I’ve never been called this before!!…

An artist friend today has called me “inspiring and indomitable” , apparently it describes my pursuance of art, in the face of recent adversity perfectly, these are not words that I’d not associate with myself, sometimes it takes others to show us aspects of ourselves , that we don’t realise on our own. I actually thought I’d been lacking in inspiration and drive recently due to my broken leg, still more bad news this week I’m afraid, although the bone is mending, I have to wear my boot for at least another six weeks, although I can now use crutches and put some weight through it, which makes life a bit easier.

To lift my spirits I’ve decided to use colour for a few weeks, instead of my usual greys and blacks, which I love. So I’ve raided my stash for assorted fabric and threads, from my previous life as a textile artist, and experimented with various different colour combinations. I had a glorious morning trying out numerous, different combinations, the tactile feel of cloth in my hands again, made me realise how much I’ve missed stitching.

Although my original intention was to use these as possible palettes for my painting, handling the fabric has made me want to stitch again, I love their tactile feel and richness of colour, so I’m going to experiment this week with some small cloth collages.

I don’t know why I didn’t think of doing this a few weeks ago, it is ideal as a restful, meditative activity and I can do it sitting down whilst listening to art videos or podcasts, I’ll have to see what my arthritic hands think of the idea, but I’m sure it will solve a lot of my current mobility problems.,

I’m going to do some painting as well this week, in short bursts, to start some new work for an upcoming exhibition in September, I’m going to use some of the colour explorations to take my work in a new direction.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my studio notes this week, I’ll post my textile collages next week, so you can see what I’ve been up to.