Tea or Coffee? Black or White? Decisions, decisions...
I don’t usually get philosophical over breakfast, but today, sitting in my mum’s kitchen in Yorkshire debating whether or not to try my newly purchased hemp milk, “filled with good and free from bad”, I’m confronted with a simple, reductive truth - Duality Rules OK!
I opt for coffee with sugar-free, omega-3 seed milk, as light and tasty as promised, and take a closer look at the carton to check the ingredients. “Nothing Changes if Nobody Changes” screams out at me, with the easy appeal of a personal motivational quote on Pinterest.
Hmmm. This fancy hemp milk certainly packs its punch. I jot that wee slogan down in my notebook. So, what are you waiting for Deborah?
"Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can." - Arthur Ashe.
Now, I’m a curious soul, but as a 57 year old ‘wanderer’, forever out and about and drawn to the “beauty of imperfection”, I have a tendency to procrastinate, often convincing myself that I’m not quite ready, or that my timing’s ever so slightly wrong. Sound familiar? I often tell myself that I need to be more settled to advance into my next chapter, that my work will be more meaningful when I’ve finally found the perfect space with my favourite desk and chair, expertly-curated mood board pinned to the wall and trusty Oxford Dictionary by my side. The problem is I have no idea when or if this will miraculously fall into place. For the past twelve months, I have been a digital nomad, aka bag lady, to-ing and fro-ing between the UK and France to spend more time with my elderly, very sick mother. This isn’t how it was supposed to be. And yet…
Ultimately, these past twelve months have taught me how to adapt, how to view things differently, learn to let go and thrive.
There’s no time like the present, so hemp-milk fuelled, I’d better roll up my sleeves and get busy.
I’ve been doing a lot of walking, reading and thinking. Learning to see.
Quite naturally, my eye has been drawn to edges, to boundaries - walls, fences, hedges - and the patterns they create on the landscape.
In particular, I’ve been interested in juxtaposition.
And moments in time when two different states come together.
The spaces in-between.
And elements of disruption.
Far from the homogenous scroll of social media, I have been observing sources of change. Thinking about the past, present and future, about chaos and creativity as a quest for new order.
There’s one particular anecdote in Sean Tucker’s excellent book “The Meaning of Making - the why and how behind our human need to create” that springs to mind here. Recounting his experience of taking an online filming course with Werner Herzog a few years ago, he writes:
“Incidentally, the first exercise he gives the class is to walk 100 miles in any direction. That’s it. Don’t film it, or photograph it, just walk it. This is a man who decided to walk from Munich to Paris in 1974 to see his dying mentor, Lotte Eisner. (…) and that journey, among others, taught him to see and helped make him the filmmaker he is today.”
I’ve just finished reading Tucker’s book and I think I’ll dive in again. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone interested in creativity and the process of discovering our authentic voice. I’d lend you my copy but it’s been heavily underlined…
Dry stone walls characterise the Yorkshire landscape. Delineating boundaries between parcels of land or fields, like hedgerows, they can last a lifetime or more if built correctly. Constructed without cement, the art of dry stone walling is far from dying out. In fact, this traditional method of creating boundaries is enjoying a resurgence in interest, along with many other rural crafts like hedgelaying, thatching, scything, shepherding or charcoal-making today. The need to repair, preserve and pass on our heritage, coupled with a desire to focus on and participate in our local environment is encouraging this revival. People want to start making a hands-on difference to the future and they want to start doing that now.
Of course, turning to the past for answers at a moment of immense upheaval is reassuring. Ancient ways can help guide us through disruption, restore some sort of balance or order. We possess the time-tested skills to reconstruct that stone wall to perfection. But what if we used the pile of fallen stones to raise the wall higher or add a new feature like a gate or a stile? What if there weren’t anymore stones to mend it? Experimentation can and does also bring about change. “Use what you have? Do what you can” - I think that’s equally exciting.
Designer Focus:
Waste Not Want Not – Loumi Le Floch’s frugal creativity
Upcoming French textile designer Loumi Le Floc’h is on a mission to transform our everyday food waste into valuable, multi-functional bio-textiles.
A young graduate, dividing her time between south-west France, Brittany, Paris and Brussels, after completing a 4-month Erasmus project in Germany, she is passionate about the properties of fruit and vegetable peels and is determined to valorize these ‘noble’ raw waste materials by exploring their full physical and artistic bio-textile potential. Loumi calls her materials Precious Peels.
Le Floc’h’s preferred peel at present is aubergine, which she initially spied in a Lebanese restaurant in Berlin. As these few images show, her research with various peels and processes has allowed her to develop a refined, recycled material, often fused with woven cotton, which can be opaque or translucent and plain or multi-coloured depending on the natural juices and waste materials she uses. Blended then occasionally stitched, these innovative surfaces can be embellished with feathers, for example, or laser cut into lace.
I have been following Le Floc’h for a while now and think she’s definitely one to watch in France. She recently exhibited at Paris Design Week and as begun collaborating with other creatives like Claude Laurine to explore the potential of her sustainable textiles.
I’ve noted a few designers playing with light and the textures of their new materials using the traditional stained glass window aesthetic. Could well be a micro-trend, we’ll see.
Next time I’ll be talking to two women whose work I admire immensely. I’ll even go as far to say that they helped change my mind about how I’d like to develop Plumes and Feathers. I can’t wait to share more.
Enjoy your week!