A language of making

A diary of making

Day 8

 Experimenting with plaiting.

During a making session, as part of my master’s art-based research project. The act of plaiting brought back a childhood memory for a participant. A clear strong memory of her mothers’ words.

It moved me, ingrained memories recalled to the present, new meaning added to old.

 Today I wanted to honour that moment of reminiscence.

I thought about plaits. The embodied act of plaiting, a skill learnt as children, recalled at any time.

I have made soft sculptures plenty of times, so I decided to make a tactile padded plait, ridiculously large and chunky, but not huge as it had to exist in harmony with the final artwork.

I chose soft denim and chambray off-cuts, one: because they were to hand, two: the fabric has a soft and pliable element not too stiff but not too floppy, three: it will go cohesively with the other fabrics.  

I won’t go into the technical aspects, but I enjoyed making these.