Action and Reaction

So many people suffer in our world, through experiencing pain in all of its forms, traumas physical and psychological, personal and political distress, fear that encompasses young and old. Something that affects me personally is neuropathic pain. It can come in the night, tends to hit my left leg particularly, and is like being stabbed repetitively by an onslaught of sharp knives. This attack keeps me pinioned on its force and jerking with spasms until it finally subsides. I can't go to sleep again until the knives at least reduce to needles and the perspiration makes these 'several night-clothes' nights. I wake up exhausted with both legs aching despite the barrage of anti-spasm and supposedly pain-killing tablets I take daily. Actually, they do work to a degree, otherwise I would be incapable of doing anything in this life and that is not my way. It is so important to occupy the brain with, for me, thoughts of creativity and it is very important not to dwell on pain.

Once I am able, I very often stitch. I found years ago that, when my muscles are acting up, hand stitch is just about the only activity my body can do for any length of time; holding my arms in a position to type doesn't last long, my hands don't want to keep writing, painting is impossible and my voice tires very quickly, so a voice-activated computer wouldn't help, so stitch it is and I have found such a wealth of possibilities with this! Another great thing about hand stitch is that it can be carried out even in bed, so my body can get some rest while I work with colours and rhythms in thread and cloth.

It can still be frustrating, despite my love of stitch, not to be able to carry out other activities when I would like to, even jobs in the house! I used to work as an Art Therapist with the elderly and think of how what I used to say to my patients some years ago now applies to me. Illness often causes, in modern parlance, a necessity to reinvent oneself. My creating artwork with the needle may have come about through illness but it is so important now in fighting against the diminishing of the self. I feel it is vital to turn the negativity of pain, when at all possible, into a positively creative act. My pain is nothing compared to what others go through in this world. To listen to the news or watch it on tv only shows how so many people, from tiny children to the elderly, suffer at the hands of others or through the frailty of the human body.

Through creating my art, I wish to give to society, not just be a drain on those around me. In restoring my own sense of self worth, I hope that my experiences can also speak to others and that is part of the reason for this work in the PhD. I experienced the Troubles with the distress they brought to so many; now there are terrible problems that we all face and the solutions are so difficult to come by. If only human beings could love much more and not hate  -  why must intolerance, suspicion and cruelty reign with such appalling force and seem to be so impossible to eradicate? To speak of universal love eventually winning over all that is evil seems, at least as far as this side of the grave is concerned, a naive dream but people do respond with love in this life, not always hate  -  the dream will just take who knows how long to become a reality but slowly, I hope, we can keep spiralling towards it.

The following are a few photos of details of the large piece I am working on at the moment, in places complete with pins! They are not perfect representations of the work but will at least give an idea of it for the moment. I find it can be quite frustrating in the effort to achieve a really good image of textile artwork with the camera  -  highlights and contrasts seem to get exaggerated beyond what they are in reality. I will stitch a little more then spend some time working with the camera to get truer images of the piece.

This image shows some wreckage from the vehicle. What are we looking at? Are these pieces of  metal tubing bits of the vehicle itself or what it held? It is now not possible to know unless perhaps examination from an expert could gradually discover what function these pieces once had. From the point of view of the artwork, it is not necessary to know this because they stand for the needless disintegration of lives that the violence has wrought.

As you see, this has been photographed in the hoop to show a little more of the work in progress.

This image zooms in on the two trees photographed. The camera has picked up on the edges of the silk-painted organza pieces and mulberry bark and has exaggerated the light falling on these.  This will be addressed in part as I complete my stitching but will probably also need to be adjusted photographically.

I have also used many more 'burnt' colours on the trunks of the nearer tree and on another tree (not photographed) in the full piece which were closest to the exploded vehicle than appear in a colour  version of the original photograph. This is because I want to contrast the fresh green of a July countryside in Co Down, where the incident took place, with the unnatural after effects of explosion.

Another of the strange shapes thrown up by the explosion. What once had a recognisable form and function now has become an alien object.

I have included a final close-up of the tree-trunk to show the form of the stitches. All of the work is being done by hand and this matters to me for several reasons, one of which is that the original incident happened through the hands of the bombers, hands used for destructive purposes. However, the hand can also heal and, medically, stitches are used to close wounds; so as a needle punctures cloth, threads then 'heal' the wounded fabric.

At the same time, as the work progresses, colours and rhythms of stitch are slowly transforming the raw material into the image of the incident. Both the event itself and a photograph of its aftermath happened in seconds but, paradoxically, this stitched image will need thousands of stitches and take months of work to complete. The artwork is also not contemporary with the original event which occurred some years ago. The hand of the stitcher, then, could be regarded as mediator and interpreter between the incident as it originally happened and as it is now re-presented in the present moment. To produce a stitch is both a physically active and intellectually meditative act and the image that results is not so much the portrait of a past moment but a scene imbued with the memories of several disparate events. The new conglomerate exists with its own life and perdurance in time.

That the artwork is beginning to have its own life and meaning was vividly made clear to me just the other day when a friend made a very interesting observation on the work. She said how my use of colour, the burnt browns and contrasting green foliage, made her think of camouflage on an army uniform. This had not been in my thoughts as I stitched but it is only too sadly appropriate to the occasion in that it was rogue elements in the armed forces who carried out both the bombing, killing themselves in the process, and the shooting that followed.

Tools of the trade

I have taken some photos of my little stitching station that comes with me everywhere  -  almost all of the things that accompany me and that I use just about every day in life!

This is the tray that I set my small work tools on  -  scissors, needles etc. It is the top of a shoe box  -  shoe boxes are such extremely useful items!  -  and I covered it in a nice piece of fabric I had bought some time ago. It stays by my side and is transported to uni and anywhere else I go where I can stitch.

To itemise what the tray holds, these are, first of all, a leather thimble, a metal thimble from the Holy Land, some paper bobbins  -  very useful things, these  -  and a new needle threader which I hope is going to last considerably longer than the usual somewhat flimsy kind one finds on sale. I wear the leather thimble on the right hand and metal one on the left. I was very touched to receive this latter thimble as a gift from Angela, a friend in Rugby who had been on a trip to the Holy Land  -  it says 'Sea of Galilee' on it and has a basket and fish designs on it  -  it means a lot to me. I remember my paternal grandmother, who had worked as a dressmaker, saying that you should never be without a thimble. When I first did some sewing/stitching some years ago, I didn't find wearing a thimble at all comfortable and only used it occasionally when I really needed to. Now I do find thimbles indispensable. The leather one has a little metal tip inside and I really couldn't work without them.

These next items are, going in a clockwise direction, first of all a box with long glass-headed pins then a small screwdriver which is excellent for tightening hoops. This screwdriver came with my Bernina sewing machine and Bernina don't make the screwdriver any more, so this one is precious!

Next is my heart-shaped pin-cushion. This, too, is precious but a very different reason  -  Juls made it for me years ago at school and I have kept it by me ever since she gave it to me. She sewed a floral motif on the upper side with 'Mum' underneath. It's getting somewhat worn but I'll keep on using it until it positively falls apart  -  I probably will first! I store my glass-headed pins on it and preserve the little floral shape given to it by Juls' in the colours of the tops. These items made at school can be really great  -  Ed made an ice scraper for Arthur for the car and, as with my pin-cushion, it lives in the car and is used still!

On the right is a needle case that I made when I was starting out to embroider and finally a little mirror given to me by my mother a considerable time ago. It started out as a dressing-table mirror with matching brush and used to have a long handle. I'm not exactly sure, but it may have been when the handle was broken that I started using the mirror as a work tool. Anyhow, it fits nicely on my tray as it is and is so useful when I'm stitching  -  as when doing any kind of artwork, I always find it so helpful to look at the work in a mirror and  if I'm not sure whether a dark or light thread is needed next or when choosing a shade, looking in the mirror always helps me make my decision.

These are the scissors I carry, the largest for cutting fabrics and the other two for both thread and material. The little gold ones came with the rather nice leather case. Both smaller pairs were chosen partly for their sharply pointed ends but these don't seem as good now as when they were purchased. I don't know whether I can sharpen them or will need to buy replacements. The other small tool is for unpicking work and, like the screwdriver, came with my Bernina. As with rubbing out, unpicking is not done often (an embroiderer I met once said she just never unpicks) but I have found that there are times when it becomes necessary and this tool is the best I've found for the job.

These are two of my cloth marking pencils which work very well and the little brush on the end of one has come in quite handy from time to time. The rubber is a specialist one for cloth and works surprisingly well. I always find it useful to have a ruler on hand, even one as small as this!

These are just a few personal items that I keep on my tray  -  on the left, a parcel decoration which comes from the last gift given to me by my mother before she died, then a 'cross in my pocket' from St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall, Orkney. This was given to me by a very dear friend, Margaret, now 93 years if age and who I can't get to see very often any more. She brought the cross back to me from a cruise she made with another friend to the Northern Isles and Scandinavia a few years ago when she was still able to make the trip. Beside this is a pouch for the two meditation beads, also pictured, that Arthur brought back to me from Indonesia.

A few of the tools grouped on the little 'tray within a tray'.

These are two photos of Arthur, Juls and Ed that are beside me at my work station in the living-room at home. I used to keep a favourite photo of the three propped at the back of my tray but it disappeared mysteriously after a trip to St Davids when we stayed in a lovely cottage and I haven't dared keep a photo on the tray ever since! Photos are, however, everywhere else, in the living-room, studio at home, studio at uni, bedroom . . . . . .

Holiday stitching

We went to Brittany at the end of August  -  self with husband, Arthur, daughter Juliette (Juls) and son Edward (Ed)  -  and had a wonderful time. My health was, I am so glad say, decent for most of the time and we actually experienced summer, seeing the light and feeling the warmth of a benevolent September sun.

I always take needle and thread wherever I go, sometimes working on images inspired by wherever I am but this time I was so concerned at just how long my major piece is taking  -  still am!!  -  that I stitched mostly on this large piece. However, stitching outdoors in M and Mme Le Moelle's beautiful garden was such a change on my usual work zones!