Day105 of Covid-19 'lockdown', a strange anniversary was reached on Wednesday ‘day 100’ since Boris Johnson announced the lockdown. Total number of deaths in the UK 44,220. The lockdown rules continue to be relaxed,  pubs and hairdressers reopened in England from yesterday, except in Leicester where there have been a worrying number of new Coronavirus cases. Wales and Scotland are being more cautious travel in Wales is to be allowed from 13 July. Based on this we have booked a cottage on the coast of Wales for the last week of July, it looks unreal with its sea views, I can’t quite imagine being outside London. Socially distanced walks have become the norm for me, so good to see local friends. 

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I have been concentrating on making this week and can’t believe the joy of ‘getting my hands dirty’. I have made three sheets of distemper impregnated canvas. I loved the experience of making it, the physicality of crawling around the studio floor and working the distemper into the pre-washed canvas. I did this over several days, experimenting with different concentrations of rabbit skin glue and pigment. I reflected on how the intensity of colour could be manipulated, how the first brushful of concentrated colour stains the canvas even if something more dilute is worked in over it. It does dry very stiff even if the glue is relatively dilute, but I thought about what Simon Callery had said about working with the stiffness. I adopted a different attitude to it and thought how I might exploit this quality in my work. I begun twisting and scrunching the canvas when damp then allowing it to dry. I imagined fixing the shapes more permanently once I am satisfied with them, by adding further layers of rabbit skin glue and possibly wax. The colour of the back and front of the canvas remain distinct this too is a quality I can work with as I form the canvas into 3D shapes to house my ‘stuffed pieces’. I am always thinking in 3D now – surprising myself! I am very excited by the depth of colour, the red in particular. I have dyed lots of fabric in shades of the burnt sienna coloured canvas and will make at least one assemblage using this. I love the way making has pushed my thinking on. Again thinking of what Simon said about not being precious about it I left the canvas out in the rain to see what effect it had.

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I have been working madly on my blue-grey assemblage (I haven’t come up with a name for it yet) but as I cut and stitch the translucent areas into it, I think about what I have learnt through making ‘Happenstance’. I am already aware that I want this to be viewed as a three-dimensional form and so am careful as I stitch one fabric to the other that the ‘back’ and ‘front’ have to be equally finished as both will be seen.

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I am thinking a lot about Eva Hesse again. I listened to Katy Hessel and Briony Fer discussing her on The Great Women Artists podcast. She is an inspiration I can really see how she uses speculative making is such a productive force in her work.

  

Blue Form in progress

5 July 2020