This doesn't define me

When is work worth showing?
I watched a program on the BBC recently - if you have a link to Britain you might still be able to watch it... or a clip of it .  It was a day in the life profile of Tracey Emin.
I was quite uplifted by hearing her views and seeing more of her art as she got ready for a show.
I decided then that I ought not to navel gaze quite so much about my work and, as I put it this morning, "I will not deliberate over every stitch, bead and title but be more spontaneous in my work."


They say that if you use the word 'try' it implies failure... well it took me several weeks of deliberation to decide if I would take part in "Collaboration" Contextural's end of residency show.  For a start it wasn't collaboration as in "the action of working with someone to produce or create something" sense, as only one pair of collaborators had emerged (as far as I know) and I also questioned if my work from the residency warrants a showing.


Finally I decided that it is worth showing in the ACAD setting - with a proviso that I give it an Emin-type of, in-your-face, title to help it to be understood and say what exhibiting the work is supposed to show in an accompanying statement.  So here it is, roughly photographed on the dining room floor.

"and this doesn't define me"

I am showing these 4 pieces at ACAD merely to hint at what is possible with disperse dye and minimal stitch.   These pieces show a few experiments with  disperse dye that I worked on at ACAD during June.  I will take and already have taken the process further using 3D surfaces and a variety of fabrics. If you work with disperse dye please do post images on the Flickr Group Disperse Dye
Once one has done a City and Guilds one has to work hard at not 'having to' put layers and layers of stitch in everything one creates.  So I took pleasure in creating the piece in the middle which is surface decoration only-no stitch;  there was some thread involved though, in the method of dyeing! and that gives a clue to the collaborative process.
Drop by ACAD room 371 from Aug 21 to Sept 3 if you want to see more collaboration and probably more meaningful work.
I could navel gaze about that last phrase but, you know, I am just not going to!
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