I have a creative practice that for over four years has involved making a visual diary with textiles every day - in various increments of time. The data that informs this visual ‘diary’ is crossed referenced from my personal written journal that logs specific daily intentions and reflections and has been on-going for several decades.
This viewing of My Daily Bread primarily includes four completed annual artworks, and one in progress (2020). Each one of these pieces starts on 1 January and goes through 31 December of that calendar year. Each year of the project I have used a different textile method or combination of crafts; and the title incorporates that reference. The individual elements of each annual artwork I refer to as ‘time pieces’. In addition to these main artworks I also have travel logs that chart specific periods of time while I have been on my annual pilgrimages back to North America (and recently Central America as well) and on residential training intensives in Europe and the UK. My trips are usually in the winter and span across two calendar years, and two annual artworks, so making a travel log is a way of isolating the specific travel period. These smaller pieces, that cover shorter durations, also enable me to test out the techniques I plan to use next before I get started and help me prepare for the year ahead in that way. They are made daily alongside the corresponding annual artworks. The aim with all of these pieces, and my current approach to making more generally, is to sustain consistent daily engagement with my creative practice amidst the other demands and distractions of living…thus strengthening the ‘creative core’ of my Being (hence the name of my ‘private practice’). My own creative core daily art practice is an attempt to cultivate well-being, playfulness and curiosity and to explore variation within repetition and structure….within my artwork as well as my life! This work is about intentions and my embodied, mindful attempts to follow through with them. This method of making offers me a tool for daily grounding and reflection; a means of motivation; an outlet for self-expression and a way of marking my daily achievements. It also provides an opportunity to generate dialogue with other people around artful living and other topics.
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This blog...Sharing the processes and practices of Archives
March 2021
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