' Home coming', 2018

I will be joining a fab collection with eighteen wonderful artists at 

Cabinet

I'm so delighted to be a part of this collection as it has given me the opportunity to consider how to display my work connecting weaving, performative walking and storytelling in a Gallery space. With thanks to Jenny Timmer for the invitation and also the inspiration.

curated by Jenny Timmer

at Espacio Gallery from  April 9th - 14th

I'd love to see you at the PV on Thursday April 11th , 6 - 9 pm, pop in and see what is in the collection at Cabinet !

A Walk for Terminalia with Thread and Word. 23/02/2019 

(for more about this walk please see previous blog postings.)

‘sumak kawsay’*

This photo taken at Reculver , during a walk on Wednesday.

 A Playlist

Woody Guthrie - Waiting at the Gate : youtube.com. https://binged.it/2GQ2FJQ 

Inti Illimani :   youtube.com. https://binged.it/2Scyb6z

Carlos Valera: Muros y Puertas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-10VQQtAnw

Jackson Brown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwT0MI_tlMY

Nina Simone : Here Comes the Sun. https://youtu.be/NJiC6cA3dUA

Cat Stevens/Yusuf “where do the children play” 
where do the children play
(contributed by Virginia Fitch)

Happy listening!

http://www.elspeth-billie-penfold.com 

Here a pencil weave drawing of part of our route 

* Sumak kasway (quechua) “ ‘goodliving’ and interculturality….centred in the indigenous world view ,.. it aims to overcome the Western model of individualist thought and the dominant concept of development centred in the market” Interview with Pablo Sanaguano, Maria Fernandez Cartagena

A Walk for Terminalia with Thread and Word - Some context for our walk .

This walk takes place February 23rd in Seasalter, on the Kent Coast.

http://terminaliafestival.org you can check the festival out and find us under events.

Inti

As I prepare for this walk with Thread and Word there are some  connections that I have made over the last week that have contributed to my thinking about this walk that I thought would be worth sharing.  I mostly carry these ideas around in my head and have found that writing these ideas down does clarify my thinking as I try to explain them. Although I have to admit some ideas are a leap of faith and associated with feelings you carry in your heart as you will no doubt gather if you read this.



The first has been connecting my thoughts about the solar panels proposed for the landscape in Seasalter with the  Inca deity' s  Inti, the God of the Sun, and Mama Pacha, Mother Earth . I was born in Bolivia and grew up in Lima, Peru. At school we learnt about the Incas probably in the same way as children in England learn about the Romans. So I tend to draw on this bank of knowledge using the mythic method, a method identified  by TS Eliot and James Joyce, which draws on myth from the past as a way to help us connect with the present.

Today I walked in Seasalter and thought about how important it is to feel this connection with the earth and the sun. In Peru there are no figures for Mother Earth (Mama Pacha), aside for those made to sell to tourists, as Andean people believe she can be felt in every place, at every moment and in every living being.  Where do the thousands of solar panels proposed for this site fit in to this scenario, I wonder?

Andean people still believe strongly in the importance of living in harmony with nature and not taking too much from Pachamama. How will Mother Earth change if the rays of the sun are diverted from the land and harnessed as energy ? I am not against a greener energy but as I walked I wondered how much energy do we really need? Should we reflect on our role as consumers ? Where are the boundaries to our consumption?




There are ten of us walking to celebrate Terminus, the Roman God of boundaries. We will be reading poetry, listening to music and meditatively knotting ropes. I have made the ropes for this walk by hand in my studio , they are in the photo on the right.

This practice also derives from my knowledge of the Incas and the records that they kept through a system of knotted ropes called Quipus. To this day the village members, who are trained in their roles as  Quipucamayocs in villages in the Andes, are able to read the knotted ropes that our text based society is unable to translate. Although there are theories and explanations offered by researchers and anthropologists there is still a mystery in the artefacts which I love.







We will reflect on our thoughts at the end of the walk when we attach our knotted ropes to our Vara ( Pole) . Below is the Vara I have made for this walk with a strap that I have woven on an inkle loom . The weave is symbolic of the land we will be walking around and I will explain this on the walk.

A Vara for Terminalia

This Vara (Pole) will then join the collection of 12 Varas in my studio.I have been leading walks and assembling these Varas since 2015.  Each Vara holds the ropes knotted as a record of a particular walk which I have led supported by friends, academics and artists.


I would like to thank all those who are joining me on this walk and giving their support in making the Vara contributing to an exchange of ideas, meditative knotting and poetry writing in the pub at the end. This is the first time we will take the Vara on the walk with us and then put the ropes on to the Vara together as a group. I usually take the ropes back to my studio and then assemble it there on my own. I think it will add to the ritual of the walk and am looking forward to seeing how this develops.

I am hoping that our poetry writing will be taking a leaf out of ecopoetics as described by the founder of the ecopoetics journal Dr Jonathan Skinner (Warwick University)  who will be joining us on this walk. We will be locating our poem in and through  the 'site' rather than kinds of 'writing':

"Taking writing out of the classroom, the bookstore and the library even out of the book itself shifting the focus from themes and styles to an institutional critique of green discourse itself  and to an array of practices converging on the oikos, the planet earth that is the only home our species currently knows"(1).

 I'm looking forward to seeing what we come up with.

Looking forward to celebrating Terminalia with you all on Saturday!


(1) https://jacket2.org/commentary/jonathan-skinner

A walk for Terminalia with Thread and Word.

On February 23rd in Seasalter, on the Kent Coast.

http://terminaliafestival.org you can check the festival out and find us under events.

By way of an explanation, we will be celebrating Terminalia with Thread and Word in Seasalter through a walk with poetry readings ( you are welcome to bring a contribution) .

Apart from walking we will engage in the meditative knotting of ropes. I will supply the ropes.



Our intention is to explore the liminal space that surrounds us .


In Seasalter.there is a proposal to cover the area we will be walking with 1.000’s of solar panels as tall as double decker buses . The area we are walking in is shown in the photo on the right.


The word liminal comes from the Latin word limen, meaning threshold – any point or place of entering or beginning.

A liminal space is the time between the ‘what was’ and the ‘next.’ It is a place of transition, waiting, and not knowing. Liminal space is where all transformation takes place, if we learn to wait and let it form us.

The act of walking and knotting ropes will allow us to think about where we are now and how our world might be transformed .











We will also be reading some poetry and you are welcome to bring your own contribution if you so wish.

We will document this experience on a Vara or pole , as shown in the photo on the left.

I have made the weave for our Terminalia Vara . Seen on the right. and it is an attempt to map the terrain. (I will give you my account of this on the day).


We will be attaching our ropes to the Vara at the end of the walk ( in the pub 😊) .We will also use the ropes and the knots to order our thoughts in an attempt to write a poem, also in the pub!

Looking forward to walking and sharing this experience with some of you on February 23rd.

The walk is free but numbers will be limited and you are advised to book.
For tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-walk-with-thread-and-word-for-terminalia-tickets-55854732007

THREAD AND WORD - A WALK WITH SHRINES 

AT THE MARGATE BOOKIE 

A final posting about A Walk with Shrines. Elaina Arkeooll  reflects on her Ofrenda' Blue Beard's box', Guy Debord and The Book of Proverbs           

Elaina's words:

'Blue Beard's Box- a response to 'The Hoarder' by Jess Kidd 

The thread that winds from my practice to this show, and Elspeth’s, Ofrendas ' at Margate Bookie / Margate Festival, is cast outwards from ‘The Society of the Spectacle’ Guy Debord.

I share with Guy Debord the dubious reputation of committing a detournement with the wisdom of The Book of Proverbs 16 ;27-29  

²⁷ Idle hands are the devil’s workshop; idle lips are his mouthpiece.^[a]

²⁸ An evil man sows strife; gossip separates the best of friends.

²⁹ Wickedness loves company—and leads others into sin.^[b]

It might be said that a hoarder barricades the corporeal self within a fortress of things that all become, after the passage of time, and the weavery of cobwebs and whispers of settling dust, of equal weight and value.

The slightest disturbance to the accretions may prove fatal to the fragile reality the hoarder has constructed whereby to withstand the passage of time.

This is Bluebeard’s Box, occupied by remnants of a brassiere, white ankle socks, the collected dander of an electrician’s beard, saved for many months and saturated with the odour of nicotine, a random scrap of lurid nylon stuff, and 1.25mm enamelled copper wire, two or three strands of an 'cat gut' saturated with rosin........a box labelled Evidence addressed to Attilla the rest of the address redacted .......

It proposes that whitewashing never conceals stains without trace. It implicates the cleansing brush of revelation and the implications of exposure and the subsequent consequences.'

Footnotes:

1. Proverbs 16:27 Idle hands are the devil’s workshop; idle lips are his mouthpiece, literally, “A worthless man devises mischief; and in his lips there is a scorching fire.”
2. Proverbs 16:29 Wickedness loves company—and leads others into sin, or “An evil man deceives his neighbor and leads him into loss.”

A Walk with Shrines was part of Margate Festival 2018:Now, which was funded by Turner Contemporary, Dreamland and Kent County Council.

WITH THANKS TO ANASTASIA MILLER FOR PHOTOGRAPHY.

A LINK BELOW. TO ANNA BOWMAN'S VIDEO WITH FOOTAGE OF PROCESSIONAL WALKING AND OF OFFERINGS CREATED TO FORM A LITURGY TO FOUR BOOKS BY FOUR AUTHORS AT THE AUTUMN BOOKIE IN MARGATE.




A WALK WITH SHRINES by Thread and Word from Anna Bowman on Vimeo.

Thread and Word - A Walk with Shrines 

At The Margate Bookie                               

Film maker Anna Bowman takes some time out from a busy filming schedule in Yorkshire to reflect on her experience of filming A Walk with Shrines in Margate.

"A WALK WITH SHRINES  - Anna Bowman

Earlier this year, when I interviewed Elspeth (Billie) as part of a short documentary about the exhibition Memories…There’s Always Tomorrow at the Gallery, St Pancras Hospital, in London she asked me if I’d be interested in filming a walk. I said yes, having no idea what it would involve.

It turned out to be an extraordinary experience Nine artists’ beautiful ofrendas (offerings) formed temporary shrines to stories and poems by four visiting authors at the Margate Bookie. The film celebrated the meditative walk Elspeth devised and led, with artists and other participants processing along the sea front, up the cliffs, to the Winter Garden and the War Memorial, then back to the Turner Contemporary Gallery.

Filming was a challenge.  My work is collaborative and usually filmed in galleries or at events where I have a quite a bit of control over what I film. Here there were the elements in full force – crashing waves, howling wind, some brilliant sun – all the seasons in Margate in two days. 

It was a wonderful collaboration with Elspeth and the artists who made the ofrendas. I was touched by everyone’s generosity, as some interviews and readings needed to be re-recorded as the sound of wind was over powering.  I asked Anastasia if she would film some of the walkers on 29^th, so we could see them from in front as well as from behind. I would love to collaborate with her in the future, if the opportunity arises."

A Walk with Shrines was part of Margate Festival 2018:Now, which was funded by Turner Contemporary, Dreamland and Kent County Council.

WITH THANKS TO ANASTASIA MILLER FOR PHOTOGRAPHY.

A LINK BELOW. TO Anna Bowman's VIDEO WITH FOOTAGE OF PROCESSIONAL WALKING AND OF OFFERINGS CREATED TO FORM A LITURGY TO FOUR BOOKS BY FOUR AUTHORS AT THE AUTUMN BOOKIE IN MARGATE.



A WALK WITH SHRINES by Thread and Word from Anna Bowman on Vimeo.

THREAD AND WORD - A WALK WITH SHRINES 

AT THE MARGATE BOOKIE 

Taking time to reflect with Maggy Rodd

An introduction by Elspeth (Billie ) Penfold

I have known Maggy for a number of years through The Turner Contemporary Studio group and the Journeys with The Waste Land project, also at Turner Contemporary. I have always been impressed by her skill and inventiveness with thread and textiles.

It is always a pleasure to work with someone as talented as she is and even more so when you discover they have a hidden talent. I never knew that Maggy used to be a braillist and was thrilled when this came to light as a part of this project. Her piece in response to award winning poet Owen Lowery's Transitions poems took my breath away and you can hear her explanation about it on the film A Walk with Shrines, attached below.

Owen's poems in the landscape

Owen Lowery is a tetraplegic who came to the Margate Bookie and performed his poems dealing with the subject of transitions and transformations.  Maggy's piece speaks volumes about what, because of disability, it feels like not to be able to access parts of life that we often take for granted.



Here Maggy reflects : 

I have had a life-long love affair with textiles but that does not mean I don’t experiment with other mediums when challenged.  

For 3 of my 4 ofrendas I decided to make journal quilts (a 3 layered, A4 sized, textile piece).  

The journal quilt format is used by quilters and textile artists to experiment with ideas before committing to a larger piece.  I have used this format many times in the past to create collages to document other projects I am involved in. 

For A Walk with Shrines, I made a quilt for each book.  One book I had read cover to cover, the second I was half way through reading at the time of making and the third quilt was inspired by the book’s title.

My fourth ofrenda was a purely personal response to poetry in general.  The techniques I used were patchwork, machine quilting, embroidery, free machine embroidery, photo transfer onto fabric and Braille.

I have always enjoyed working with other artists and this experience was no exception.    Whilst the shrines were small in size, the artistic voice from each ofrenda made a huge collective impact. 

 It was a joy to see such a varied selection of pieces coming together each time we stopped walking to build the shrines.   After we had placed our individual works on the shrine, there were a few seconds of silence.  For me, this was a time to give thanks for my skills and the pleasure I get from being able to create.










Thank you Elspeth, for inviting me to join yourself and the other artists.  This was a unique experience and a privilege to be part of."

Maggy Rodd

A Walk with Shrines was part of Margate Festival 2018:Now, which was funded by Turner Contemporary, Dreamland and Kent County Council.

WITH THANKS TO ANASTASIA MILLER FOR PHOTOGRAPHY.

A LINK BELOW. TO THE VIDEO WITH FOOTAGE OF PROCESSIONAL WALKING AND OF OFFERINGS CREATED TO FORM A LITURGY TO FOUR BOOKS BY FOUR AUTHORS AT THE AUTUMN BOOKIE IN MARGATE.



A WALK WITH SHRINES by Thread and Word from Anna Bowman on Vimeo.