Life as Creative Practice

My creative practice, and how I live, is changing. They are becoming more as to be one and the same.

Our interconnectedness, in all ways, with each other, with nature, is something I’m increasingly aware of - again, we are one and the same.

My creative practice up to this point has been centred on connection to a place or landscape. This led on to handwoven designs, and, photography and writing in the form of a blog. I’ve been trying to do this ‘business’ thing, to design and make products. Even though my way of making and the materials I have chosen are based on ethical and environmental considerations, it still hasn’t sat well with my soul. I’ve felt that the products which I’ve made are only fueling the idea that we need so many ‘things’. Yes, we need the means to keep ourselves warm and maybe even softness and comfort in the form of textiles for the home, but, that wasn’t the place from where the shoved attempt into a business began.

So, the desire to make faded, as I didn’t know another way.

In the months before beginning study on the Art, Space, Nature course, the idea of a creative practice being simply life, and living with intention in all I do, found it’s way into my heart and mind with increasing conviction.

Each of our lives have meaning, but a sense of individual purpose can be lost when we forget, or have never been shown, our elemental collectivity.

I want to make, and I want to make from a place of observing, exploring, sharing and collaboration with all of life.

In a recent talk at Edinburgh College of Art, environmental and ecological artist, Newton Harrison, stated: “a work of art has a job to do.”

Maybe my work will be to create pieces which bring comfort, maybe it will be to help build community and remind us of our interconnectedness with each other as part of nature, maybe my work will offer all of this, or something else entirely.

Whatever if may be, although it can be easy to forget at times, we all have value in this world. Let’s remind each other and ourselves of that whenever we’re able.