Taking stock

As this strange summer draws to a close I’ve had a few quiet days and thought I would write a short update here. I spent my break walking and at my allotment where the rhythms of gathering and processing have speeded up and I’ve noticed a definite shift into autumnal colour. My area of Bradford is about to come out of a local lockdown, the schools return next week and I’m hoping that some better structure might emerge for me in my working days.

Autumn colour at the allotment

Lockdown colours from my backyard, allotment and kitchen waste

I’ve continued to work throughout the Covid crisis, trying to keep some momentum in my PhD, my ongoing project in East Lancashire, the next stage for other projects including the Bradford Covid-19 Stitch Journal and final edits for my second book (I’ll be writing more about this next month). It has felt very improvised and fragmented at times, but I’ve also made new connections with textile practitioners, writers and researchers during this period and begun some interesting conversations. I’ve hugely missed the regular contact of my community practice and thought a lot about who is missing in the increasingly digital-focussed delivery of workshops, talks and projects. Through it all I’ve kept up my daily stitching practice, now in its eighth year. The repetition of my stitches, particularly on more difficult days, has been hugely beneficial to me.

Colour in the allotment dye bed

This autumn I’m looking forward to resuming some teaching, with an in-person stitch retreat at Hope & Elvis and an online session with Selvedge about stitching as a daily practice.

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If you have time and access do listen to Stitching Souls, a beautiful documentary from the BBC World Service by Maria Margaronis about the Gee’s Bend quilters. I have also spent some time reading the excellent articles on the Decorating Dissonance website including this interesting reflection on lockdown through the life of nineteenth century German seamstress Agnes Richter

Responses in stitch

Participants in the Bradford Covid-19 Stitch Journal have responded to their experience of lockdown using one stitched word, a few of which are shown in this post. As the project has progressed some strong themes have emerged through our online meetings and in written responses from the group. The group is made up of 27 women and we all live in the same geographical area but the clearest thing for me is that everyone is having a very different experience of this crisis. Another recurring theme is around the tactility of textile and the feeling that something is missing when we are unable to handle, look closely at and share our work around a table. A participant commented, ‘I miss the handle of fabric - of other people's work. That just doesn't come across in visual-only media.’

I asked the group to describe how they felt when stitching their chosen word and share some of the responses here:

‘Engaged in a thought and creative process. I have felt a range of emotions both positive and negative and the process helped me to realise and think about what I felt was important.’

‘I thought long about my choice of word. There are probably far more negative words to choose from but when I decided on Grateful I realised that it gave me a very strong good feeling and brought me out of any negative feeling that I might be experiencing.’

‘I felt pleased to be asked this question. It was easy to choose the word, & it came to me straight away, although I acknowledge that I actually no longer feel that way. Stitching the word was quite cathartic & I was happy to share my feelings.’

‘Thinking of the word made me really focus in on how I was feeling during lockdown. I came up with far more words than I had expected. I was obviously responding to the crisis more emotionally than I had previously thought. So during this process I felt a very tearful and exhausted. However once I'd settled on a word I felt that it gave me some focus so felt more grounded by the end of that activity.’

‘I felt the emotions connected to my word, 'overwhelmed' but it did lift me - somehow I was able to get some perspective and feel as though I was processing my experience and dealing with it in some way by engaging with it and explaining it to others.’

The next stage of the project is underway with participants working on a final larger linen square, a fairly open brief that speaks of their lockdown experience. As a group we are also thinking about how our squares might come together, temporarily or permanently.

Bradford Covid-19 Stitch Journal Project

Most of my projects are with people and communities: how does this work in a time of lockdown and social distancing? In the last few weeks I have been looking at my current projects and considering how creative engagement work can be done ‘together apart’. I’ve written a little about this as part of my long-term artist residency for Super Slow Way. I’ve also been pleased to have been offered a Response grant from Bradford Metropolitan District Council for a short textile project working with adults who live in the district. The Covid-19 Stitch Journal is a textile project for adults who would like to contribute to a quilt that explores their lived experience of the current crisis. The project will include a number of online workshops via Zoom to discuss our experiences of this and the wellbeing benefits that a collective textile project may offer in times of difficulty. These sessions will offer practical textile ideas as well as an opportunity to have conversations with others about personal experiences and strategies during this period of social distancing. I hope that those involved will be able to meet to stitch together later in the year. The textiles made during the project will be exhibited locally (venue tbc)and as part of an international conference, Cultural Heritage for Mental Health Recovery 2, in Belgium this December. The project will also be part of my ongoing research with The Open University.

UPDATE: This project is now part of a network of organisations, artists, and projects - The Quarantine Quilt Project - across the UK that are producing quilts and textile projects in response to Covid-19 and the changes it has brought to people’s lives. So far, participating projects include ours and projects in Devon, Oxford, Cambridge, London, Essex, West Yorkshire, and Derbyshire. Some are inviting participation from anywhere.  The network development is being led by Significant Seams CIC with funding from Arts Council England.