"There is an Indian proverb that says that everyone is a house with four rooms. A physical, an emotional, a mental and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time, but unless we go into every room everyday, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person."

Rumer Godden 1907 - 1998

Monday, 22 April 2013

Spirals, Helixes and Circles

I enjoy the Sketchbook Challenge blog- the monthly theme and explorations of that theme by different artists are both challenging and inspiring. There's a beautifully produced book derived from the blog, including themes that are explored in an exciting and interesting way. I find working in themes and series can be very very fulfilling, and often a broad exploration can lead to smaller, more detailed explorations of a single image or an idea.

About 10 years ago I was doing a series of mentored courses and one summer between the end of one year and the start of the next I worked a whole sketchbook on the theme of grids and lattices. It was one of the most successful explorative sketchbooks I ever completed. In March 2008, I became interested in spirals, like ammonites and twists of wire. For some reason, this never took off as a theme as I couldn't quite explain what I was exploring.

I'm sure that I completed one year of my City and Guilds course in the late 1990's with the guest artist who blogged on Saturday: Jackie Bowcutt, her own blog is STITCHWORKS and it's definitely one of my favourite art and textile blogs. Her post about spirals took me back to the half completed sketchbook and the spiral images I was producing in my sketchbook about 6 years ago. Flicking through my sketchbook I have some pages that are explorations that are worth adding to and exploring further.




The image above is probably about 12" square, I have a much larger version drawn and painted on A1 paper. Part of Jackie's post is about taking drawings and exploding them, a textile piece approximately 40" by 30" worked in silk and paper derived from this drawing did just that:


The time feels right to pick up this sketchbook, my textile explorations and start exploring this theme again.
Posted by at
Labels: , ,

1 comment:

jackie said...

Hello Claire, I am trying hard to remember faces from Great Missenden days! Its good to get out old sketchbooks and you do tend to find all sorts of interesting bits and pieces.
Best wishes, and thanks for the comment.

24 April 2013 at 09:08

Post a Comment

Thank you for posting a comment, I do read all the comments made and appreciate the time you've spent reading my blog and making your comments.