quietly creating

Barbara Wanhill

recent posts

  • Mobile

    I sold my Ashford Joy this spring. For a variety of reasons, I believed I needed to move on from my interest in visually exploring spinning fibre. Previously, I had gifted one of my Turkish spindles to a lovely, masterful spinner in Europe. And, I bought more printmaking ink – which I will admit, has yet to be opened.

    This spring, as I do, I also undertook gluing 82 string mobiles together for a grade 1 painting project. When I handed them back and explained that they were mobiles, one of my students exclaimed that she knew the word “mobile” and it means “phone!”

    As my body ages and rails against taking it for granted any longer; I am looking at ways to maintain physical, mental and creative mobility throughout the day. I want to find avenues to do that without that constantly pesky tool: the mobile (phone)!

    I’ve been spinning this July on these three beautiful tools: two drop (suspended) spindles from Crafty Jaks and one from Snyder Spindles. For me, a spindle takes two hands to manoeuvre and hence there is an inability to attend to anything else with one’s hands while spinning – including fully operating a digital mobile device.

    Inspired by Diana Twiss’ advocacy for making small batch yarn, I created some hand carded mixed fibre collected from leftover wheel spun scraps, botanical dye experiments and a silk hanky I purchased from Lily & Pine years ago. (I fully understand the suspect quality of this mix. I am a Dabbler.)

    It will become a small skein of 3-ply yarn and I am spinning again for the joy of it – a way to stay physically mobile and mentally creative using small increments of time.

    Three drop spindles. The two on the left from Crafty Jaks, The one on the right from Snyder Spindles. B. Wanhill, Canon T3i. July 2023
    Turkish drop spindle with heart from Crafty Jaks. B. Wanhill, Canon T3i. July 2023
    Top-whorl drop spindle from Crafty Jaks. Bowl carved by my dad. Stone heart: gift from my mom. B. Wanhill, Canon T3i. July 2023.

  • Emptiness

    Continuing like that procrastinating teenager (I never was) cramming to finish an English assignment the night before: here I compose another mostly rushed blog post before the calendar turns to the next month.

    Even though the text is rough hewn, the thoughts have been mulled over for awhile. I’ve been thinking about negative space quite a bit this last month. The space one considers when building a contour drawing via observation; the space one takes up socially when one fails to see the positive in situations; the space in a sketchbook that grows when one’s thinking space is taken up by concerns for others and not for carrying through with a drawing practice. All of this negates any quality of emptiness. However, I continue.

    My most favourite non-art activity is contour drawing from observation. I used to be able to reach a flow and connection trying to assess the tension between where the object edge ended and the space around it (negative space) began. Eventually, I realized this exercise was going nowhere except towards pure frustration (comparing my sketchbook entries to real art – framed and ready for a show or such) and I stopped. There are all sorts of reasons to judge it as non-art, but recently, I am learning to care less what I call it and enjoy the process when I can. May was full of daily contour observations. June not so much.

    Sketchbook entry. May 2023. Ink. B. Wanhill
    Sketchbook entry. May 2023. Ink. B. Wanhill
    Sketchbook entry. June 2023. Ink. B. Wanhill.

    Professionally, May and June melted together. It’s a hectic time of year in the teaching profession and I observed one particular interaction both as accurate and troublesome. Synthesizing the encounter to the essence of the message: be more positive.

    As a YET to be confident growth mindset personality, of course I railed against that observation even as I knew it was accurate. There are all sorts of reasons one can stay firmly entrenched in negative mind states – I had a fairly long list to argue my stance. In any event, it is a myth that artists that live fraught internal lives make lots of art (or non-art). My sketchbook pages were quite empty in June.

    All the more space for drawings in July. B. Wanhill. Canon T3i. June 2023.

    Thanks to insight gained from various sources (including my recent education on how children use memes), I realize that focusing only on the negative will not produce drawings or opportunities for positive human connection or even peace of mind.

    Onward to July and better ways of filling emptiness.

  • On schedule

    April was a rush. Too much to process. Too much information. Too tired.

    But the snowdrops came up pretty much on schedule and without much help from me. April’s drawings were mostly a study in Galanthus and whether I would use Schlumbergera flowers again as a paper dye (probably not). Even though I feel like this drawing is finished (or at least I’m finished with it), it gave me some struggles. Tried out some new watercolour pencils and then some Canadian made small batch watercolour as well, which gave me some information on how these new materials could be used.

    And tomorrow is May. Also right on schedule. Let’s work to make this month move at a slower pace.(?)

    April 2023. Not 24 Days of Drawing. Mixed Media. B. Wanhill
    April 2023. Media notes. B. Wanhill