Diary

I have never been good at keeping a diary. The thick ‐ lockable – keep all your secrets safe ‐ pour your heart out tomes of pre-pubescence, never made it past the first few days. Even now at the beginning of a potentially good trip away, the well intentioned – document everything excitement attached to favourite pen and a new, velvety Moleskine soon deteriorates into incoherent scribbled notes and snatched drawings. So the whole concept of blogging and me is flawed from the start. In addition, it must be said, never have I been much good at writing about the doing when I’m in the midst of the doing. Am usually so full on doing, there is absolutely no space available to take a step back for document or comment. And so it has been. 2007 has been an intensive year and the last few months, particularly so. Cloth & Culture Now has just opened at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, Norwich. In this latest massive project from Lesley Millar 35 artists from 6 countries were selected for the project. We were all asked to write the title in our own language / handwriting and the resulting strong graphic leads into this exhibition. Entrance to Cloth & Culture Now In Concealed ‐ Discovered ‐ Revealed (display of my work at V&A) the woven tapestries and stone drawings were two parallel, yet separate lines of enquiry. For Cloth & Culture Now I proposed a body of four works, which would draw together and expand this dialogue through continuing exploration of qualities of materiality. Heavily influenced by my research into the V&A collections, I have become fascinated by the language of individual mark with regard to textile language.The four works, each 2m square, in linen, lead, stone and digital image, help me to think about hard/soft, light/heavy, rigidity/flexibility, tangible/intangible – the very nature of weaving/textile/fabric. Call and Response: Linen Lead Stone Shadow, Sue Lawty 2008 The exhibition continues at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts until 1 June. It then travels to The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester in the autumn before touring to participating countries through 2009. The website www.clothandculturenow.com is packed full of information about education events, the book, the project and the artists.