January 2022
Happy New Year, its actually 2022!! I think mentally my internal clock stopped working at the beginning of the pandemic, all days blur into one, years merge into a massive traumatic clump of despair. The constant neck pain finally subsided, and I have just been suffering with my usual pain and fatigue. Im writing this at the very last minute, after spending all day depressed and deflated so please forgive me if this intro sucks. I had a lot of fun and satisfaction with patchworking this month, I had a burning desire to get in front of a sewing machine and face my fears so I did and I felt extremely proud of myself. Mum got me a hot pink tool belt for all my drawing/textiles tools and it made my day, you can see a video of me showing it off! I’ve stopped micro-dosing for now as I completed three months and want to see how I am without, but I did have my first lil mushroom trip which mentally reset me so you can read all about that below. I share some beautiful moments that related to my Paternal Grandma and Grandpa and how much I miss them both. I generally have a lot of generational trauma/favouritism from my Maternal Naana and Nan but this month I was blessed with love, compassion and concern from them which was something I have never had in my life. History is so important to me, especially my own family history so I cherish those experiences with all my heart. I also share more of my daily drawings, some colourful illustrations near the end of this newsletter as well as a video showing 30 Daily Drawings in 30 Seconds. In England/Britain all covid restrictions and rules have been lifted, its pretty much just been accepted here even though thousands of people are dying a week and no one understands the mass disabling of Long-Covid all while hospitals struggle. I hope this months newsletter is not completely all over the place. Thanks for reading and love you
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Recent illustrations inspired by textiles, including history, my anxieties, joys, pride in myself, observations of new tools and machinery.
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When 2022 began, this feeling came over me where I felt I couldnt go any longer without having a go at patchwork. I have been planning on patchwork and quilting for probably two years now, but I have no confidence on the sewing machine. After spending ten years mastering my art of hand embroidery, where the pace is fully in my control, it is hard to adjust to the speed and technology of sewing machines and the pressure of using your foot. Because Ive been planning this for so long, I already have a stash of fabric, quilt rulers and rotary cutter so I was ready to go once I had decided I couldnt go any longer without attempting patchwork. The first week of January I grabbed my rotary cutter and neutral cream fabric and got to work cutting 6.5 and 4.5 inch squares, and Mum got out the sewing machine. I practiced attaching two squares together about a cm into the right side of the fabric in a straight line. The sewing machine is something I just need to practice and practice until I feel more comfortable and in control of the fabric. When Im hand embroidering, problem solving is undoing a knot but with a machine so many different things can go wrong or need adjusting and it will take time to figure that all out. Thankful for mums knowledge and guidance.
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Although I found it satisfying to use my rotary cutter, i thought I would make my life a little easier and purchase what quilters call a ‘charm pack’ which is a pack of precut squares for all your patchwork needs. I chose a pack from a company called Kona, and because I just want to work with neutral fabrics at the moment I went for the Not Quite White palette. Using these were so easy and I’ll definitely be getting more in the future when especially as Im just practicing with squares for now.
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I added the assortment of felt motifs I made last month to some of the patchwork background I have put together this month. You may remember the bigger felt pieces I made in August 2021 about Capitalism causing the climate crisis, I added those to some of the neutral cotton patchwork I made. This gave me two separate pieces, one positive and one negative. I havent figured out how Im going to finish the edges of any of these pieces yet but maybe next month there will be another update.
I had fun patch-working calico, my favourite fabric to embroider on to, which created a super satisfying and sleek surface that was so subtle you could bare see where they attached. I placed all the new felt motifs I made this month onto the patch-worked calico. I stepped back and looked at it and said “is it ok to make art just for the fun of it, with no deeper meaning?” Mum said “it was fun and helped distract from your depression, that is enough of a meaning” and Josh said “youre so silly sometimes” because he knows deep down I know that is a silly question to ask, art means everything and nothing at the same time, it can be serious and it can be a joke. I like the colours and using blanket stitch for the edges and how the felt feels in my hands.
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This little piece of paper says so much to me. Dad found it while he has been doing maintenance work where Grandma worked before she retired. That red writing was done by my Grandma Nancy sometime before 1995 when she managed a building called Omnibus (a warehouse where horse drawn busses were manufactured from 1888). My Grandma hasnt been able to write for years as the type of Dementia she has took her ability to write and read, and then took her confidence to even try a few years ago. She wrote this note for the basement of the building, where I guess she was annoyed at people for not being environmentally friendly or at the least efficiently using the electricity. She grew up in Detroit, USA where “Ta” is not often used to mean “thank you” so her use here makes me smile at her subtle assimilation to british vernacular. She built her house in Ireland with the ethos to be eco-friendly, storing heat from the sun, 5 different kinds of recycling etc so this note just reminds me so much of her as a person before Dementia.
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I completed a three month course of micro-dosing psilocybin on the 22nd of January. From my personal experience, I found the first two months to be the most obviously impactful because I was on the edge of a breakdown everyday. This past month, I have felt emotionally overwhelmed, had a complete breakdown where I felt like a shell of a person, and couldnt stop crying for days. I am an emotional person at my core, it guides my art and is amplified with my Autism/ADHD. I think the reason for my low mood and depressed thoughts coming to the forefront of my mind is the fact we are living through a global pandemic, my chronic pain has yet to be healed or treated and everything just feels chaotic and hopeless in that context. Overall, my creativity and confidence has improved, I have been able to focus on certain podcasts and sewing tasks better than before micro-dosing. I believe the reason I felt such a need to start practicing on the sewing machine after two years of being too scared, was because of the micro-dosing and the calm confidence it gave me. My brain is making more connections, I am even more in touch with my creativity than ever before, practicing drawing everyday and also journaling since the end of October when I began this. Now that I am on no anti-depressants I feel slightly apprehensive about going at life raw (except bud) but the anti-depressants werent working for me in the first place. I have some Psilocybin capsules just in case but for now I am taking it day by day.
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The war on drugs is a failure, an expensive, racist, classist attempt at controlling human nature and science. Humans have used plant medicine for thousands of years, they have used plants to have psychedelics experiences through their faiths, they have been intoxicated and enjoyed different states of consciousness for so long across so many nations for so many reasons. It is only colonial/christian/capitalists who have made nature illegal in the past few hundred years to varying extents and for varying motives.
I have been intrigued about trying psychedelics not just for this rich history, but also the mental health benefits, escapism or even physical health benefits for disabled and chronically ill people, as well as for my own creativity/artistry.
I had my first lil trip in the garden shed with a log fire, hot coco and sparkly lights. It was full of light, laughs, flashes of colour and patterns emerging in the fibres of the fabric curtain and grains of wood on the deck. The first and major thing I noticed was just how alive the curtain was, i could see the warp and weft of the fabric dancing/glitching, I saw the whole curtain blow and breathe as if there was a calming breeze making it move, I couldnt believe my eyes. I was very much in reality, and had thoughts of “why am i doing this” “whats the point” but i think this was all my anxiety manifesting which is to be expected for my first time. Its winter so the trees around me were more like twigs which didnt look bad, but didnt look amazing like i know flowers and lush green leaves will look in Springtime. I saw warm light in my peripheral vision which was kind of distracting but caused joy and childlike laughter. I drew the above diagram while I was tripping which was jokes in itself, as I was seeing double and everything was squiggly so I laughed to myself as I leaned like the tower of Pisa and sketched out what i was feelings and thinking and seeing. I traced my pencil doodles on my ipad and added some bright colours to try to portray what I saw which were flashes of light and colour. I cant wait to be in the sunshine around nature and have these experiences.
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Mum got me a hot pink tool belt for my art tools to cheer me up, she knows me so well.
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I was scrolling the twitter timeline as you do, and a suggestion came up ‘Based on tweets you like’ and I thought it looked very familiar… The post was from an architecture and town planning enthusiast, of a GIF showing a black and white image of a wooden model of Piccadilly Circus, London from 1968. Pretty obscure to most people, but to me it looked extremely similar to a wooden model of Piccadilly Circus that we have in our family home, right in our living room where we see it everyday. I clicked through and found out the footage was from Piccadilly Tomorrow Exhibition in 1968 so I typed that into google and found the 55 second video that the GIF was clipped from. To my shock, halfway through watching the black and white footage, I see the side profile of my Grandpa Noel, who is holding another prototype for the same project. I checked Gramps CV where it says from 1965 - 1982 he worked as Architect/Town Planner for Westminster City Council in various roles. In 1968 the video shows him early in his career being used as a model himself to show a display at the Exhibition. He loved taking self potraits, as well as record his voice so I laughed to myself seeing him happy in front of the camera attention towards him. By 1972, he was leading the Piccadilly Circus Redevelopment Scheme which is why we have a model of a completely different iteration of the concept. As a Londoner, Im glad none of this work ever happened as it would have ruined the classical architecture of the area which is already iconic, for the benefit of more shops. I felt so lucky to experience such a special moment seemingly by coincidence (I dont believe in those, I think the stars have to align perfectly for certain things to happen) so I took that as him saying hello, either that or the algorithms are just so spot on its scary. This september will mark 20 years since he passed, I feel so connected to him always and this is just another example of how much of him exists within me.
Above are screenshots of the tweet and video, below are colour images from Grandpa’s archive of the 1972 model in exhibit, as well as his self portrait with the model in the background.
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Experimenting with digitally editing my felt motifs together in different formations on my ipad is fun, playful and colourful. Id eventually love to make a whole range of these small motifs to use in digital compositions, sort of like those felt games you used to play with as a kid where you can create a farm scene or dress up games, sticking the sun to the sky blue background, different types of nature or clothing and accessories. The felt pieces lack detail but they have a great texture and are really fun for me to make.
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I started drawing daily on the 7th of December, so after my first whole month I wanted to make a video of 30 Daily Drawings in 30 Seconds.
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