About me – the blog I always find the most difficult to write!

I am in my early 50’s, engaged to my long term fiance and with 3 grownup children and 1 beloved grandchild. I am also a 19 year rare cancer warrior whose 15 year survival present to herself was starting this degree!

My personal interests range from gardening, reading (mostly historical biographies), music, watching avidly ice-skating, tennis and gymnastics, countryside ambles and also due to a level 1 module a somewhat unexpected passion for art history. Stitched projects of any nature have been a lifelong passion due to learning to sew before I can even actually remember due to my late Mum being an exquisite needlewoman whichever genre she worked on.

I recall stating in my first OCA blog that my passion for history was something I desperately wanted to incorporate into my studies and this is still something that is at the back of my mind but more recent projects have lead to exploring nature based and architectural themes with the latter being used as a metaphor for chronic illness. The nature themes that sought to speak of escapism into our natural surroundings may still have their place albeit as a variation on the same architectural metaphor – at this point this is a merely a concept in the background to be considered and played with. My current feelings are now my future lie in the architectural metaphors as I seek to explore and express the emotions and physical effects of the chronic conditions including cancer, osteoarthritis, partial deafness and Asperger’s syndrome that effect how I live my life – I refuse to let them define me but they are a definitive part of who I am.

My original textile and art techniques involve embroidery, needlepoint, dressmaking, basic silk painting and quilting plus a love of basic calligraphy since school days. As can be expected on this degree pathway my interests have diverged as the course materials have introduced new techniques and hence currently I am favouring a mixed media approach which enables playful exploration of my chosen materials with this enabling my projects to evolve through both sketchbook and process led approaches. The development of my research and sketchbook skills is something I want to continue to take forward as I seek to address my weaker areas particular in the translation from sketch to samples.