Sunday 1 February 2015

It's been an interesting week, a bit of printing and dyeing, a fall down my stairs and a thanking my stars that I have a little paid work upcoming and excitement about a forthcoming showcase exhibition in York for the society of dyers and colourists http://www.sdc.org.uk/
The printing is a continuation and an amalgamation of a couple of projects I am working on. In 2013 I was given a bursary by the sdc to set up a dye kitchen in my work space. I was able to buy a set of scales, some dyes and some fabric with the money they gave me and it really made a difference to me. It allowed me to deepen my knowledge of how different dyes work on different fibres and as knowledge deepens it becomes know-how and that know-how opens up new pathways to explore.
From the sdc project, detailed on my website http://beccajiclfford.weebly.com/projects.html, sprang the work that I made for the Blue Jacket Textile fair in September 2014. I experimented using traditional shibori techniques, folding and tying to dye with rust and indigo and cyanotypes and had some interesting results which at some point, hopefully soon, I will post on my blog and document on my website. 
But this week I have been using dye and print to take my prayer wall project a little further. My prayer wall project is very close to my heart. A creative journey that just seems to give and give and give. A journey that seems to have a way of it's own, a way that I am quietly following and trusting. Is that the nature of prayer ? Is that the nature of creative process ? Where does one start and anther finish ? I don't know. And starting and finishing are also mutable points. But for the record, for my record, amongst other things I have been working on this week I have now begun a new chapter in my prayer wall project that feels like it could be rewarding.