid to give things a go and experiment with new tools and ideas. Leading directly from this last assignment, I have plans in place to complete a much larger ‘map’ project to depict our last holiday where we spent a month travelling all around Scotland in our motorhome. I have the map …….. !

I’ve also still got the map of Warwickshire which belonged to my father, and I will do something with this. After completing this assignment, I feel that rather than ‘spoiling’ it, whatever I do will enhance it’s meaning to me and it will become more than ‘just a map’.

So, I feel it is fitting that this last assignment should be paying some kind of homage to the pandemic; it has been a terrible time in so many ways for so many people, but it has also been a good time; a time where people have come together, especially through art. All around my hometown, people have either been leaving inspiring and comforting words depicted in art, or people have turned to art because they have had the time and space to do so. Many things have been said about the pandemic, but for me personally, it has given me the time, space and motivation to explore my creativity and to allow myself to do so. Had it not been for my friend, I may not have completed it and my creative life would be much the worst for it.

For me I feel I have now begun a creative journey that will be much like travel; I will see, experience and be inspired by so many different things and I look forward to incorporating them all into my new creative life!