Wall building is getting a LOT of bad press right now but not all walls are a pathetic attempt to pander to a small misguided minority. (OK - political rant over). My walls are going to be things of beauty that invite people in for a closer look and, hopefully, make them smile!

I am in the middle of making my first, full scale wall / background for my new series. I have given the series the tentative title 'The View From Here' or View for short. The advantage of working in series is that once I get going I have idea after idea that I know will 'work'. And I can often create new pieces in the series in what is for me a relatively short period of time. The disadvantage is the hours and hours I put in up front and figuring out what that means when it comes to planning and pricing my work.

I have been tracking my total studio hours for a couple of years but as I started to work on View I decided to collect data on how those hours were spent. So here are the stats so far ....

• Printing = 50 hours (made approx 15 square metres of cloth which, based on experience, could convert to about 10 square metres of finished art. However I can already tell that I have too high a proportion of light pieces so will need to print more medium and dark fabrics to 'balance' my palette)
• Research and sampling = 17 hours (and still more questions than answers!)
• Cutting bricks = 7 hours (yes I cut all the printed fabric into pieces 2.5 x 6.5inches)
• Building my first wall = 11 hours (layout complete and about half way through joining the bricks into long strips)

So that is a total of 85 hours and still a long way from even knowing what the first piece will look like. I am making an investment in time (and money) doing something I love and I hope will give pleasure to others. Not building a wall on borrowed money that divides people and makes the world a scarier place. (Rant definitely over, sorry).