The Walking Skirt is a branching path off the route that Karen and I took with her Cultures of Care commission. This project has been challenging in ways that have nothing to do with Karen and her work, but all to do with the museum it was supposed to be related to and displayed within. After several years of positive connections with the museum, a change in staff caused a rupture in the project which could not be repaired. Karen’s commission, a collaboration between us both and the museum collections, had to find a new route. I had planned a wonderful project with the museum collections when the first road block appeared. I worked my way around the block and created an even better concept which could include Karen’s work and Mandeep’s work on front gardens (see later in this issue) as well as inspiring new work of my own. I worked on the concept, the interpretation, planned hands-on areas and videos, workshops, talks and events bringing together the museum building, contents and stories with my own. Karen and I had visits to the museums, walks in the local area to the places
of significance for my research and we started exploring places for her research too, walking and talking around Derbyshire.
Then it all came crashing down, a huge fallen tree leaving such a hole in the earth that it was impossible to work around. I had to turn back, walking away from the concept, research and development that I had so enjoyed doing. It still makes me sad, almost a year on. I haven’t worked out what to do with all that research and thinking and brilliant ideas that need a house turned-museum to grow in. I felt so bad that Karen’s project was now detached from its roots, unable to develop in the space it belonged. Karen is more resilient though and she chose to explore one of the branching paths rather than following the direct route.
Karen developed the ideas of the Walking Skirt, which she explores in the essay following this. I tagged alongside her, accompanying some walks, sharing ideas and reflections. Although this was Karen’s project, some of the idea development has been collaborative and her way of working has inspired my own thinking and development too. On one walk I started drawing a linear map, a long, thin line, a collection of sensory experiences and things that caught my eye. Back in the studio I re-drew this map and added all the leaves and twigs collected, and then began forming ideas in thread. I’ve been making stitched linear maps for a while but I felt like this needed to be something different so my little ribbon loom came out and I wove the walk. My weaving is far from exceptional, my loom is basic, as are my skills, but the process is what matters.
Weaving is meditative anyway, and for me, on this little medieval style loom, it’s a step into the past, my past, of historical reproductions and medieval re-enactment. I had used the loom in my Hearth & Home pieces and was feeling a strong connection between land, landscape and history which seemed right for this project. My woven walk came out on various other walks, including to my local woods and on others with Karen alone. It has planted a seed of weaving with meaning which I am sure to come back to again in other projects.
Ruth Singer 