What’s happening in the studio?
I am working on a quilt for my sister. This piece will be an exemplar for a new project that is so dear to me, which lifts up a decade+ long interest in working with worn clothing. I see worn clothing as a stand-in for the absent body which once inhabited it. I began to see the potential of worn clothing as an emotional carrier after the death of my father (but that is a story for another day). As Peter Stallybrass1 says, “cloth receives us”, clothes absorb both physical and intangible qualities of our bodies (sweat, creases from consistent actions, perfumes…). In this quilt I am using silk crepe dresses and blouses belonging to my Mum, sister and myself, and others that have been thrifted. Once carefully cut and sewn this becomes an object of what I would call practical magic: the quilt offers comfort and warmth both literally, and symbolically: holding the connection between the wearers of the clothes, imbued with love.
In practice, my process for this quilt, begins by going backwards: I cut the clothes into their original flat components (sleeves, front, back, yoke), and then rip each piece into strips 7cm wide (to end up with 5cm wide pieces, with 1cm seams). Crepe silk rips easily and this is the quickest way of creating evenly sized strips of fabric while also ensuring that each piece is running perfectly along the straight grain.
I then cut lightweight interfacing into strips of the same width using a circular blade and ruler. The fusing provides stability to the slippery silk which is especially important when I cut and stitch on the bias.
After each piece of interfacing is fused to each strip of silk, I stitch all strips of the same colour together to create long lengths of a single colour. Then each length is joined to 3 other colours (alternating light and dark). Next, each group is cut into triangles, to be re-stitched together to form my pattern, and this is about where I’m up to. Sadly I have had to let go of using the burgundy silk top as when I tested washing it, the dye ran heavily.
I am awaiting the arrival of three more silk crepe garments, in baby blue, sky blue and a faded navy, from eBay and Salvos online store, while I continue pressing and cutting what I already have here this week.
In my personal life I am processing the dissolution of a relationship that I held great hopes for. I have been thinking about the type of people who I have chosen to be intimate with, and why, and unstitching the life experiences that have led me to make those choices. This is one pattern that I have hopes of changing!
Words of encouragement from others
I have a quote in the studio from listening to a podcast interview with the brilliant artist/musician Lonnie Holley, “I’ve woven a parachute out of everything that is broken.” I think it speaks to using the very stuff of your life (and literally, he makes sculpture) to save yourself. I was talking with a friend/colleague, the progeny of a very successful artist, and I shared my belief “I look after the work and the work looks after me”, and she said emphatically, “your art makes your life!”. It was a moment of ah yes—that is how I want to move through the world. I have so much gratitude for this reciprocal relationship of artwork/practice=artist.
Recently, I read a Rumi poem and it spoke to me of giving yourself permission to trust the whispers or groans or yells of your heart, and moving towards them, of spinning gold from and into your life.
THE SILK WORM
I stood before a silk worm one day.
And that night my heart said to me,
”I can do things like that, I can spin skies,
I can be woven into love that can bring warmth to people;
I can be soft against a crying face,
I can be wings that lift, and I can travel on my thousand feet throughout the earth,
my sacks filled with the sacred.”
And I replied to my heart,
”Dear, can you really do all those things?”
And it just nodded “Yes”
in silence.
So we began and will never cease.
Sending out love and encouragement, see you in a fortnight
thank you, Hannah x
🥰☂️