Burning Down

Janet suggested burning a house as well as the archway for a better effect. Now the arch needs to be burnt more...

I like how it looks on the table cloth -

 - not sure I'm ready to burn into that yet!

Village

Mostly more defined houses. Keep them together or rip them apart?

Layered Printing

Lots of monoprints on top of each other. Pleased with this - so far...

Arches

Mmmm... Bit too much definition on the roof of this house, pleased with the steps and door though. Need to stitch the arch now.

I've been exploring the theme of archways. I like the nurturing curve they have, encouraging me to go through and explore beyond my immediate space. Unlike circles, arches do not confine me, but gently lead me further on. Without a door, they provide a glimpse to their other side, imagination filling in the gaps so that before I go through it there is a sense of another reality lying beyond, something different to my current world.

Arches feature in much of John Piper's work. His style appeals to me because his buildings are often blurred and indistinct, but the arches are highlighted, a moment of clarity but also movement, giving the sense of there being something beyond the canvas.

The word arch came from the Latin arcus meaning arch or bow. 'Arc' has the same root and was used in Middle English to mean the passing of the sun from east to west, forming the 'days arc'.* This led me back to the idea of arches as a symbol of movement and development. There is a proscribed frame of time and space, but within that the day is full of possibility.

John Piper's painting of St George Church in Ivychurch, was the starting point for my decaying archway. Finding these photographs of the inside of the church reminded me that the arch is used in buildings because of its strength. Go through it in search of another world, but build on top of it and around it and you will make a solid, immutable structure that will last over a thousand years...

* Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, 2000

Neighbours

I'm enjoying this process - working out just how much stitching is needed to enhance the houses without spoiling them. I like working outside the edges but need the occasional defining marks to provide 'a momentary stay against confusion'.*

*Robert Frost, The Figure a Poem Makes, 1939

Looking, Looking, Looking

Inspired by the simplicity of Alfred Wallis, and going back to the colours and painted effects in my moodboard. Acrylic monoprint on calico, stitched onto layers of linen with a calico backing.

I like the physical layering of this as well as the layering of techniques - both add interest to the simplicity.

As Hussein Chalayan said on Grayson Perry's programme Creativity and Imagination: "the process gives it the layers".