Category: Posts of Note
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Crafting Futures: meaningful collaboration
This post is the fourth in my series about my Applied Arts Scotland / Crafting Futures residency, the work I’m developing as a consequence, and the impact of the experience on my practice. Here are links to parts one, two and three. During the Crafting Futures residency, I was paired up with my collaboration partner…
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over again
When do you read something over again? There are crime novels to which I frequently return (those of Josephine Tey and Marjorie Allingham are particular favourites) and, when I’m ill or low, I often pick up books enjoyed in childhood (Paul Gallico, Giovanni Guareschi). My main reading for pleasure now tends to be non-fiction, and…
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rainy sunday crumpets
Hello everyone, Tom here with a quick idea for some Sunday morning baking. Thank you to everyone who commented on my bread post with suggestions on how to use my excess, unfed sourdough starter. I was particularly excited by the prospect of making sourdough crumpets . . . so here’s my take! Kate especially enjoyed…
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crafting futures: a residency of things
Preparing for the Crafting Futures residency reminded me of being a teenager going on “exchange.” One’s bag would always include some representative souvenirs for the family one was visiting: a tin of biscuits or confectionery, a small book about one’s local area. I wanted to bring gifts for my compatriots on the Crafting Futures residency…
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Float in the wind, flicker in the breeze
Hello! It’s Michelle here. Today I’d like to share some words and images about suffrage spectacle and visual identity, a topic that recently came back to my mind through Kate’s writing in her Wheesht essay ‘Elevate’ on Ann Macbeth’s collaborative suffrage quilt. Anne Macbeth’s suffrage quilt as a suffrage banner. © Museum of London The…
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still life with asparagus
Adriaen Coorte, Still Life with Asparagus (1697), Rijksmuseum How is your growing season going? After the recent warm spell, our vegetable garden is coming along very nicely now: in addition to reliable potatoes, spinach, kale, broccoli, leeks and onions, this year we’re trying some experimental beans, and just one variety of tomato. This may sound…
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one loaf or two?
Hello from the farthest reaches of rural broadband . . . it’s Tom again. So, who doesn’t like fresh bread? I certainly do, but our local shops have been out of flour, of all kinds, for a couple of months, and my bread baking has been sadly on the back burner. I’ve been eking out…
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Crafting Futures: at Braemar
This is the second in my series of posts about the Applied Arts Scotland / British Council residency I took part in last September, and the collaborative work I’m now developing as a result. After leaving Lewis, and returning to the mainland, our group met up with superlatively creative and enabling Lynne Hocking-Mennie, and with…
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remembering Walter Crane
Walter Crane, The Triumph of Labour (1891) ©The Trustees of the British Museum It was May Day a couple of days ago, an occasion that puts me immediately in mind of this wonderful image . . . Walter Crane, A Garland for May Day (1895) ©The Trustees of the British Museum . . . which…
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Crafting Futures: in the Hebrides
Today I’m sharing the first of series of images and recollections from the Applied Arts Scotland residency I was part of last September – which seems, for so many reasons, like a very long time ago. This residency was part of the British Council’s Crafting Futures programme, bringing makers from Scotland and Mexico together, to…
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experiments never fail
Yesterday I was weaving some buttons for a project I’m working on (similar to these) and began looking at small weaving projects online. I kept coming across beautiful images of wrapped stones (you know the kind of thing) and decided to have a go. There’s a large collection of pebbles on my desk and so…
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Women Who Would Not Sit Still
The Five Sisters window in York Minster is dedicated to all 1,513 women of the British Empire who lost their lives serving in the First World War. The existing 13th century window was restored and rededicated with funds raised by public appeal, and unveiled on 24 June 1925. Image: © John Scurr (WMR-30648), Imperial War…
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mending inspiration
Yesterday afternoon I took a break from grading a cardigan (a task that makes my eyes spin round) and spent a happy hour (as I often do) poking about the Rijksmuseum – which is one of those wonderful institutions who have digitised and made publicly available large portions of their collection. If you have an…
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At Carry Farm
Yesterday I showed you some photographs that Tom had taken of an object I’d found on the beach at Carry Farm, and about which I’d subsequently written a poem. Here’s that poem. At Carry Farm Here, at the brink of land and water a pale ghost grounded. Supple, limpid, damp in the palm, in two…
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object lesson
Last October, I went to stay for a week at Carry Farm, in Argyll, to think about my writing. I took BOB the dog with me, but was otherwise alone. I walked by the sea every day, I did a little knitting, a little embroidery, and a lot of thinking. Some of the poems I’ve…
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In search of Miss Lenton
(1. Suffragette, chained to railings.) What a feast of images and words today! As you know, I’m a writer with a background in archival research and women’s history, and today I’ve persuaded fellow writer, and friend of KDD, Michelle Payne, to share some of her own historical research about the British women’s suffrage movement. I’m…