Samhain ritual- honouring Papa Crow

This is the first Samhain since my Papa Crow died, it's a time when my ancestors believed the veil between worlds is at its thinnest, a time for honouring spirits and celebrating the cycle. He, and I , were agnostic about what happens after death, but it's hard to not feel like he's still around, as my Ma said, I don't have to understand everything, so I've dealt with this the same way I do with anything I can't quite get my head around, ritual making.

Pa was everyone's best friend, when dancing at a festie, over copious cups of tea in the kitchen, or at 3 in the morning when everything hit the fan. He adopted any good person he met into our family, he taught me how to love, hug and be open. He was my best friend as well as my dad, he was so understanding and always knew how to fix thing, I have a rule that if I couldn't tell Pa, I probably shouldn't do it and that has taught me how to be.

This is a plait of my mothers hair, my parents are so intertwined I can't think of one parent without the other, they've both been both my father and my mother, I've never known a romance quite like it and I've been really lucky to grow up with that model of how to love and respect each other.

I listened to music that reminded me of Pa while I plaited strands of Ma's hair, stuff we'd dance to together at parties and nights out (Moby- We Are All Made of Stars, Fatboy Slim- Right Here, Right Now), stuff Pa would quote to me to get me to come to him for a hug when I was sad ( Tom Waits- Come On Up to the House), one of Pas favorite songs that he saw performed at the Isle of White festival and we played at his funeral (Jimi Hendrix- All Along the Watchtower) a song that has special significance between Pa and me (Brian Eno- Put a Straw Under Baby) and a song he'd sing me as a child about where sailors, which Pa was for years, go when they die (Fiddler's Green.)

 This is a locket Pa gave me for my birthday before he died, it's filled with some of his hair I cut off when Ma and me did his vigil until his body was taken away, strung on Ma's plait, wrapped with fabric off cuts from the shroud I made him, wrapped in copper (the three of us taking apart an old washing machine in Ducky Cuddles Cottage to scavenge this wire out has always been a very fond memory.)

 I found an old packet of rizzlas when we were tidying his stuff (he'd stopped smoking a long time before he passed, but we used to sneak cigarettes together.) I smoked one of the rizzlas and as there's only 10 left I'll keep them on my altar.

Recently I went to Robin Hoods Bay to carve Pa's crow symbol into slate, like he used to leave wherever he went (he also used as his signature on his poetry and drawing, everything he made, so I have it tattooed on me.) I climbed out onto a rock surrounded by water, sang fiddlers green and come on up to the house, said goodbye, and threw it in.

Ritual is incredibly important to me, it puts order to what I can't understand, and catharsis to things I have no control over. I keep performing seeing off rituals for Papa Crow, hoping one of them will give me closure, but they don't seem to, he still feels like he's with me, whether that's psychologically or something else, I'm not going to question it. Ritual and symbolism is also very important to my art and writing, which Ma and Pa have always been my biggest champions and influence in, so I'm going to accept it and be thankful that he'll always be with me in some way through that.

Blackout Poems

When I'm stuck with either writers or artists block, or just want to loosen myself up a bit before starting a project so I can experiment a bit more fluidly I grab a newspaper or an old book I keep for this purpose (Dr Haggards disease and the white man's dilema currently) and make blackout poems.

 I first came across them via Austin Kleon who did a whole book of blackout poems and is my general go to author when I'm in a creating/marketing funk.  He's sweary, he's very anti marketing speak and totally into Brian Eno's idea of scenius "genius is individual, scenius is communal."

I find them freeing, whenever I'm a bit stuck with artwork, or if a student was when I was teaching, my course of action is limitation. I get paralysed by indecision and wrapped up playing with technique or tools rather than getting an idea across effectively. So if I've got a line I want to make when I'm drawing someone and I have all my brushes, pens, inks, pencils etc out and I have no idea how best to describe it, I'll usually grab a twig out of the garden and try and use just that and ink, or splat something on the page to contrast against rather than having the scary possibilites of a blank page, it's like telling your brain it's ok to fuck up as you can blame the lack of tools, so you may as well experiment, which is the most important thing to me making in a satisfying way.

Still life photography tarot cards

A little while ago I was asked to make tarot cards for two of my favourite people, James and Blair. These were no ordinary tarot cards, they're getting married and to show what he'd do for Blair, James got all their creative friends to make two tarot cards each on the theme of a certain aspect of their relationship and things he'd happily do for blair in the future. I was given transformation and sacrifice.

As Blair's a fellow witch ( go check out his videos at WitchesMIX, it's full of interesting advice and tips about various aspects of paganism and witchcraft.) I thought I'd take inspiration from spells and mythology, there's salt, charcoal from the yule fire we all shared, egg, rosemary, oil, water, iron and some of my hair before and after I dyed it (for the transformation part.) oh and glitter, because there has to be glitter.

For Sacrifice I took my inspiration from James and his love of literature and his sharp wit (You can read some of his writing at his blog Palimpsest, I can definitely recommend it, it's beautiful.) This excerpt is from a copy of Doctor Haggards Disease I've had for years, every so often I'll read a few pages and make blackout poetry as I go.

The Fantabulous Traveling Steampunk Yarnbombs' third birthday

The Fantabulous Travelling Steampunk Yarnbomb is a collaborative guerilla art project featuring the work of steampunks, artists and craft people from far and wide. Some of you may have read about it in my last blog post here. It aims to inspire people to make, experiment and have their work shown together in a playful and thought provoking way, getting involved is more important than skills or expertise. 

Cassy Wilkinson

For those of you not already aware of guerrilla craft, graffitti knitting and yarnbombing they are acts of craft and art in public that take back spaces as joyful and playful places for the everyone to express themselves in visually, as opposed to the images we are used to seeing in public spaces in advertising, this project is steampunk themed but there are all sorts of projects out there you can get involved with all over the world or just go make something and put it out there.

the Fantabulous Traveling Steampunk Yarnbomb is now 3 years old and has taken on a life of its own. The yarn bomb went off travelling with the lovely people at Ornamentology and was picked up, shouted about and carted about by the fantastic Jo and Si who run Leeds Steampunk market. All these lovely people took it to lots of festivals all over the u.k

STOAT - carriages of delight - Nene railway

The Asylum Steampunk Convivial- Lincoln

Leeds Steampunk Market

Surgical spirit-Leeds

whitby goth weekend

A splendid day out- Morecambe

Haworth Steampunk Weekend

If you would like to make a piece to contribute, display the yarn bomb at a festival or event, or just follow what’s going on and watch its travels as it grows can join the facebook group the pinterest page and there’s a communal inspiration pinterest board. Please do check the criteria on the Facebook group or email me at thefrocktopus@live.co.uk before making a piece to check it’ll fit the health and safety standards, they're very simple but it will mean we can definitely show your piece.

So without further ado, here are all the pieces sent in so far, please do check out everyones links and see what else they do.

Sheena Mckinnock (aka Craft Dabbler)

Jacklyn Hyde

Sheena McKinnock (aka Craft Dabbler)

Collar Doves by Carol Parker

Zoe Cheale (aka Crafty Chealey)

Jane White

Sandi Cowles

Kim Gault

me

Patricia Cook (my Nanny)

me

Dene Woodman

Lois Frances

Danny Clark of Angel-Demon Productions

Emily Harriet Cane

Gretchen Jacobsen (aka Willhemina Frame)

Zoe Riddley (aka Scarybird stitches)

me

Bethan Lientie

Lorna Grace (aka fell from grace)

Helen Chilvers (aka Noisy Nell)

 Chris Graham of Chrono Creations

Machine mbroidered map for Lincoln A-Z exhibition

I currently have one of my pieces in an exhibition in the Collection in Lincoln if any of you would like to go and see it there’s a link to the exhibition details, the museum/gallery and(the museum itself is well worth a look, there’s a fantastic dinosaur skeleton they found under my old school)

The piece and corresponding poem are hopefully self explanatory, what people looking at the picture don’t know is how the piece ended up there. A month ago I started planning out how to make the piece and began searching around for old maps of Lincoln for reference in the embroidery. 

I think the lighting made it a little hard to photograph things so just incase you can't read all the poem it says

"Dear Tom, my dear Bear,

I want to stitch our story, sew our love on the machine,

all calico and cotton, framed for all to see.

Thin silver pin reminders

of where we've been and where we'll be."

 It was while looking around on the internet for old maps of Lincoln for reference I saw an advert calling out for a last minute piece for an exhibition by a local radio show. When I looked into it it was for A-Z Lincoln, a radio show where the presenters put a pin in a map of Lincoln and do the weekly show from that location (think more community project/ installation than cheesy radio roadshow, go check them out.)I messaged them telling them about the piece I was working on and that I’d love to surprise my partner and about his history in radio, luckily they liked the idea and said yes. 

Luckily Bear loved it and I hope he doesn’t mind me saying that he welled up when he saw it, he even seems ok with the fact that he can’t have his christmas present here in the house until the end of January. I felt like I botched proposing to my bear a bit last year (something he assures me wouldn’t have been very us without 2 engagement rings disappearing in the post, running across castle square in full steampunk getup to get a stand-in ring on the day and having to rip open the organza bag with my teeth to get the ring out while on one knee) so this was my big romantic gesture. 

All photos are by my good friend Spy Mistress General

Cake and hugs
Frocktopus
xxx

Self portrait

I particularly like painting portraits and figurative stuff on brown paper and cardboard as it contrasts really well with the pastel hues in skin tones, plus it's free and recycling. I timed this self portrait to try and concentrate on the planes of the face, rather than the features, to help with composition and to keep the piece fairly unstructured and show the brush marks, a style which i love to work in but find quite challenging.

I took half hourly breaks so I could come back to it with fresh eyes, this helps with balancing composition as your eyes aren't automatically drawn to the last place you painted like they do while you're working on it. I always quickly check my line-sight measurements when i return to a painting or drawing to make sure i've not gone too far off course while focusing in on details.

This photograph was taken about half an hour in, I'm disappointed I lost the shape of the nose sketched out here, I'll have to work harder to focus on that next time.

I'm quite lucky that the cardboard is almost exactly the same shade as my eyebrow, it's hard to paint eyebrows in acrylic as it's such a solid medium, it's literally a layer of plastic once it's on the paper and not hugely suited to transparent or opaque textures, which eyebrows are. 

You can see that next to an old self portrait I did a few years ago it's way less overworked around the eyes, I can't seem to make two eyes look in the same direction. I can see that I've made that a bit into my style since the last one, where I left it with one eye, now the face fades out into cardboard and slight structure around the chin and left side. I think I'll play with doing that all over the face, I'd like to have left some more of the cardboard colour showing through around the creases of the lids or maybe the corner of the eye to add a bit of depth.

What do you reckon? anything you think I could do to improve? Anything I could do in future to make the picture look more finished or do you think I left it at the right time? I do love a good natter and constructive criticism

Hugs and cake

Frocktopus

xxx

Sketchbook and journals of the last 10 years - Paintings

I applied for a commission with Milton Keynes hospital and to do it I had to go through decade of journals, paintings and sketchbooks to scan in my very favourite pieces. There's a lot so this time I'll show you some of the paintings.

                                       

It's really inspired me to get painting again, been working on a self portrait today and really loved it. I'll show you next time.

Love and cake

Frocktopus

xxx