It’s been far too long since I have written in this little space of mine and so much has happened, so many baskets have been made.
I always find that I become increasingly private through life’s tricky bits, rolling up into a tight ball, like a hedgehog hoping to be overlooked, so it can carry on with its business.
It has been a difficult year and no mistake – an emotional rollercoaster, where Matt and I have both had far too little sleep and have pushed ourselves to our limits, to make things right for those who are dear to us and to find a new bright chapter in our lives. But our new adventure can wait for the next post, first I want to catch you up on my work over the summer and early autumn. Creative flow is a funny thing and can find you when you least expect it and it found me when I was completely exhausted and very stressed and it really helped me through this big transition in our lives.
If you have followed along with my journey for a while, you will know that my work is enormously influenced by my environment, whether it is using materials that I have gathered locally or looking at the little details in the world around me and incorporating them into what I am making. So at a time when we were uprooting ourselves and for several months, not knowing where we would be by the end of the year, I was starting to feel detached from my work.
I have tackled lots of life’s challenges over the years and I know that the answer to overcoming them is inside myself, if I just find a way to take a breath and look at things from a different angle. I decided that I needed to do the same with my work, to guide me through those months of limbo, where I had begun the process of detaching myself from one home, but not yet reached somewhere that I could put down roots again.
I began by shrinking my world.
Taking inspiration from the plants growing in my garden and polytunnel, I made a little basket, where my focus was the beauty of the coiling itself and the natural forms of growing tendrils and stems.
I knew that wherever we ended up, there would be a garden, even if it was a small one, because outside spaces have become so important to us. Drawing inspirition from an environment that I felt would travel with me, really helped me to find my creative energy, at a time when my physical and emotional energy was running so low.
The framework around this little basket, led me on to a small sample piece, where the framework became the focus.
Without any particular direction in mind at the start, but knowing that I wanted to create movement in my work, I used a combination of wrap stitch and mariposa stitch.
I was pleased with the strength of it, when it was a very open structure. It opened up so many possibilities, for further work.
It feels strange looking back at this time, because it somehow feels like a lifetime ago, when in reality it is just a few months!
I continued with my framework experiments during a journey to the East Coast of Scotland, to find our new home. I was so pleased at the thought of still living close to the sea, after months of feeling that it might not be possible. Over the past 25 years, I have never lived more than 20 minutes away from the sea and in the past five years, it has only been a short walk away.
I have found both comfort and joy in watching the endless blue, in all its moods, and the coast has become such an important part of our family’s life, a real focus for our activities. So that glimmer of hope – that the coastline would remain a short walk from our nest, eased the tightness of a great knot in my mind.
The piece that started to take shape on our journey and was completed back in the Orkney Islands, was a reaction to these feelings. A celebration of years spent watching the waves, picking up shells and breathing in that wonderful, salty air.
Again focusing on movement, Coast, saw me being bolder with the open spaces in my work, whilst still maintaining strength.
The next few weeks in my personal life were that awful bit of relocating, where you have found somewhere new and are packing up your old life, all the while knowing that the process of buying and selling houses can (and often does) go wrong at any minute.
In my creative life, I pushed on with a quick succession of pieces, which looking back, say a lot about the mix of feelings that I was experiencing at that time.
Everything from, baskets that showed the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement on my work, to small samples that were testing the possibilities of coil basketry. There were flashes of bright colour, followed by muted tones, new and exciting ideas and the revisiting and developing of old ones. It was a big jumble of thoughts and emotions crammed into the space of a few weeks of work.
I don’t know if you have moved house many times in your life, but we have moved quite a lot, perhaps rather more than we would have liked at times. It is a funny thing when you are moving house, that so many hopes get pinned to a place, that you have visited once or twice at most, because you think that it is going to become a part of your story.
That moment then, when everything seems to be going wrong and it seems as if that won’t be your story after all and your plans will all have to change again, can feel very bleak.
The thought of having to start over in what is a very emotional process, is so draining, and that unfortunately happened to us, just 10 days before we were due to move.
I must put in a spoiler here, because it all sounds a bit gloomy and with some determination and quick thinking, it all turned out as we hoped in the end. But most of September was incredibly unsettling as we lived surrounded by packing boxes, but not knowing whether we would be moving at all.
Perhaps it seems unlikely that this would be a time for creative energies to be free flowing, but I found great comfort in the familiar rhythms of coiling and stitching. Embarking on a bold new project, gave me that feeling of control over my own destiny that was so lacking in other areas, during those weeks.
Drawing on past projects as well as the experiments of the summer, I started a piece which I named, Tumbled.
So many hours went into Tumbled, but much more importantly so much of myself.
Even though it is yet to find a new home, it is the piece that I am most proud of, if that is the right word. I took a moment to step back and consider all that I have learned about basketry and the process of making over the past few years. I brought together ideas from way back, before I had ever made a basket, with ideas from my time living in the Orkney Islands.
Technically it is the most challenging piece that I have made. Each stitched pebble was framed with coil work and then joined to the next, until I had three panels of tumbling stones.
.A base was made and then began the difficult process of attaching the panels to the base (I could have done with several extra pairs of hands at this point!).
But after weeks of work it suddenly started to come together, with all of the movement and strength, that I had hoped for.
So what is next for my creative practice and for Five in the Nest?
I am currently busy making a series of tiny treasure boxes, with some of my shoreline finds, because I had so many enquiries about whether I would be making any, in time for Christmas. The first ones are already on their way to their new homes and more will be in my shop soon, along with some larger pieces, cocooning and celebrating some wonderful bark and driftwood pieces that I have found here on the East Coast of Scotland.
I am planning online workshops, which will be along sometime in early 2025 and hopefully some in-person workshops too, so that I can get back to spreading my passion for basketry and making.
I like to keep my mind open about my creative practice, but I am looking forward to doing more experimental work in 2025 and beginning to incorporate some of my other creative interests with my work – natural dyeing, printmaking and ceramics have all been in the back of mind lately and I’m sure at least some of those will start to appear over the coming months.
Beyond that I don’t know, but I am sure that I will continue to have many adventures, both in life and in basketry!
