'SPIRIT'' 'BREATH OF DAWN' and 'THE SOUND OF RAIN' are three hangings created in meditation from sound. I opened the doors and windows to my studio. My pet sheep crowded around the double doors to their field at the back. I could hear soft maaa's as they cudded contentedly. Silk prepared, I surrounded myself with a selection of brushes and tools and often incompatible dyes. Once at peace, I was astonished at how the sounds were isolated and magnified. Without opening my eyes, I 'painted' the sounds; a little wren who invades my studio, crows diving on a pair of buzzards, a lone pheasant, and found that the marks I made looked a little like the birds. And some like the maaa of my lambs.
From left to right, Round disk, 'TANKER INSIDE', an image of the making of a huge tanker where enormous sheets of stainless steel are rolled and joined to make the body of the tanker, the birth. Then '20'S SWING' and 'ST. LOUIS BLUES' two New Orleans inspired black and white scarves with an Art Deco feel. These scarves are Limited Edition, (25) signed and dated with a signed and numbered certificate. I love them and am going to have one myself, very unusual as I never wear scarves! Finally, 'PLANET'. a special silk hanging with a question, 'What do you think it is?'
'BIRTH OF CHOCOLATE'. Road tankers carry liquid chocolate. This hanging is so simplified from its complicated beginnings, milk, white and plain chocolate with a touch of orange.
'DESTINY' and 'ONENESS' Again two pieces greatly simplified
'TANKER PURITY' and 'TANKER INSIDE'' Tanker Purity shows a beautiful white tanker coming straight out of the paint shop, as pure as an Anish Kapoor sculpture.
FRAMED PRINTS: 'TANKER MYSTERY', 'THE BEAUTY OF THE TANKER', 'AND THE TANKER ROCKED' and 'AND THE VODKA FLOWED'. Tankers being strangled by their pipes like a huge serpent. I followed many tankers and all of the drivers seemed to love their jobs. I asked one where 'dead' tankers go as we don't see them in scrap yards? He said, 'Oh, those go to the third world where they are cleaned out and then they carry vodka'. Noooo. 'Not yours?', I said noticing that he was carrying toxic waste. 'Oh yes', he said, 'They just give them a good clean'. I haven't drunk vodka since but I am guessing he was teasing.
My first ever Ikebana! in front of 'ALIENS' and 'GOLDEN SUN' two silk hangings inspired by ginormous backs of tankers in Whale Tanker's yard, one, stainless steel and the other rusted mild steel.
My Ikebana creating beautiful shadows.
Ikebana with two other hangings, 'RAINDANCE' on the left, where shadows appeared of a 'cat' and then a 'mouse' with a trailing stainless steel tanker wheel, falling like rain.
Then, one of my favourites 'THE JOURNEY'. As I travelled on the motorway at night, often to Bath Spa University or Falmouth where I did my Masters, the rear lights danced like butterflies. I loved the image of the shadow of branches on the back of the tanker. An old crone leans over a cot obviously containing 'Rosemary's Baby', the Devil incarnate!
