Life in progress
It’s been a year since I added a post however I did revamp the layout of the website in an effort to put to practice the purpose for coming to the UK to do a post-graduate degree. Although the impetus was initially an ongoing case of wanderlust, once I found the Art & Environment Masters program, applied to then was accepted, the intention became about shifting the trajectory of my art career. In other words, taking a right turn where the road seemed to be otherwise straight ahead. I wanted to include the other aspects of my creative life: music, fibre arts, writing, installation and love of film, allowing my work to expand outward whilst digging deeper into context, place and purpose. To give voice to ideas through a myriad of processes, each of which would be equally valid. These days, I am still painting, drawing and taking photographs but my main focus is a large scale multidimensional sculpture and installation which, when completed will have been almost a full year in production. It has evolved from simply wanting to be thoughtful about the kinds of materials I was using and to engage with my new surroundings, then grew into the collecting, emptying and sewing together hundreds of used tea bags, researching the history of tea in the UK, thinking about the sense of displacement I was feeling after years of moving from place to place, and setting up workshops to have people help me empty the tea while talking about their stories of boat journeys, their idea of home, displacement and what tea means to them in their everyday life. Along side the life size row boat I plan to build with the tea bags, I am compiling a soundscape of the stories, the sounds and the melodies that are unfolding throughout the process. I have discovered an extended way of working by integrating research gathering with creative idea building. The interest that people have shown about this project and the stories they have shared have become a cornerstone to my time here in Cornwall. I have discovered a new sense of self as a creative story teller, as a woman, as an artist. Life and art are indefinable as separate entities; I am completely immersed and loving it all.
