In September I was fortunate enough to spend a whole month in Finland at Arteles Creative Centre, taking part in an edition of their tech-free Back to Basics residency program. A much needed pause on life and work and normality after a difficult summer losing my mother and having covid again. I chose to focus on screenprint whilst I was there, with a very simple – basic! – set up for stencil screen printing. It was really liberating to be confined to one technique and medium as I always find I work best within a set design brief.
It was a really diverse cohort of residents and the breadth of our output and inspiration was really valuable. I mainly worked with ideas that spontaneously occurred to me whilst in the surrounding forest area – walking, running or wild swimming. And ideas trialled led to further ideas… I enjoyed creating overlapping runs of prints with elements mixed and overlaid from different stages in the process. I’ll share some images here of the symbolism I came up with:
Finding ways of working and translating mental imagery involved a few different techniques. Abstract paper cutting focusing on line; using plant shadows as starting points for stencils; creating gradients of colour all played a big part in the work I created.
Overall, it felt like a very productive and inspiring creative interlude, providing much needed time to focus on the work I’d had the privilege of getting funding from Creative Scotland’s Open Fund to explore. I’m hoping that as time progresses I’ll be able to start translating these ideas into bespoke textiles and printed ceramic installations.