Marilyn Hall BA(Hons) Embroidered Textiles

 

 

 

 

In Praise of Ironing

'In Praise of Ironing'
It has to be spread out, the skin of this planet,
has to be ironed, the sea in its whiteness;
and the hands keep on moving,
soothing the holy surfaces.
poem by Pablo Neruda

I continued to search for a way to respond to the marks the tree left on the cloth.
I rejected making a bed and decided laundering them would remove the marks.
Could I just iron the sheets and fold them up?


(Source: Google Images, extreme ironing)
My research showed much belittling of the domestic activity of ironing so the action would not necessarily strengthen my work.
Pablo Neruda's poem 'In Praise of Ironing' uses ironing as a metaphor for controlling natural biological processes, the antithesis of a harmonic relationship I wished to express in my work. 

How could I add my mark in a sympathetic, symbiotic way?

Studio Clean Up

After packing up a module of work and sending it to my tutor in the UK, I cleaned up my studio.

This table has been covered for months and I have had to shuffle piles to find spaces to work in.

Part of cleaning up my studio involved getting a new iron - just because I finally had time to go out, check the different brands and make a decision.
Isn't this a great name for an iron. It is heavy, holds lots of water and is programmable.

It took me many hours to sort and put everything away.

But only a short time to cover the table again.

I am sorting yarns from my stash for a new body of work.

Tree Wrapping

This is the Big-leaf Maple ...

and the Cedar....

and 15 months later here are both tree cloths washed and ironed, Maple (left), Cedar (right).

The Maple cloth has a lot of dark staining....

and the Cedar less but in the damp dark under the tree it rotted more than the other cloths.
Now I have to decide what to do next with the cloths.

Tree Cloths

Big day yesterday. 15 months ago i wrapped 4 trees in a length of unbleached calico and left them to experience a full cycle of seasons.
This is the Arbutus.

Douglas-fir

Here are the 2 cloths washed and ironed.
The Arbutus cloth on the left has much more staining but is rotten in more places than the Douglas-fir cloth on the right.

Arbutus cloth has circles of black staining in lines following the creases of the cloth.

Douglas-fir cloth is grey with all over staining and has green moss stains. The staining marks are more flowing.