Fragility

Beginnings and endings. Life and death. Fragility.

When a thread breaks...

... is it a problem or a possibility?

So many ideas from playing with materials sent by Claire.

Yesterday's News

Since I discovered my appetite for mudlarking I have been delighted by the little treasures I have found on the edge of the river Aire, but last week I was amazed to come across these river washed fragments of newspaper. It always surprises me how fragile yet robust paper can be. These pieces had clearly been washed by the river for a long time, turning and shaping them like a piece of driftwood, I wonder how long they had been in the river? The date on this reduced copy of the Daily Express was November 1936!

Round like a circle...

holes, cycles, simplified nests, vortex, revolution, minutes, hours, days, months, seasons, years, lifetimes, voids, spaces, defined limits, circumference, eternity...

coiled, braided, woven, wrapped, twisted, soldered, thrown, carved, wound, looped

Edges

While preparing some fabrics for making cyanotypes I noticed the beautiful edges of the old cotton fabrics I had in a pile. Some had torn or frayed edges, others had been hand stitched or hemmed at some time in the past.

It reminded me that my 'reverse mind-mapping' had given me the word 'edges' at the centre of my current ideas and practice. It was a curious result at the time but since then I have found several occasions when I have created fascinating edges, quite by chance or realised that boundaries and edges are crucial ideas behind my subject matter. One example of this would be my fascination with twilight, or the edge of daytime as it turns night.