Process

Printed textile sculpture ‘Speculum Mundi’, 2025

After a busy period launching the press release for ‘Reading Forms’ my new site-specific exhibition (more here) , I am managing now to share a little more here about the process behind the scenes. Being particularly interested in process art, I have also been exploring this art form as part of the exhibiton, where developmental samples and test pieces become part of the finished collection of work. The first image above is ‘Speculum Mundi’ a title I have borrowed from one of the books in the Librarys collection; A mirror of the world? is perhaps the translation, anyway, I loved the sound of it and it felt fitting once I had made this piece.

Above, in the gallery of smaller images, I have some early sketches looking at the textures that make up some of the etchings and woodcut illustrations in the Innerpeffray Library collection. Enlarging some of these images, all sorts of details and textures emerge, which may in some instances have been accidental print ‘noise’, but feel significant and strengthen through this process of study. I then develop them into more refined patterns, which feature within the various pieces I am developing for the exhibition.

There are some collage snippets above also, another starting point I work from when developing ideas and forming relationships with the material. The explosed screen details (with the blue/green) background, show the drawings on screen ready to be printed. I need quite focused headspace to write anything, including a blog post like this, so can’t really write while I am in the throws of printing, so I am writing this following the printing stage. Aside from the finished piece above, I am trying to avoid sharing more of the finished articles until the exhibition, where I can show the pieces in situ, but I will share pieces in construction, so more of that to come.

I find great comfort in focusing in on print from past eras, unedited, unaltered, just ghost content so far removed from the overwhelming fast moving content of our modern age. As an introvert, I have always retreated to focus on objects and material from the past, but the quiet, slow moving and also still environment of Innerpeffray and so many other Librarys, is also a comfort and wonderful remedy for me when life is busy.