taletrails: November 2015

Saturday, November 28, 2015

splish splash

ob la de ob la da, life goes on, woah la la life goes on. Yes it does indeed and where are we at this week? Hmm knee deep in making whizz so we is. I've taken a concept about the sea because it's the best place to be; it feels free and it feels magical and that's how I want to be, so first my work must be too. I'm drawing up shapes with stories in mind, taking a trip to anthropologie in the name of research, looking in the bathroom section of course... imagining a mermaid in the bathtub...

Ever hear the story of Tir na Nog? A magical land far far away beyond the sea? A land of eternal youth and warm winds, of feasting, music and song? A land of beautiful people and magical creatures? Well it's a place, not on the map but sure to be found, somewhere out there beyond those waves bobbing on the horizon. Go swimming, you might see it from afar. But as I can't be there right now I have to be in the studio dreaming of it. I look to the landscape of home, the brother island to this special land, and from it I take inspiration for tradition, technique and adventure.

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

seven follow in a row

The rain falls throughout the day these days and as the grass can't look green I can only assume the ducks are happy. The trees stand in line these days and as they can't help but look woebegone I can only assume the hedgehogs are having fun. The mornings start slow, the evenings come fast, day is night and night is all day. These are the days.
When inside in the studio I hold for the first time a ball of yarn spun by mine own two hands. Spin stop spin stop mumble and grumble stop spin stop spin spin spin stumble and fumble spin spin spin. One day I will create mine own very beautiful sustainable textiles with materials known from sheep to shop. That will be the day.

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

autumn in the air

The Thought-Fox by Ted Hughes

I imagine this midnight moment's forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock's loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.

Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow
A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come

Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business

Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.