The title image is a detail from a pair of black jeans with a hole in the knee. A piece of cotton fabric was placed behind the hole, held in place with some taking stitches (later removed) and then made more secure with running stitches, completed with some embroidery that picks up the print on the cotton.

     These samples show ideas for knitted fabrics. Sometimes the hole is a feature!

Throughout our workshop day, we worked on a range of knitted and woven fabrics with holes or tears. The images show the range of ideas and skill levels employed. Below are pieces of denim embellished with other fabrics and stitching.

The running stitches are the easiest to execute; this is a technique used in sashiko mending/stitching. You can build up texture and colour with or without appliqué. Cut up a pair of old jeans instead of throwing them away and then try out some mending. Or make a phone case, a bag, a patch or a pocket out of your work.  Add fabric pen marks. Please yourself!

I met Professor Manfred Schewe many years ago in Oldenburg, Germany. He now lives and works in Cork, in his beloved Ireland, and, like me, has a deep interest in the meeting of theatre and languages. I have presented at one of his conferences at the University of Cork and this year he invited me to contribute to a beautiful collection of 81 sayings about change and the softening of the world we inhabit. Recently published by Schibri-Verlag in Berlin, this anthology brings together authors from fourteen countries, tasked with responding to a saying in no more than two hundred words. Presented in both German and English, these pieces reflect on thoughts for a better world.

https://www.schibri.de/978-3-86863-227-9/81-sprueche-zur-enthaertung-unserer-welt-on-the-softening-of-our-world-81-sayings

In my piece, I write about the value of manual labour with a call to respect those who work with their hands. It’s an offering that is heartfelt among a treasury of contributions that address themes like climate change, relationships, the passage of time, nature and politics. I feel proud to be part of it and I applaud the idea and execution of a great project with themes that affect all of us.

This lockdown period has been a bit of a rollercoaster for some people, me included. Did you start off thinking you’d finally write that novel/ learn a language/ bake sourdough bread/ make over your front room? And how’s it going?

As it eases, I’m taking stock. I didn’t need to be so competitive on Duolingo. Nor am I sure why bugs became the main motif for my embroidery. I had a white shirt that looked a bit like a doctor’s coat. Have I made it more stylish by covering it in fantasy insects? I’m not sure. I’m ready to stop now.

Work is picking up, and time for pleasing myself is precious. I’m thinking that what might keep me on my creative track is some additional purpose. Making something for someone else, sharing a tip, sending a message. The shock of the pandemic persists, and some people are still on their own.

Many years back, after a sad separation, I painted a jungle in my hallway. I’m not the best muralist but every stroke of paint gave me the chance to work out how I was feeling. The story it told was about acceptance and growth.

Over time, the jungle got a bit scuffed and tired. The space had always been narrow and not very pleasing, the result of a poor Victorian house conversion. It suddenly suggested walking through a city full of high rise blocks. Over the next few days those blocks rose up over the foliage, rows of bendy buildings each with many empty windows. They needed populating. We started drawing on the walls.

As Covid-19 rages we have a bit of time on our hands and some of us are getting on with a bit of decorating. Ok, you can go tasteful with your Farrow and Ball if you must or you could get out your colours and get creative. You don’t have to please anyone but yourself. Nobody’s coming round to visit, are they? You can paint over it if you don’t like it. Get everyone involved and tell your story on the wall.

Making something for someone is one small way to stay hopeful. Not long ago, I made a quilt for a close friend who was unwell, using lots of colourful bits and pieces.

Every stitch gave me the chance to reflect on how important our friendship was.  It can take a long time to make something like the quilt and maybe I made it more for me than for him. I like to think he enjoyed its warmth.

Making helps me to connect with people in my family who developed skills for function and decoration. Maybe these crafts sometimes imprisoned women, stuck with their needlework when men went off to do more adventurous things. But everything’s a bit more fluid now and we can make things on our own terms.

Like my smock. It should come in handy when I have to do my own farming.

Everyone knows that German is the language of love. And who doesn’t love to receive a letter? I am writing this as we all find ourselves confined to our homes in the time of Covid-19. We try to connect online with Zoom, Skype, FaceTime, Teams… What about writing to someone? With a pen! It doesn’t have to be as racy as the letters that Vic and Al penned.

Over a very warm weekend in June, people of all ages sat down to write a message to someone they cared about. We tried out our calligraphy, used all kinds of materials: vellum, fabric, coloured papers, lace and wood.

Some embraced the use of German, and others used image or any other language they felt comfortable with. As I sat back and watched them work I was struck by how absorbed they were in the process of creating something for someone else. It prompted conversations between people across the generations in German, English, French, Chinese!

A young man spent over an hour creating this for his partner.

Another man wrote a long, long letter in silence and thanked me for the time he’d had ‘to work something out.’

We may be quarantined for some time. Our lovely postal workers are still delivering the things we send. Wash your hands, get your pens out and mail something to make someone’s day.

At George Green’s and Bow Schools, we thought about brain mapping and how we could show pathways/journeys/the development of ideas using a familiar template, namely the London Underground map. From an actual journey to school to an emotional journey in the head, from invented landscapes to simply mapping the things we like, it was all here.

It seems that memories are stored in many different areas of the brain, not just the hippocampus. In M-SET’s amazing installation ‘inside the brain’, we lit up all the memories we’d created in the workshops at UEL on these giant lamps. Family, events big and small and sometimes just the small things we retain: they all inform the way we see the world.

‘We can actually write on the door?’

Language. Words we like, words we don’t like, words we don’t understand, words that have special meaning for us, words that hurt. Negotiating with each other how to represent the richness of the languages we speak, we created 3 graffiti doors that hung in the installation.

The strips we all made created a fabulous tunnel that everyone could move through and see their own work. Representing the ‘personal’ neural pathways, there were over 120 of these shimmering treasures! This young person is one of the co-creators.

Another participant was Bob, seen here on the chair. We wanted to find an activity that used the planning/ thinking/ designing bit of the brain and asked students to take a basic chair, some newspaper, string and masking tape and create something new. One group created Bob who is pretty dazzled by the occasion.

Another young person engaged in some action art and in the space of about 10 minutes had covered the chair before – quite triumphantly – sitting on it. Before we hung it up of course.

Finally, we wondered what the brain of the future might look like. What functions would it need? Could it be built from uniform pieces? Each student had but a few minutes to work with a hexagonal base and triangles at six stations representing areas including language, colour and light (red, green or blue), creative spark, time and number. Over the course of the morning exhibition on 25th May 2018, it grew and grew. The making of it was a bit like factory work with strict instructions on how to construct the pieces. It was a far cry from the very free approach in the workshops leading up to the final event.

One student from Morpeth School who had enjoyed the opportunity to create without a fixed outcome during the workshops said of this activity, ‘You are oppressing me.’ I noticed it was written on one of the triangles. I couldn’t agree more. The individual brain is an amazing thing. May we hope that it is never replaced by a soulless machine.

https://twitter.com/A_New_Direction    13th – 17th March 2018

https://www.anewdirection.org.uk/blog/andinclusive-at-tate-exchange

This year’s theme was ‘Production: the seen and the unseen’. One of our aims was to make the creative skills of young people with special educational needs and disabilities more visible and to challenge the understanding of ‘access’ to major cultural organisations. We chose to respond to works in the ‘Materials and Objects’ gallery including Magdalena Abakanowicz’s ‘Embryology’.

The photograph above shows how students from two schools working together interpreted the work. Another school photographed the work and made a short film using their photos and voice over to communicate how the work made them feel.

The piece suspended at the back of this image was a response to El Anatsui’s ‘Ink Splash’ using panels of photo montage and water colour laced together. For a constantly shifting installation, what could be better that 300 cardboard boxes? We built with them, we tunnelled through them, we cut them up, we wore them…

On Saturday, someone left this for us all to enjoy.

The now legendary Backdrop were in the house on Saturday with a classic set including ‘Sandwiches’ and ‘Build It’. Adults and children danced in a space resembling a mosh pit with cardboard boxes tumbling around them. You can check out the band’s Youtube channel: backdropVALE.

A school that came in on Friday worked on a collaborative piece that they wanted to leave in the space for the public to add their own stitches to. Throughout Saturday, adults and children came and contributed to this:

Did you know that anyone can give a ten-minute talk in one of the Tate galleries? You can get advice and coaching to give you confidence to stand up in front of people and talk about your response to a chosen work. But what if talking isn’t your thing? Students last week showed how they felt about works such as ‘Quipu de Cobre’ by Sheila Hicks and ‘Tropicalia’ by Helio Oiticica through sign, expressive dance moves and sound effects.

We wanted to know what makes a typical artist. A good question, I think. I hope our work starts some good conversations.

I am working with M-Set – Multi-sensory Educational Theatre – on a project that invites young people from special and mainstream schools to explore the nature and functions of this amazing organ through interactive experiences and installations. In January, we were in residence at UEL with students from the Applied Theatre and Performing Arts course and the department of neuroscience.

While the powerhouse that is Paula Manning led students through a series of multi-sensory exercises and activities and Fred Beaufort created structures and effects in light and sound, my role was to develop a making activity where everyone could create their own ‘personal pathway’ to add to a giant brain. The challenges of space, time and differentiation made the task exciting and – honestly! – pretty hard.

I decided to create long strips of organza of different lengths, each containing a series of pockets where students could insert items that would express personal feelings, ideas and preferences.

We’re planning phase 2 of the project now. There will be more workshops to develop the themes we’ve been exploring. My own particular interest is in finding ways of mapping brain activity . Our work will culminate in an exhibition at UEL towards the end of May 2018.

Look out for further invitations. Bring your knitting.

The Crouch End Festival is in its third year, and Gillian Livingstone and I are offering something different to bring it to the Hornsey Vale Community        Centre.

Meet two women unable to sleep. Lady Macbeth has the hand-washing problem, of course. Pearl Bobblestitch is ever distracted by her book of poems        and things that need knitting. Together they offer some early-evening laughs for those who don’t need their literature to be too high-brow.

Tickets on the door. Suitable for people aged  nine years plus.