Being an artist is more than just making art. At least it is for me as I believe showing work to others is an important part of calling myself an artist with a capital A. In a perfect world exhibition organisers, curators and galleries would somehow know that I had just finished a piece of fantastic art and would be beating down my door to get at it …..

Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that and so a significant part of most artists life is self-promotion, filling out calls for entry, submitting exhibition proposals and, if successful, shipping pieces across the world (which is increasingly difficult and worthy of a post in itself). As you may have noticed I’m pretty active on the self promotion front but I have to admit that I’ve let some things drift whilst I have focussed on teaching and writing.

Before I got distracted I kept a file of potential ‘calls for entry’ that looked at least 18 months ahead so that I could identify ‘targets’ and work to have suitable quilts ready for specific dates. I work in series and have found trying to respond to other peoples themes rather disappointing. I discard many opportunities to exhibit because of that and only keep a list of those that don’t have specific themes or have themes, such as ‘Structures’ that might fit with my work. Or I did. Having a few scraps of paper in a random pile does not count as a proper list. I have put that right and now have a well organised file of ‘calls for entry’. Most are in the quilt world but I’ve also decided that now is the time to venture out in the bigger textile world. Having a list doesn’t mean success. The more you submit work, the more rejections you get. But, as the saying goes, you have to be in it to win it’!

The other thing I used to be very disciplined about was submitting proposals for exhibition, either on my own or with others. Curators are often working one or two years ahead. Some artists prepare a collection of work and then submit proposals but most, myself included, submit proposals when they only have ‘work in progress’ and maybe one or two finished pieces. I haven’t done that for a long time and I could kick myself as there is almost certainly a back log due to Covid. And the success rate is even lower than ‘calls for entry’. I don’t have anything in the pipeline and realistically can’t expect to having a solo exhibition for at least two or three years. Ho hum!!

The good news though is that I am now feeling very happy with the work that I’m creating. To the extent that I’ve submitted a couple of pieces to a couple of calls for entry. I can’t share images of the full quilts but have included a photo of the detail in one piece above. And, more importantly, I know that I have a new series. By that I mean that I have an inspiration / set of ideas that has enough breadth and has engaged me so deeply that I know I can produce more pieces of art exploring the same theme. I am calling this new series Cadence as its inspiration has come from the regular and repeated process of making breakdown screens, printing fabric, washing fabric, cutting fabric, arranging and piecing fabric, layering and stitching. And because I think it is a lovely word.

Feeling connected to my process again is wonderful and means that I have the confidence to write new proposals for exhibition. To look further ahead on days when the present is so dark. So watch this space!

This is something I have been meaning to do for a while but hadn’t had the time. Now I have plenty of time so have been busy doodling different ideas. I have ended up with six new tried and tested thermofax designs which I love and hope you will to!

All six designs are available in two sizes - large gives a printed image approximately 17cm x 24cm and small gives a print approximately 10cm x 14cm. For those of you unfamiliar with thermofax screens they are a special type of silk screen that allows you to print fine lines or detailed designs onto fabric or paper using thickened dyes, textile inks or other media. They can be used to print interesting marks and texture all over white fabric before adding layers of colour on top or can be used on top of previously printed or dyed fabrics to add final detail.

Unfortunately I have had to increase my prices by £1 for the large screens and £0.50 for the small screens because of increases in the cost of the plastic frames I use. However I have added a new ‘soft edge’ option that is significantly cheaper. In the soft edge version the edges of the screen mesh are sandwiched between two layers of tape. Screens with soft edges are a bit more fiddly to use but I have made sure that you have a big enough tape surround that you can hold the screen firmly in place when using it.

I’ve also taken the opportunity to change how my thermofax screens are displayed in my webshop which I hope will make it easier to see the full range of designs.

I continue to ship all my products globally but I thought it worth acknowledging that there is currently a lot of confusion and some delays in shipping goods from the UK to the EU. There may be some of my products that are not covered by the new trade agreement and so may attract customs / import duty. However I’ve spent a bit of time looking at the European Commission site covering buying goods online from the UK and customs duty should not be applied to orders below 150 Euros. I’m also applying for an EORI number which should allow parcels to pass through customs more quickly. So, if you are one of my lovely European friends, please feel that you can still order from me!

New soft edge framing option

Maybe. My trust in my process is being rewarded as I am generally feeling much more positive and engaged with my art. The news of a new national lockdown and the impact that will have on my business caused a bit of a wobble this week but I am looking forward to each day spent in the studio and can feel my focus and drive returning.

The colour palette I am working with, and the choices I make when I am printing my breakdown screens, mean that I’m producing some fabrics in which the colours are quite vibrant and the marks very crisp and some fabrics were the colours are more muted and the marks less crisp. I had been using the whole collection of fabrics in my compositions but this week I had a ‘what if’ moment. It happened on a ‘bad’ day when the news was awful. Everything that could go wrong in the studio went wrong. Everything seemed endless and everything seemed tainted. Part of me wanted to lock up the studio and reach for the gin. But part of me thought what the heck Leah, do something with this! So I pulled out the more muted fabrics, started cutting strips and started randomly pinning fabric to my design wall. I worked later into the evening than normal. I didn’t know where I was going but, having spent the last few weeks submerged in ‘making’ I felt a level of confidence in what I was doing that I thought I had lost. A sense of connection.

But I recognise that my sense of connection to my work and my confidence in me as an artist is fragile. I need relearn my art practice, my art habit.

When I was still working in industry I set myself a target of 20 hours in the studio each weeks and was very disciplined about recording only those hours spent making art and supporting my art practice. I continued to track my hours when I started working full time in the studio but tracked all my activities - the teaching hours, the admin hours, the social media hours etc. I recorded my art hours but didn’t set any targets. Looking make this was a mistake because it allowed me to pat myself on the back for working long hours in the studio whilst avoiding the fact that I was going for long periods of time without making art.

So, from 1st January I am only recording those hours spent making art. I don’t need to record those hours spent doing other things - I take my business seriously and am always going to put in the hours needed. I have set myself a target of 20 hours per week. I know that if I am teaching a 5 day workshop I am very unlikely to fit in many hours (or even minutes!) making art but that will be balanced by periods when I am not teaching and can fit in many more hours. If I am to hit my target I will need to think about what I do when. I won’t be able to print fabric or use my design wall to compose my quilts during periods when I only have a few days between classes. Instead I need to always have pieces at the quilting stage … I can always move my sewing machine into our dining room if the studio is full of students.

Those of you who know me or who have been reading for a while will know that I am a fan of Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art’. The idea that I should treat my art just like I treat my day job was one that made me set that original weekly target and gave me the discipline to follow through. I need to remember that now!

This is just a quick post in response to UK national lockdown that came into force overnight. The restrictions are in place until at least mid-February but any easing is dependent on hitting vaccination targets and reducing infection rates. This seems to be a very big ask right now so I have contacted all my January and February students to reschedule classes. I am also looking at March workshops and will contact affected students as soon as I can.

My webshop remains open and I am shipping globally. However I will only ship once per week and apologise for any delay this causes.

The situation in the UK seems so precarious right now but the future will be brighter thanks to the vaccines and spring is just around the corner.

Stay well everyone, Leah x

I hope you all had an enjoyable Christmas and New Year. Like many of you ours was a quiet one with just our household. No noisy family parties or more civilised meals out this year which will make them all the more enjoyable when we are able to meet again. But there was laughter, family games nights, too much food and drink and heated debates over what films to watch just like there is every year.

It is the time of year when we tend to look back on what we did in the past year and think about what we would like to achieve in the coming year. 2020 was a horrible year, tragic for too many people, and it is tempting to write it off. But I think it is worth remembering the positives. Here are mine.

• My family are well. Our son Joe has been a star, doing most of the ‘outside’ stuff like shopping so us oldies could stay safe.

• My students have been so understanding and supportive. It has been horrible having to reschedule or cancel workshops as we have moved through different levels of restrictions. I am grateful for their stoicism and their kind words. And I am grateful for the company of the few students that did make it into the studio this year. Those few teaching days in the summer and early autumn were wonderful and I could have hugged you all if I had been allowed!

• My customers. To counter the loss of income from teaching I increased the range of products on my webshop in April to include hand printed fabrics, thermofax screens, dyes etc and my customers responded with amazing generosity. I am pretty sure that some of you didn’t really need that extra pack of fabric but thank you!

• Raising money for The Trussell Trust. Through the sale of limited edition bookmarks, £1 donation from each pre-order sale of my new book and sales of second hand textile books in the studio we have raised £692.50 since the start of the pandemic. This money will help support food banks across the UK. I don’t know if you have felt the same but there have been times this year when I have felt so useless. Sat at home whilst medics, carers and other key workers have done so much. The money we have raised together is a drop in the ocean but it is something.

• Writing a book. I wasn’t planning to write my second book, Colour Your Palette, this year but I needed something positive to focus on, to fill my days and, frankly, to bolster my bank account. It was incredibly hard to begin with as I was so worried and anxious about the spread of Covid-19 but I kept at it. And I am rather proud of myself and the book. Thank you to everyone that has brought it!

• And on a lighter note …. I had my annual health check a few weeks ago and was congratulated by the nurse for only putting on 3kg during lockdown. Apparently that shows remarkable restraint. She was a little less happy about the increase in alcohol intake but we can’t all be perfect!

It looks like we are in for a very difficult few months in the UK but 2021 will be better than 2020. We have vaccines which, hopefully, means that we will be able to meet again soon. And we will be able to hug!

Leah x

Last time I wrote about my sense of disconnection from my art and I’d like to thank everyone who got in touch. Your support, and knowing that many of you share my sense of disconnection, really helps. This pandemic has turned our worlds upside down in so many ways but I cannot blame my lack of connection to my art on the pandemic alone. As I wrote before there were fissures already there, I think, from the changes in my life over recent years.

So how do I reconnect? There are lots of things I could try. I could take a workshop and learn a new technique in the hope that it sparks something. I could pick a call for entry with a set theme and a deadline and force myself to work on it just to be doing something, again in the hope it sparks something. Or I could start some form of daily practice, maybe something that is outside my ‘comfort zone’ such as sketching. These methods work really well for some people but I know myself and I know that these ideas won’t work for me. I’ve worked into sketchbooks and worked to other peoples themes often enough to recognise that they are not for me.

Instead I have spent time looking back and thinking about what has worked really well for me in the past. I don’t want to reinvent myself. I am not questioning the processes I have used in the past. I am looking for new inspiration that is a better fit with my life today. I know from experience that I do not make good art if I have a great idea and start working on it straightaway. The two quilts I made in April are a good example of this. I also know that my ideas rattle around in my head and evolve best when I’m busy printing and stitching - I really don’t do sitting around waiting for the muse!

Which is a bit of a conundrum. So I have stopped thinking about finding new inspiration. Instead I am trusting my process and trying to create abstract pieces that I can fall in love with. Some may say that this is taking the easy option but honestly now is not the right time for me to work on pieces with deep meaning. I am being kind to myself. I have picked a colour family to work with that is rather lovely. I have used breakdown printing to create a palette of fabrics. I am using simple compositions, based on different width strips and simple shapes, to create a series of full sized quilts. And I’m spending many, many hours sat at my machine stitching.

Some of the fabrics I have printed so far haven’t worked and some of the compositions I’ve played with haven’t made it off my design wall. Over the last few weeks I have finished one quilt that is boring and have stopped working on another piece part way through quilting. But I am slowly working towards pieces that are interesting. I haven’t got to the ‘wow’ moment but I will keep going. I don’t know where I will end up. I may end up with a successful series of abstract pieces. Or I may start thinking about a new source of inspiration that eventually leads to new work and end up throwing these pieces away. I feel that the process I am going through needs to be a private one so I’m not going to share images until I know which way this is going. Some of you may shudder at the idea of quilts going in the bin but I see this as an investment in me. A necessary investment. And a positive focus at the end of a very difficult year.

May I take a moment to wish each of you a peaceful Christmas in which you can find moments of happiness.

All my love, Leah

To say 2020 hasn’t gone as planned would be a bit of an understatement. At the beginning of this year my focus was on making art and on teaching. I had intentionally delayed plans to grow my online shop and to write my second book as I wanted to slow down a bit after a hectic 2019 and spend more time with my family.

But in March everything changed. With no income from teaching I quickly switched gears and spent time developing my online shop. Like many people I really struggled to focus on anything but found comfort in printing fabric to sell.

As my focus returned I decided to take a few weeks ‘off’ to make art. The pieces that I had been working on before March felt completely irrelevant. I had zero desire to work on that series so, like many other artists, I decided to use my response to the corona virus as my inspiration. I followed my usual creative process - I chose my colours first then printed fabric before thinking about composition. Whilst I enjoyed the process the two quilts I created were a bit disappointing. In fact one of them is just plain ugly. Under normal times I would have thrown those in the bin and kept going. I felt frustrated but didn’t have the emotional strength to figure out why they weren’t ‘right’.

Instead I threw myself into writing my second book. I took breaks to teach when restrictions allowed but I can honestly say that I stopped thinking about making art. I did enter a quilt I had made at the beginning of the year into several juried exhibitions but it was rejected over and over again. Normally this would really upset me but it didn’t. I like the quilt and would happily hang it on a wall in my home but just don’t feel as connected to it as I do my earlier work.

Eventually the book was finished. Having seriously over worked myself I was forced to really slow down for a few weeks. My mind turned to making art. And I realised that I have lost my way. I have lost the sense of connection with my work and I have lost the habit of making art. My life has changed completely in recent years. I no longer work in industry, based in an old cotton mill, surrounded by heavy machinery. I work in my studio. I no longer travel around the world with my job. Even before the pandemic I barely travelled anywhere and now I spend 99% of my time inside the boundaries of our property. I no longer have a clean separation between my art and my day job. My art is, or at least should be, part of my day job.

When I changed career and started teaching it was so that I could combine being an artist, cope with the increasing care responsibilities I have and still pay the bills. I was adamant that I wanted to be an artist who taught rather than a teacher who makes the odd bit of art. It was inevitable that there would be periods when my focus was 100% on growing my teaching practice and writing books but I failed to recognise that the connection I felt to my art was in part driven by the fact that previously I worked on my art everyday not in chunks of a week here and a week there.

Local restrictions currently prevent me teaching and I fear that this will continue into the new year. I could spend this time starting my next book, creating more thermofax designs for my shop, or developing online workshops but I’m not. I’m spending the time looking inwards, trying to reconnect with my art and figuring out how I sustain this once I am able to teach.

I will write about this in more detail next time but I will share something I have done that is helping me. It is a little thing but I have, temporarily, removed the big plastic ‘Covid safe’ screens from the studio and have rearranged the tables. Whilst those screens are necessary they just make me want to cry. By removing them I feel like I am reclaiming my creative space. A little step towards reconnecting.

I am very pleased to announce that Christine Chester will be teaching her five day Poetry of Stitch workshop here at Urban Studio North next September. Christine is a talented artist, popular teacher and runs her own studio in Eastbourne.

Stitching, whether by hand or machine, is usually the final layer on a piece of work and often the process we enjoy the most. But we can get into a routine of using the stitches with which we are most familiar. In this workshop Christine will encourage you to look at ways of stitching that will extend your language of marks. She will look at both hand and machine stitching thinking about the character and the weight of the stitching that we are using and how to apply that to printed work so that the stitch either enhances the printed layer; or creates focus within the print. There will be an emphasis on trying lots of small sample pieces before starting to work on a larger, more considered piece of work.

The five day workshop costs £450 and requires students to bring their own sewing machine. If you want to learn more about Poetry of Stitch please click here.

This is the final announcement about workshops in 2021 - the studio calendar is pretty full and I have all my fingers and toes crossed that we can run without restrictions, hopefully from March onwards. Normally I would now be thinking about workshops in 2022 but, given all the uncertainty in our lives, I’m not planning on making any announcements until Easter.

Before I go …..tis the season of shameless marketing ….. did you know that you can buy Urban Studio North gift cards in my online shop? Available in £20, £50 and £100 values, these digital gift cards can be used on all of the products in my shop including workshops, books, dyes etc and never expire! So if your loved ones don’t know what to get you for Christmas why not suggest a gift card?

Thank you for reading, Leah x

Whilst it is likely that there will be restrictions on my ability to open the studio early in the New Year I am very hopeful that life will get back to something near normal in the spring. The news about vaccines over recent days has felt like a glimmer of sunshine in what is a dark winter for many people around the world.

Looking ahead I am very pleased to tell you that I have developed a five day workshop Colour Your Palette based on my new book. In the workshop we will consider the differences between paints and dyes and what that means as we translate colour theory into colour practice when using dyes to add colour to cloth. We will look at the six types of colour references in the book and students will make a start on creating their own sets. We will explore various tools, including colour families, for creating different types of colour schemes. We will use those tools to work through multiple sources of inspiration, extracting individual colours and, if appropriate, blending those colours to create coherent collections, or palettes, of colour. And we will learn how to translate our colour choices into working practices, controlling colour within the confines of the surface design technique we prefer to use.

The workshop is aimed at those who already know how to dye or print fabric but want better control over colour in their work. The cost for the five days is £425 but this also includes ten squeezy bottles and an acrylic mixing plate so that students can continue their studies at home. The workshop will run four times next year on 12-16 April, 5-9 July, 13-17 September and 18-22 October. You can find out more here.

I have also added two new dates for my Breakdown Your Palette five day workshop. The new dates are 9th to 13th August 2021 and 23rd to 27th August 2021. Many of my 2020 Breakdown students moved their bookings to the 2021 workshops when I had to cancel the workshops this year so I will be teaching this workshop a lot next year. Which is wonderful as breakdown printing is my favourite thing! The workshops cost £400 and you can find out more here.

And finally, whilst I was loading these new workshops onto my website I noticed that the images of some of my Wonky Print Inspiration Packs in my shop were all the same. No idea how that happened but I have, hopefully, reset the images correctly.

Bye for now, Leah x