Waiting and Waxing Lyrical( wordy perhaps)

I am still waiting for the guy to come and polish my slab- it is so frustrating- I have such a lot of work to do and nowhere really to work, plus I would really like to move in there- it's frustrating being "trapped" in a house which for many reasons i don't want to be in.The shed and slab were supposed to have happened in march and it is now the end of June! Every morning i get up and hope, and then as the day dwindles it certainly isn't very good motivation for creating work.

Yesterday i forced myself to actually do some doodling in my journal- poor abandoned thing these last months- sometimes going through the motions, any motion can bring something else.I relooked at my mind map I created last year and thought I could prise something out of there , something new. In my travels I was fascinated by the mashrabiya on older buildings, the enormous worn wooden doors studded with steel bolts of the khans and fortresses,the colours of Syrian woven textiles and the very geometric patterning of much of the tiling work seen in buildings . Such exactitude in geometry is not one of my strong points ( why I abandoned piecing many years ago) but what i do like, is when you bend the geometry and make it wonky it still has the radiance of geometry.So I drew the sketch above- I am thinking horse blanket colours- deep indigo and rusty browns and terracotta- I am thinking countering the wonky geometry with circular mark making. Then the other day I dyed just the right colours- the blue deep and black blue the teraccota enough deep redness in it and so I made this top yesterday. I am not sure it is complete yet- but the stitching will echo some of the circular lines I drew in the sketch- just haven't decided quite what colour and the how of it ( couching maybe?). But then by happy co-incidence ( serendipity) this top somehow matches my travellers blanket- and is a nice continuation of the story- entering the doorways of other lands, other imaginings and other cultures. But it is also, the organic grid that marries them together.So I think these two pieces belong together.

Today sometime, my 175000th visitor will pass my blog portal ( I installed the sitemeter counter well before the neoworks one). I am continually amazed that people continue to stop by, leave comments, offer such encouragement and good wishes,and generally create quite a different kind of community offered by on-line groups. And whilst many people don't comment- and there are lurkers here like there are on on-line groups, sitemeter does allow me to see where you come from. So i know for example that I have an occasional visitor from the town where I was born - Anna Paulowna- this offers me a strange kind of thrill- having left Anna Paulowna at the age 0f 9 going into the disconnectedness of migration, it is kind of nice to think that in that town where I first learned my langauage, where I encountered my first love of land ( Lost in Translation- Eva Hoffman) that there is someone in that town who connects to this other side of the world where I found myself. I love seeing where you all come from- and would one day love to make a "cyber" blanket- scraps from each of the countries that have visited made into a whole- the world really - that shows that boundaries are a result of a lack of imagination and empathy- that at heart what holds our hands and minds busy are the concerns of family, of making and of sharing.


I also would love to do another artists residency somewhere. I have applied for quite a few over the years but never been successful, part of the problem being it needs to be funded and also not many residencies in the field of textiles. Does anyone know of any residency programs for textiles? And in this mode- I am thinking if the shed happens and my house, that I may well offer someone the opportunity to come and work here for a few weeks next year- as my shed will be a functioning studio( or that is the intent) Does anyone know of a carvan that might be for sale for a vey modest price or for a swap?

Oh and if i can work out who my 175000visitor is there will be a little something waiting for you ( haven't quite decided what yet - perhaps some hand dyed fabric)