Embrace...
My ‘word of the year'
We have survived January which always drags by and we’ve made it through some very stormy weather here in Cornwall - although we are still without a phone or internet connection a month on from the monumental winds of Storm Goretti. I can safely say that I have never experienced weather like that before and although the worst of it was only for a few hours it felt and sounded like our home was going to be ripped from its foundations; it was very unnerving. So much damage has been done throughout Cornwall - the sad sight of so many trees uprooted as if they were mere matchsticks, including many here on our farm. This, along with losing tiles on our barn roofs, has somewhat added to our ‘to do’ list but it could have been a lot worse, so we are grateful for that at least!
Changes…
Since my last post there have been a few changes - sadly the little gallery that stocked my felted landscapes has closed in St Ives. Blue Bramble Gallery has had a presence in town for many years so it’s always a shame to see yet another small, local business supporting many local artists, feel unable to continue in the current financial climate. I will miss that thrill of walking through the town and seeing my work in a gallery window. This means I have no physical outlet for my work at the moment…but after the initial feeling of disappointment I’ve realised that maybe that’s okay for this year.
We’ve just started a renovation project on our farm cottages which are the holiday letting side of our business - they were starting to show their age, they needed bringing up to date and we made the mad, MAD decision to knock the two of them into one. We are currently in the depths of knocking down walls, creating huge amounts of mess and rubble and ultimately we have now progressed too far to change our minds!
As we are doing much of the work ourselves this is inevitably going to take up a larger chunk of our working hours this year which is in addition to all the other day to day jobs that need doing around the farm/house/garden/allotment. Bearing that in mind, maybe it’s a strange sort of fate that I now don’t need to think about creating and supplying work to a gallery.
Embrace…
I’ve been giving a bit of thought to what might be my ‘word of 2026’ and there are a few that I’ve been considering but I guess ‘EMBRACE’ embodies them all. Other contenders were ‘acceptance’, ‘joy’, ‘ease’, ‘pause’ and ‘possibility’.
Embracing the change, accepting what can’t be controlled and treating any creative time as an opportunity to have fun and not worry as much about outcomes.
I have a little list of gallery Open Calls I will submit work for if I have some available and I am taking part in a Textile Art exhibition with the Prime Women Artists Group in November this year. That’s enough deadlines for me to ‘embrace’ for 2026…
Studio Notes…
I am currently working on a felted landscape, based on my beloved moorland and whilst it’s taken me a couple of attempts I think I can now get this one over the finish line with a bit more tweaking. Here are some of the close up snippets of it - I love these clips that show how the threads wiggle as they embed themselves in the wool fibres as they mesh together during felting.
I have been a little more challenged with this piece, as I tend to look for strong patterns in the landscape as a basis for a design. This particular scene didn’t have that, but I wanted to portray the ‘hidden’ elements of where ancient settlements have scarred the land and the shapes that they have made when viewed from above. I’m not sure I’ve completely achieved that, but I think there’s a hint of it.
I’m still adding to my ‘field studies’ sketchbook - more recently to do with a neighbouring field full of daffodils which glow gold even on the dullest of days (and we’ve certainly had our fair share of those!) There is a definite pattern there which keeps drawing my eye - the double rows of blooms, the wider earth strips and the grass field that disrupts on the right hand side. There are tall Monterey pines on the top hedge. All these elements are great fun to play with to create different compositions, thinking about differences to make it interesting; thick and thin lines, small and large shapes, flat and textured.
On the recent night of the full ‘Snow Moon’, it rose right up behind the daffodil field and that has now inspired a different set of ideas.
This sketchbook is all about compositions, it’s neither pretty nor particularly tidy, but it’s a really useful resource and a way to record ideas. I do seem to like that ‘design’ element to landscapes, rather than worrying about making it too representational and getting hung up on perspective. Plenty of felting fodder in there for future projects!
Looking back to move forward…
I was reminded recently, by another artist sharing her processes, of all the things I used to do to scratch that creative itch. Things like eco-printing, solar dying (that will have to wait for brighter, longer days!), quilting, stitching, printing…
With a slightly more relaxed approach to my art this year, I’m looking forward to hopefully trying some of these things again when time allows. They are all disciplines that can lead back into felting…but I think it will be nice to have a dabble just for fun! I already have a stitch/art quilt idea in mind, so I’m going to get that set up so that I can work on it in the evenings by the fire when it’s too cold to go into the studio.
Colour…
Another concept I want to try and fully ‘embrace’ is colour! I tend to reach for the same earthy palette when working, so I want to be braver and experiment with some brighter, contrasting colours. I am going to start a new sketchbook just for my abstract colour explorations; I have quite a collection of blank sketchbooks that I keep buying but never use - anyone else relate?? The colour project will be a bit out of my comfort zone, but I’m reminded how much fun I had making this semi-abstracted coastal piece and though it took a while for the finished work to grow on me because it was so different to my usual style, it now brings me a lot of joy when I look at it.
And finally…
I thought I’d leave you with a quote I heard recently which has stayed with me. With the world in which we currently live it seems more important than ever to continue to look for the good and never lose hope.
‘You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming’ (Pablo Neruda)
So, I’m ready to EMBRACE whatever this year has in store for me - if I make a little less art because life is more busy, I’m going to make sure I enjoy doing it and make it more about the process rather than the outcome. Who knows what that might be a springboard for in the future?
Do you have a ‘word of the year’? Do you find it useful?
Until next time, best wishes and stay curious…
Tanya xx
ps: I’m a little later publishing this than I planned as my 4g connection is super slow here whilst we’re without internet, so it’s taken longer than I thought to get pictures uploaded etc! I planned to have it out at the beginning of February…better late than never! Fingers crossed we’re reconnected soon! 🤞🏻
I enjoy your thoughts and works. Thank you.