MOONLIT - A SOLO EXHIBITION
Stitch by stitch story-weaving inspired by lunar folklore
My work captures things at the cusp of change – a moon, a moth, the tide. Using the physical acts of stitching, binding, folding, printing, collecting & preserving to tether the ephemeral, I try to use the ritual of daily noticing, recording and making to foster mindfulness and appreciation of the quiet transformation happening around us. Inspired by traditional folk craft, I embrace the prosaic nature of these techniques to create work that becomes love-letters to the passing of time, transformation and the fragility of life.
My work is a walk through the [deep dark] woods even when you find yourself in the city. I like to discover forgotten and disregarded things; a moulted feather, a lip-stick blot, fingerprints on a mirror, an old love letter or shopping list. To me these found things that have been cast off either unnoticed or because of their insignificance, become an opportunity to tenderly work subtle interventions and try and tell their stories.
My work is influenced by nature and the marks we leave behind and trying to preserve both. I find myself constantly trying to straddle the gap between human control and ordering of data, formation and display and letting nature, the elements, life cycles and time take the lead – adapting my materials according, and in response to, a situation or object as I find it. I want to be able to retain and catch a transient moment, thing or memory and hold it forever; preserving it in some form; solidifying something that barely exists. Saving or documenting it before it’s lost forever.
‘By The Light of the Moon’ : 384 nights | 13 moons
Each night I have stitched an individual ‘moon’ within the circle of an embroidery hoop. I have stitched in sync with each night’s moon phase through 384 nights and seen 13 moons, including a blue moon.
I have stitched with the Crow moon, Pink moon, Milk moon, Rose moon, Thunder moon, Barley moon, Harvest moon, Blue moon, Oak moon, Cold moon, Wolf moon and Hunger moon.
Started just before the UK Covid-19 lockdown, this was intended to be personal month-long stitch ritual, but developed into a project that has lasted a year. This quiet, meditative and mindful, night-time ritual soon became essential in tethering me; the one constant in my day during the turbulent times of the past year.
In the folk-craft tradition I have worked with the materials that I had to hand [particularly as we were somewhat restricted by the lockdown] and I dyed pocket handkerchief squares, and circles of cotton fabric with Indian ink.
[Pocket handkerchiefs, Indian ink, thread, the moon]
‘Moon Cocoons’ : Like a Moth to the Moon
A few months into my practice of stitching moons in the night, the world was thrust into a new kind of darkness. A global pandemic led to complete lockdown. The moon had seen it all before, but it was unfamiliar to us. While we were suspended in time, waiting for hope in our communal isolation I began creating something different with the fragments of moon that I had cut out. They became the cocoons of night-loving moths, spaces of stasis – a pause, waiting for a new life. I was unconsciously creating small emblems of safety when life felt anything but.
[Fabric, thread, paper]
