Yeah. So. Sneaky peaks. Here you are. Some new shots of my new stuff. Just so you know, I'm tired, afflicted with hayfever, and a bit mardy today. I am also going to waffle and drone incessantly about this new collection, so if you don't want to listen about new designs and fabric and colour then, well, tough.
So. Here we are halfway through 2009. Did I say 'halfway through'? Can I just stop there and tell you that for me I feel like it should be the middle of March and omigodwhereismylifegoing and the end is neigh, the end is neigh etc. etc
Somewhere in Spring of 2009 I sat down and started messing around with designing some new things on paper - I played with colour, I dreamt of form and I found my groove with these shapes and colours you are about to see.
You know by now my love of mustards, honeys, golds and greys. It is a colour combination I love with a passion right now and it was only natural that I started there; also, because I envisaged an Autumn start to the new stuff and these colours scream Autumn.
I was drawn, after a few weeks' scribbling, to the hexagon shape, or rather the way I see it - the cube shape. There is something very Jungian about the cube; something very complete and satisfying
{read "The Metapsychology of the Cube of Space:
The Dimensions of Consciousness & the Structure of Human Experience" here if that tickles your fancy}.
Of course, this resonates with me on a spiritual level as a Muslim - 'cube' in Arabic is of course 'kaba' and the Kaba in Islam is, for those of you who have been living on Mars since the last ice age, the sacred centre in Makkah.
I've always been drawn to this image even before Islam; it is deeply embedded in me. In an abstract way, as Form, the symbol archetype is deeply meaningful. It is not surprising, then, that it made it's way into my work at some point.
What I find absolutely thrilling about this interchanging of the hexagon to the cube is the transcendence from a two dimensional shape to a three dimensional one, simply in way the object is viewed. Without any change in the object reality the inner landscape can transmute the information depending on viewpoint and willingness to see beyond the two dimensional limitations.
The black hexagon, or black cube, at the centre of the work is therefore no mistake or coincidence.
Being at the centre also invites the mind to repeat the pattern; patterns are integral to the way we as human beings function. We are pattern-seekers; we make sense of the world in patterns, and we form our mind out of the patterns we either believe to be there or invent.
Repeating the hexagon/cube around the black centre made the work dance, and spin, encircling, just like bees to honey. That is the notion that immediately sprang to my mind. A honeycombe pattern effect is therefore pleasingly reinforcing of this notion of bees encircling, and I have further reinforced this by adding a 'bee line' in hand embroidered stitches on some of the work.
Starting with cubes as the theme of this collection, I have worked the design into many of the pieces I aim to offer. It is something that I hope brings a coherence.
As well as being (hopefully) stylish and beautiful, another concern of mine is to make the pieces highly practical as well. User friendly - child (boy!) orientated - beautiful and practical. These are the things I am working on, bit by bit, day by day, up in my work space to be hopefully ready very very soon.
Did you read all the way to the end of that?
Aw, you're so nice...
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