I recently found some old work when I was looking through a portfolio that I hadn't looked in for a while. Two things happened; one - I realised that this work was much better than I'd given myself credit for, and two - it took me back to 2006 and stirred up memories of what was going on in my life at that time. I created the work to be part of an exhibition in a cafe in my local town as part of a county wide Arts Week. I had a temporary job which involved being part of the team organising the event and I wanted to take part as an artist. This was the most significant attempt I'd had at creating and displaying art work since graduating from my degree in textile design in 2002.
After I finished my three years of training to be a textile designer, I'd found myself back in my family home in the midlands where the textile industry was mostly spoken about in historical terms. Following university I had a couple of jobs, one as a technician in a further education college and the other, doing office administration work at my dad's engineering company. In 2004 I started a Masters degree studying the creative industries. I hoped this would give me the knowledge and confidence I needed to independently make design my career.
In early 2005, my father was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer, and started treatment and chemotherapy. I continued with my MA only telling two of my friends on the course about my dad and trying to continue as normal whilst ignoring my growing anxiety and frequent overwhelming desire to run out of rooms, buildings and away from people. With hindsight and now working in education, perhaps I should have told my lecturers what was going on, but at the time I just wanted to be somewhere where I could be 'normal' for a while. So this is the background to where I was in 2006, I'd completed the MA, found a job in the Arts, my dad had got through treatment, so things were starting to feel a bit more positive.Things weren't all ok as dad was readmitted to hospital a few times with pneumonia and at one point my dad and my grandmother were both in hospital at the same time, on different wards where we were unable to visit both on the same occasion due to the risk of cross infection. But I had taken the decision to buy a rather expensive hand-loom and I intended to make being creative my career somehow.
I have never felt that easy about showing my work or putting it out into the public, this has been even more the case since leaving formal education. It took and still sometimes does take, a great amount of pulling myself together and momentum and dragging the depths of my self confidence, to put any work out in public anywhere. The it has sometimes taken a lot of picking myself back up after the event when I've received no significant feedback of any kind. I also have often felt that the work did not live up to my own high expectations and standards I set for myself. With hindsight I have realised that this is a pattern that has contributed to getting in my way and stopping me from making the progress I would like to.
The exhibition went ahead and was as successful as I could reasonably expect, in a small town not known for it's broad interest in the arts. We had a private view, I wore a green dress, it all came together. A few days later my grandmother died in hospital after a short illness, not long after that I lost the temporary job I'd hope would become permanent and my way into working in the Arts. My world sort of fell apart for a while. Looking back at the work I created at this time, I realise it was a significant point in my life. I also realise that the ways of working I developed then, are largely the methods I still use and have shaped my practice since then.
The artwork - Postcard Series 2006, was based on photographs I took of my home town and comprised digital printing, hand weaving and machine stitching. Originally they were displayed on A1 size frames with nine postcards on each, I rearranged them onto A3 size portfolio pages at a later date.
I have never felt that easy about showing my work or putting it out into the public, this has been even more the case since leaving formal education. It took and still sometimes does take, a great amount of pulling myself together and momentum and dragging the depths of my self confidence, to put any work out in public anywhere. The it has sometimes taken a lot of picking myself back up after the event when I've received no significant feedback of any kind. I also have often felt that the work did not live up to my own high expectations and standards I set for myself. With hindsight I have realised that this is a pattern that has contributed to getting in my way and stopping me from making the progress I would like to.
The exhibition went ahead and was as successful as I could reasonably expect, in a small town not known for it's broad interest in the arts. We had a private view, I wore a green dress, it all came together. A few days later my grandmother died in hospital after a short illness, not long after that I lost the temporary job I'd hope would become permanent and my way into working in the Arts. My world sort of fell apart for a while. Looking back at the work I created at this time, I realise it was a significant point in my life. I also realise that the ways of working I developed then, are largely the methods I still use and have shaped my practice since then.
The artwork - Postcard Series 2006, was based on photographs I took of my home town and comprised digital printing, hand weaving and machine stitching. Originally they were displayed on A1 size frames with nine postcards on each, I rearranged them onto A3 size portfolio pages at a later date.
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