lift and separate

I spent some happy hours on Saturday lifting and separating.

This has nothing to do with cross-your-heart bra's, or any other kind of foundation garment. I don't have the sort of dimensions which require any such cantileverage.

But on a day of clear blue skies and surprisingly warm sun I wandered out into the garden and found myself managing to forget about the worky workwork waiting inside.

I weeded and cut back and discovered a few spring-like shoots and moved around slabs of slate and peered from a distance at the domestic tunnels in the compost bin and found a couple of furtive little frogs under a brick and moved a rose and lifted and separated perennials.

and was happy happy for a few hours.

My approach to gardening tends towards the permissive and disorderly.
Randomness and a little bit of careful tending. But not too much of the latter.

Which made me think of this photo I took about a week ago in the park around the corner.


I couldn't really quite make out what they were trying to do, it looked like hoovering but I think they were just trying to blow the leaves into neater piles.

Which raises a number of questions, not least of which is the question "Why?"



and piles of leaves and landscapes and care and randomness lead rather nicely into Part IV of the V&A Exhibition I recently went to, a work called 'Topographies' by Anne Wilson.



topographies which consisted of various kinds of textile assembled dropped arranged constructed scattered onto a blank white surface...




This was an artwork which combined the (seemingly) random and hasty with the meticulously constructed - into a fabulous and fascinating environment of intricate detail and careful complexity, white negative space and inbetweenness.




There was also a great video of animated threads and pins dancing and weaving themselves into patterns mimicking those which were pinned to the board like frozen space spiders and miniature forests.



"In my art work the concept and content direct the use of material and process. I move from weaving to sound, to glass, to video and collaborative practices very liberally, rather than being defined by a specific way of making. More constant is my interest in material histories and issues that come out of the everyday as they relate to our human condition." Anne Wilson




There was something very Victorian and lavish about some of these lacy heaps but it was also very contemporary and minimal.



Just as I used to lie in bed as a child and imagine walking around upside down on the ceiling, I could imagine my miniature self picking a journey through, into and around this fantasy landscape.