Change {part one}

Hello Friends ~~~ As the seasons turn it is with some surprise I feel caught unaware, and I realise this week sees the Vernal Equinox on March 20th,  we are half way through the first half of the year with Easter in a couple of weeks, and hurtling towards the Summer Solstice.  The days are growing deliciously longer, but to where did the year fly? How did it turn so quickly by? Some days seem so much longer than others as ferocious Winter gales  have pounded us and pushed us into Spring, yet surely and steadily Winter lies behind.

My thoughts turn to one word ~~~change~~~ and all the changes the turning seasons bring, each one in their own unique glory. As each season changes and turns, so our lives change and turn ~~~ yet there is a constancy to that change ~~~

“Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence.

Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance.

Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence.

Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.” 

~~~Yoko Ono~~~

It goes without saying, we are, collectively, currently going through change of an unprecedented nature on a global scale.  Everything that was once the unchallenged familiar path we trod is now no longer straight or true.  Even when we are all vaccinated and have the virus on the run, I don't think we will ever be able to return to the world as it was a year and a half ago.  We are changed forever.  In some ways, I feel we are being given a second chance, but many are rejecting this opportunity to change our behaviour and put things right in our world.  From now on, my life will always be about Hands; Face; Space.

Recently, I was in my attic and came across something I made years ago, as part of an art course I took in 1998.  The group visited Castell Henllys, a recreation of an Iron Age Village, where we gathered research.  Upon our return to the studio we had three days to collate our research and then design and create a final outcome.  I confess, I may have gone into this with, what turned out to be, a completely unjustified preconception of how our ancient ancestors lived.  All that was about to change.

On the day we visited Castell Henllys, I was unwell with a feverish cold and after a short while exploring outside I hunkered down inside one of the huts where there was an open hearth with a roaring wood fire in the centre of the hut which radiated warmth, comfort, and cosiness to an extent that I'd never experienced before.  Any conceptions I'd ever had of how our Iron Age ancestors stayed dry and warm, protected from the elements, changed right at that moment and melted into the flames that seemed to dance across the centuries that lay between us, as my preconceived ideas disappeared up, dissolving with the rising smoke.

This was where the clan gathered, to eat, sleep {in beds around the edges of the hut} and tell their stories of an evening when the day's work was done.  I was amazed by the cleanliness and comfort as the conditions seemed primitive with a dirt floor; hewn logs for surprisingly comfortable, posture friendly seating; and an open space simply covered by woven fabric for an entrance which offered little or no protection from the elements, yet here I sat, incredibly comfortable, warm and dry, in the half light and in a haze of wood smoke.  More conceptions over comfort and community changed.

The walls of wattle and daub were adorned with decorated wooden shields, and the roof of tightly packed reeds raised high above my head supported by tree trunks and sturdy branches.  Somehow, it made up for the open door and I soon found myself forgetting that I was unwell. These people had building skills and took pride in their interiors by decorating them. Yet more conceptions changed.

I began to experience an immense and overwhelming feeling of connection to the natural world, and as if the spirits of the ancient ones were anchoring me to a new place of belonging, as I consciously drifted into another time. As I was becoming attuned, so I changed.

As my eyes adjusted to the low light, I let my gaze wander around the space and was amazed at the skill and craftsmanship, honesty and authenticity, in everything that came into my new found focus. Beautifully woven reed baskets, iron pots and pans, iron and wooden utensils, a fire dog, woven blankets on the beds, and woven curtains to separate the beds into cubicles, the guides dressed in woven garments that had a beauty only seen in hand dyed and hand woven cloth. These were made by a people who relied upon raw materials found in the environment around them.  Everything came from nature, and would eventually decay and return to the land from which it came; changed from what it was to become something else, and to change again as it no longer served its purpose.  And so my perceptions and conceptions continued to change.

I was particularly taken by the weaving looms, basic, yet quite recognisable as the forerunners of our modern day looms, and eventually these were the primary force behind the physical construction of my final outcome.  The skill and art of weaving seems to have remained a constant, having changed little over the millennia, other than the mechanisation.

These were a people who lived in a community, individuals but in harmony, together; at one with the land and nature; respect for each other and for the land on which they depended; who wasted nothing, and created artefacts that were both useful and functional, and beautiful.  My opinion of who they were and how they lived could not have been more changed.

At this particular time, I was going through great personal changes.  I was going through a divorce, a major life change which, as anyone who has gone through divorce knows brings changes on many, often complicated levels.  I also did not know that the insignificant cold I had was the start of a significant life long change in my health.

My final outcome had to reflect the profound emotional and abstract changes I experienced that day, as well as my physical observations, and it seemed fitting to bring everything together in a woven hanging.  I eventually constructed one by hand, from a mixture of found, reclaimed, and recycled objects, with an underlying feeling of disintegration, mutability, and change, which is how I responded to the information I had gathered ~~~ combined with the deep and meaningful personal experiences I was going through at the time, and representative of my love for, and work with textiles ~~~ as outlined in my process, following.

Back in the studio my research progressed and I processed my hand drawn sketches, photographs and other images along with my  experiences gleaned at Castell Henllys; two things seemed to stand out.  First, the were the way in which our ancestors utilised nature and found objects, changing them to purpose; and second, the mutability, the changeability, of those objects within the circle of life. Having changed from hunter~gatherers to settled farmers, the Iron Age Celts still relied on the bounty of nature for their food, medicine, clothing, shelter, enclosures and protection, weaponry, and more. We now know that they had a sense of aesthetic and, amongst other things, changed plants into dyes for colouring their cloth, their art, and their bodies.  Woad was a primary source of the particular shade of indigo blue associated with the period. They used trees and reeds that grew locally and changed them into beams and roofing for their constructions and animal pens, and grew grain to harvest and change into flour for food. I drew on all of these things, and more, bringing them together in a woven by hand wall hanging that was not precious in any way. I just let my hands respond to the found materials, and created something in full knowledge that the mutability, the changeability, of the materials chosen was part of the outcome.

Fallen sycamore seeds and grain husks as the piece deteriorates and falls apart returning to the earth

Lavender grown in, and gathered from, my garden incorporated into the weaving

Everything used was found and recycled materials, all in careful consideration with my theme Change.

I used found twigs and branches, wheat stalks, sycamore seeds, some old blue cord to recycle and to represent woad {I did not have the time to find woad and prepare it myself as I only had two days in which to complete the project} I brought everything together by hand, as they would have done in the Iron Age.  I incorporated seeds found at the site itself.

Roughly made clay weights created in response to Iron Age weaving looms

In the closing statement of my presentation, I emphasised the mutability, the changeability, how the Iron Age settlement had returned to the earth and was recreated again, how the circle of life continues, and how my weaving will slowly return to rejoin the earth from whence it came ~~~ ever changing, ever present ~~~

Over the years, twenty or more, that lie in between,  I have watched this weave do exactly what it was intended to do.  Change.

My Friends ~~~ we are in an unprecedented time of enormous change, where the only constants are the slow turning of the wheel of the year and the endless weaving of our stories, as we drift on unseen forces, from season to season. As the year turns, let us remember that as we move through Spring, our antipodean cousins move through Autumn ~~~ ever constant in the circle of the ever~changing year ~~~

Until next time

Stay safe, stay well.