In charge of my tupperware destiny .....

…. is the sentence I used throughout last weeks workshop with Claire Benn. I could spout some arty bollyards and say that it was about the weight of the domestic burden on womens empowerment but actually it came from a very happy conversation with my friend, and fellow student, Ruth Brown. Yes it was that conversation about how you always end up with a miss match of tupperware containers and lids. So not a deep and meaningful sentence but one that made me smile all week!

The first day of the workshop progressed at a fast pace with exercise after exercise using pens on copy paper to get us beyond using our usual handwriting style. I really struggled with it and, being honest, felt a bit useless compared with some of the other students. But there were some exercises that acieved what I wanted - completely illegible words and interesting patterns.

On day 2 we moved onto indian ink on heavy weight paper and so another steep learning curve for me. Some stuff I liked but I ended the day feeling frustrated and with a heavy dose of imposter syndrome. Nothing to do with Claires teaching which was inspiring and enabling. Just me. Overnight I remembered that something similar happened when I learnt to screen print all those years ago - hopping from one thing to the next isn’t how I learn. I learn by identifying those techniques that interest me most and focussing on them. After all this is what I did with breakdown printing.

And so the rest of the week went better. I listened to all of Claires demos but didn’t attempt more than a few. The notes she provided were incredibly detailed so I know that I can always refer to them when I’m ready.

Importantly there was ‘enough’ interesting stuff that I’m going to continue studying in my own studio. I’m not seeing a way to combine text as texture with my breakdown printing yet but if I put in the hours / days / weeks / months mastering my newly learnt techniques those ideas will come. Or maybe I’ll create art in a different way, who knows?

Claire will be delivering this workshop for Fibre Arts Take Two next year and I would whole heartedly recommend it. I didn’t make a beautiful, balanced piece of art like some of the students during my five days with Claire but I did find a world of new possibilities.