10 years on

I realised the other day on the middle one’s 10^th birthday that it must be 10 years since I graduated from Goldsmiths.  In some ways it seems like a life time ago since I was studying textiles there.  So much has happened since and not just in my artwork. 

When I visited Goldsmiths for an Open Day before I became a student, I remember being told that it took on average 10 years after graduation for the textile student to get on the right track for their career.  At the time, I thought, surely not – that seems forever!  Now, 10 years down the line it seems about right.  Things have finally fallen in place as to where I should be going and taking control and teaching from home is exactly what I want to do.  It has taken the 10 years to get to this point.  I don’t think it would have worked any earlier.

An anniversary, like 10 years, is a good time to look back on what I have been doing.  So here are some edited highlights (missing out the low points!) of the last 10 years.

Vigilance V by Gillian Cooper

This was my degree show work. 

Vigliance VIII by Gillian Cooper

I almost made these,

Shelter by Gillian Cooper at Delta Studios

...but at the last minute decided to take advantage of the digital knitting machine as I knew I would not have access to it later.  Some of these knitted pieces later toured in a Scottish Arts Council exhibition, the Cutting Edge.  I finally made the Shelter pieces for the Loch Lomond Quilt Show gallery.  They now live in my garage!

the 37 steps installation by Gillian Cooper at the Changing Room, Stirling

I was ‘Craft Practitioner in Residence’ at Duncan of Jordanstone School of Art in Dundee for a number of months.  It was fantastic opportunity to create a new body of work – the 37 steps, which went on to give me my first solo exhibition at the Changing Room in Stirling.

3 of the 37 steps by Gillian Cooper

This led on to creating the Unsung Muses series, which has occupied me for the past five years.  Initially it was shown at the Festival of Quilts, and this year had a number of outings, including to the European Patchwork Meeting in France and a couple of solo exhibitions in the UK. 

Unsung Muses at the European Patchwork Meeting

Over the past 10 years, I have written for a number of textile publications, given talks to quilt (and other) groups and started running workshops.  The teaching part of my life took a huge step this year when I converted my home studio into a teaching room and started running textile classes from home.  I can’t believe how popular the C&G in patchwork and quilting is and the dedication of the lovely students.  It is enormous fun. 

Facing Time by Gillian Cooper

Looking at this on paper, it doesn’t seem that much, but I’ve also had two more children and they do take up a lot of time – which is great.  We also moved to Scotland.  And how could I forget to mention the PomPom Festival – that really was a bit nuts.

Balfron PomPom Blossom Festival

So, not bad for 10 years.  My work has greatly developed, in ways I couldn’t have imagined and at the moment, I am loving playing with and sharing all different types of surface design.  I’m getting ready to think about the next big art project and spending lots of time teaching and writing.  It will be interesting to see what the next 10 years lead to.

PomPoms on a jaunt to Stirling

 

The PomPoms came out to play again at the weekend as part of the Stirling Fringe Festival.  We put them up in Baker Street Gardens in Stirling in the pouring rain (and I mean pouring).  Although it is a relatively small public space, the PomPoms looked fabulous there.  They really brightened up the park and, perhaps because the space was more confined, they seemed to have a bigger impact than when they were spread all over Balfron.  Strangely, I enjoyed the event more this time.  I think it was because it was time limited and I'm not as exhausted with running the whole event.  Also, I knew it would work and that the reaction would probably be good, whereas it was totally unknown territory when I did it for the first time.

Despite the doomsayers who believed that the PomPoms would be decimated by vandals, there was no real damage done to any of them and only a couple went missing – actually better than in our small country village.

So the PomPoms are now spread across my studio floor and the car boot trying to dry off.  It will take some time. Then I need to get to work sorting them out.  I'm hoping we can pass some on to other events and sell off others to raise money so we can run future events like this.  So if you know of any worthy causes, let me know.

 

 

 

FABFEST! and Open Studios

The last few weeks have been phenomenally busy, as I knew they would be and I am now partly counting down the days/hours to our holiday, partly in relief at the idea of a break and partly in complete panic at the number of things I still have to do beforehand (and that doesn’t even include packing yet!).  But it has also been lots of fun.

After all the PomPoms went up, I had to catch up with all the PomPom blogging and publicity and then really get to work on my tasks for FABFEST!.  FABFEST! took place over four days from 13-16 June and was Balfron’s first ever arts festival.  It was organised by our not-for-profit arts organisation, FAB Arts, which means in reality, Dawn, Frances and myself.  Just like the PomPoms, FABFEST! went down a storm. 

Alex Gray signing books

Liz Arthur answering questions

I would have loved to visit all the events, particularly the author readings by Alex Gray and by Liz Arthur, but at the times they were talking I was helping out with a pre-schooler story-telling and puppet session and then leading a felt making workshop.  One of the time changers that appear in the Harry Potter books would have been really useful over the past month!

Wendy Woolfson telling stories

My felt making workshops were a great success and I enjoyed them too.  There was some lovely felt made, mostly for the first time and a real enthusiasm for classes to continue in the autumn. 

Liz with her felt landscape

Susan with her felt landscape

On the Saturday, my children’s art classes, ArtWorks had their annual exhibition, along with some free drop-in activities I had devised.  Dawn, who runs the classes with me was running the overall festival, so this part was down to me.  Again, lots of enthusiastic visitors and we had to end up recycling the print blocks as it was so popular.

Printing activity at the Exhibition

On Sunday, I had Open Studios.  It had been a huge effort to get my studio ready.  Unfortunately I have lost the before shot so you can see the difference.  Many of my friends say ‘Wow’ in amazement when they entered – not about my artwork, but the transformation of my studio into a tidy place.  I like the tidy studio (shame about the rest of the house), but I’m looking forward to messing it up again when I start some new work soon...!

One tidy studio!

 

 

 

 

Balfron PomPom Blossom Festival

Following on from the Loch Lomond Quilt Show, life has been beyond frantic... mainly due to the PomPoms.  I was hoping we would receive 1,000 PomPoms as that, I felt, would give us a reasonable coverage over the village.  I have been staggered by the response and last weekend we hung over 2,250 PomPoms from trees in Balfron.  It has been amazing.  The best bit has been all the people looking at them and smiling and talking about them and why they are there (because it seemed like a good idea?).

 

 

I have millions of photos of PomPoms – these are some taken by Alan McCredie, an Edinburgh based photographer.  The PomPom Blossom Festival has also been featured in The Herald, with me standing amongst them – my first national press appearance (this is a link to the article).  Not sure why they had to give my age.  I wanted to say ‘324 and very well preserved!’ but in the end I was boring and honest!

 

 

I am still logging PomPoms, doing photography and blogging them, but also am having to move on to FABFEST!, Balfron’s first arts festival, which starts a week today.  As well as being one of the three organisers (and the PomPoms are part of it), I am running two felt making workshops Friday 14^th June (still place available),curating along with Dawn our ArtWorks exhibition for the Saturday and arranging drop-in art activities to run alongside the exhibition AND I have Open Studios from 11-4 on the Sunday. Better start tidying now!

 

 

PS - I'd better say that FABFEST! and the Balfron PomPom Blossom Festival have been generously funded by Awards for All (Scotland).  We're really grateful for the grant as we have been able to do so much more than would have been the case.  Thanks!

Out & About: Leeds Embroiderers Guild

detail of one of the 37 steps series

After spending the last few months barely leaving Balfron at all, I had my second trip away in eight days at the weekend, when I ventured even further down the M74 and across the border and the Pennines to Leeds Embroiderers’ Guild. I gave a talk about my career to date and they seemed to really enjoy it.  They were a very friendly and welcoming group.

one of the pieces in the Unsung Muses collection

It is rather pleasant for me to give this talk as it gives me a chance to dig out old work and reassess it – some stands the test of time better than other pieces!  And, as the talk gets updated each time I give it, I can get more selective about what work I show!  This time I took some of the 37 steps and some of my Unsung Muses pieces, as well as lots of images of other work.

After the talk, the sun had come out and I was able to take advantage of my brother-in-law’s fantastic garden for another PomPom photo shoot.  These lovely little balls are really taking over my life at the moment... as well as my house!

 

 

In my studio: today

PomPoms waiting to be cut open

I reached the end of today with a panicked feeling that I hadn’t achieved very many of the things I needed to do.  So I started thinking about what I had done and thought I would share it with you to give you an insight into my days. 

Because I work from home and as a real double whammy, I’m an artist, many of my friends seem to think I spend my days sitting drinking tea and watching TV.  After all how else could you account for the lack of housework that goes on here?!  I do drink tea (got a cup right here with me whilst I write), but I also do other things too...!

My days start about 9.20 when I get back from dropping the kids off at school.  The walk back down the road is useful to help clear my brain and switch from kid mode to work mode.  Today was a day when I concentrated on the PomPom Blossom Festival.  Tomorrow it is making my own work and I’m looking forward to that too.

Alice, who owns Wonderland, a lovely gift shop in our village, had offered to sell some PomPom kits for us.  I made up ten new kits, cutting out the templates, having updated the instructions over the weekend to include pictures.

The post van arrived with a box addressed to PomPom Organiser, which was exciting and the contents were great.  Catherine Weir had made PomPoms from wool, fabric, plastic bags and even wadding.  They look fabulous.  Thank you Catherine.

 

I had an appointment to see the headmaster of the local primary school to see if the kids would like to get involved in PomPom making.  All the pompoms I have made have been relatively large and I wanted to try out a little one to see how long it would take and to see if I had got the proportions of the template right.  This was the result. 

 

The meeting went well and all the Primary 4-7 children are going to make PomPoms.  This is great news.  All I need to do is cut 150 sets of templates and teach the teachers how to make PomPoms... but not for another few weeks, so no panic yet!

The Travelling Gallery was visiting the school, so I was allowed to go and have a look.  It was lovely to see the children so engaged with contemporary art as it was explained to them in an interesting way.

On my way home, I picked up another carrier bag full of PomPoms made by the Womens Guild of Balfron Church of Scotland (Thank you ladies!) and delivered the kits along with some leaflets to Alice.

As I arrived home a delivery van drew up and handed me a flat package, so no PomPoms in it.  Instead, it contained five magazines from Stampington in lieu of payment for an article I wrote for Art Quilting Studio about my own work.  I admit I did have a quick flick through, but I am looking forward to reading them more in detail.

 

As the children had friends round to play after school, I was able to creep back into the studio to continue working a bit longer.  I answered some queries from Jane, the editor of Homemade with Love.  I shamelessly begged for some wool and editorial coverage of the PomPoms in a local magazine and got positive responses to both.  Yeah!  I also had some email chats about getting some PomPoms passed on from Glasgow Craft Bomb and about what we could do with them afterwards.

By this time, dinner had changed from tuna with roasted potatoes to tuna with noodles as I had left it too late to do the potatoes!  It then had to change again to tuna with some frozen ready rice as I had forgotten a mouse had nibbled my last packet of noodles.  Gallingly, the kids preferred this processed rice to my normal home cooked version.  And so ended my work day!  No PomPom photography or blogging.  But there is always tomorrow...