Hello again - A Letter in Mind

What can I say....time flies when your having fun?! After what can only be described as a “lengthy” absence I have returned. To kick off what will hopefully be a flourishing new blog. I thought I’d tell you all about an amazing exhibition that I was lucky to take part in recently.

As part of its 30th anniversary celebrations The National Brain Appeal put a call out for artists and designers to respond to the theme ‘A Letter in Mind’, presenting everyone with a simple white envelope as a starting point. The project culminated in a fantastic exhibition held at gallery@oxo, Oxo Tower Wharf. Each piece was displayed anonymously so it’s only now that I can finally reveal to you all which piece was mine, so here goes.....

Ta da! For those who don’t know much about me and my work I am rather passionate about history. My ongoing project, ‘Lost Voices’, is all about reconnecting abandoned images of people with their long-forgotten identities, giving them a voice through my work. So when starting to think about how I could respond to ‘A Letter in Mind’ I was immediately inspired to look at dementia and it’s relationship to memory.

To help evoke notions of the past I decided to age my envelope using the tried and tested, cover with tea and bake in the oven technique, (I knew all that treasure map making when I was little would come in handy one day!) I then managed to find a record of the brain waves of someone suffering with dementia and machine-stitched this onto my envelope to resemble writing on a postcard. Switching to hand embroidery for the rest of my piece I stitched the address, post mark and 1st class stamp.

I had the great joy of being able to visit the exhibition and was blown away by the amazing and diverse work on display. It is endlessly inspiring to see how such a large group of artists and designers have their own unique and powerful response to the same theme..... and who says there’s no such thing as an original idea!! Amongst the exhibitors I was a wee bit excited when I found out one of my personal art heroes, Grayson Perry, had contributed a piece. So not only did I get to take part in an awesome project but a personal life goal was achieved! I’d say that was win win all round. All the pieces featured in the exhibition can still be seen here and bought for just £80 each – with the money going to such a good cause, why not treat yourself to some beautiful and compelling art.

Stitching under the influence of germs.

Due to a bad case of germ addled brain I decided handling heavy machinery i.e. sewing machine, was probably not the wisest decision this week. So I decided to dust off my stranded cotton and flex my finger muscles with a touch of hand embroidery, and I must admit I have found it all rather delightful. As you can see above, my first endeavor was a bit of a promotional exercise, just to clear out the cobwebs and key into the old embroidery memory box. Through a haze of coughing and spluttering I seemed to have found a rather pleasant and productive zen state.

After my little adventure into PR stitching I decided to venture down my more usual and comfortable artistic path. After witnessing some really quite exquisite skies from my sick bed, and a plethora of birds having a rollicking good time in them, I settled on a series looking at Starlings in flight. From a very young age I have always loved birds in flight, birds perching are nice enough, but wow when they flew I found them captivating. In actual fact one of my earliest memories is riding in a car looking out of the window and wishing I was a bird flying alongside, make of that what you will. With their exquisite and mesmerizing displays Starlings were the perfect choice. So far I have created a small triptych and am currently cogitating over plans of a much grander scale.

This week may you all have as productive a time as me.....minus the germs!