"Storm Season" looks at the unprecedented storm season which has hit our world this winter. From hurricane Harvey, the most expensive hurricane ever to hit America to the strong winds closer to my home in the UK.
When I started to crochet this piece the news was full of storms Harvey, Maria and Irma. Caribbean islands, including US territory Puerto Rico, were hit by one storm after another. The storms then went on to hit the US mainland. Each year this region experiences a storm season but this one has broken multiple records. The ferocity and the frequency of the storms was exacerbated by the warming sea temperatures and rising sea levels.
I started the work with this news ringing in my ears but then had a 3 months gap. The news had rolled on and I worried that I'd lost the momentum of the work. I watched news reports from the time. Chanel's such as "CNN" and "Barbados Today" CNN spoke of the shut down of Texas's oil reserves. The storms led to a 11% reduction in America's oil production, 1-2.2 million barrels a day were lost.
Alongside my impressions from September's archived news I was struck by January's news on plastic reduction and comments from Donald Trump "Why are we accepting people from these shit hole Countries?" As this new news rolled in I began to see links between the old news around the storms and the current news.
I'll take the plastics news first. Our first thought on seeing the storms hit Texas might be "What comes around goes around" i.e. as one of the most prolific users of oil and possible contributors to climate change America deserves what it gets. We might also think "Well at least its not affecting anybody I know." Whilst we might not directly see much of the oil America produces ourselves it's price is dictated by a global market. A drop of oil production anywhere signals global withdrawal symptoms. Oil spreads its tentacles over everything we do, every choice we make. Oil or fracked gas is used to produce plastic and plastic based fabrics and yarns, both in its chemical structure and in the energy needed to produce these products. As an individual I have been forced and cajoled into a reliance on plastics. I need it to contain my ready meal, to bag shopping, to keep clothes cheaper. As a consequence "Like It. Lump It" I am connected to the world wide oil trade. When I ask my politicians to stop siding with oil producing nations I don't like the look of if I'm part of the demand for oil I may not have a leg to stand on. They will point at my plastic protest banner, my prematurely new mobile phone and say that I demand oil so they must do everything they can to supply it. Pardon the pun buy they have us over a barrel. If prices go up we all see the rise in the price of our products. The news I've encountered this week was riddled with plastic. From Teresa May revealing a 25 year plan to deal with plastic to local facebook pages on zero plastic towns eliciting huge responses. As disasters, be they directly man made or not, grow our outrageous demands for plastic (and yes if we look back just 50 years or across at developing countries they are outrageous in comparison) are harder to satiate and make our world less and less stable.
That brings me on to Donald Trumps comments. He appears to have had it in for Puerto Rico since hurricane Maria struck. Even though its people are American Citizens paying taxes, just like those in say, Texas he gave less funds, visited later, allocated less resources and repeatedly blamed the growing humanitarian crisis on poor management by the Puerto Rican's. Aid seems to be being given as loans with conditions rather than as aid. If I was cynical I might expect that these conditions might weaken the territories ability to say no to the rest of America in the future. So when he asks why people from "shithole countries" are allowed into mainline America to answer is in this case and several others, they are Americans you dumb wit. That's without getting into the more high falluting ideas that we are all humans and sometimes some of us need help from those more well off.
And all of this probably creates a vicious circle. Global pimps have got us addicted to oil, too much oil use produces climate change. Changes in climate produce more disasters, disasters create more instability and leave those affected with less bargaining power. People are forced to acquiesce to oil producers and so it goes on. Its all so perfectly but horrifically connected. I think our biggest aid to positive change might be the understanding that everything is connected. Everything from what we put in our shopping baskets to the reactions of the American president.
So whilst all this has given me a bit of clarity about how to continue to crochet this part of the work it also creates new challenges. How to say all that with a small hook and a collection of yarn.
Saturday 13th January
I take to the streets to have a little slice of cold but in no way stormy weather. I sit and crochet "Storm Season". I meet a man who warns me of the fog which comes in like wild fire. I talk to a couple about the work and help the husband fill in the last of his crossword clues. It is Harvey. I sit opposite a shop selling a big pile of plastic storage boxes. I watch shoppers forced to carry bags of plastic to their cars. A confetti of plastic sweet wrappers blow past me, dropped by teens too feeble to carry them to a bin. The cold gets to me in the end. Hands stop working and after 4 hours I give up and come home. Glad to have a home. Glad that, for now at least, I can switch on the heating for a bit.
Sunday 21st January
Cold bike ride into town today. Those in the indoor car boot commented on my snowy bedraggled appearance. It seems like my wish for a more inclement day to experience a small slice of storm came true. First street studio stop outside "Quality Save". I try to stay put in each place for at least an hour. Time ticks slowly as the cold bites into my fingers, drafts gather around my back. Hands cease up after a while and make handy work more clumsy. I note the difference between street dwellers and those passing through. Most people pass through in this weather. Sheltering beneath fur lined nylon hoods. Sunday pace sped up by the drizzle. Going somewhere dryer and warmer.
There are unexpected street dwellers. The shoe shop opposite me is unexpectedly closed. Several mothers with children come and read a hand written explanation. All talk to each other. Some wait others walk away. Two children invent new tricks for umbrellas. Pigeons gather around expectantly. Turn away when I pull out non edibles. There are no buskers of Big Issue sellers today. A friend informs me that as the temperature has been under 3 degrees for two nights in a row the council have measures in place to provide emergency accommodation to rough sleepers. Half an hour in I pour a tepid coffee from my flask. Timed treats seem important. I consider how I might take to drugs if I had no re-assurance of home. Cold comes in waves. One minute you feel chilled the next strangely warm. I wear a wool coat so large that it normally feels like it could support its own eco system. It keeps out the cold and wet from the bench for around 40 minutes. Then the wet starts to seep. A wooly hat stops me feeling the drizzle. The water starts to pool on the work by my side. My inadequate boots soak up the puddle at my feet. It is unpleasant but I'm aware that its only a stubborn tenacity in my own rules which keeps me out. George Owell notes that whilst he feels the effects of extreme poverty during his research for "Down And Out In Paris And New York" he can decide to stop it. His fellow travellers do not have a rich background to return to, for them it is real and grinding.
I end the hour and go to look around shops to get warm. I visit a supermarket toilet and run my hands under the hot tap. I walk past a security guard who watches people from her computer podium. I feel a pang of guilt at using the facilities without being a customer. I stop myself when I note that the store stands almost on the spot where a public toilet used to be. I muse on market led economies. We live in one they say. If the market is calling all the shots now who has the responsibility to provide us with the things we absolutely need? I feel less guilty.
Another hour on a circular bench which overlooks a window display for shoes. A bit further down the hill it feels a bit more sheltered and I think I'm doing better until I realise only 15 minutes has passed. The sky gets greyer. A sad wet white pigeon stares at me from the ledge above the window. Not much more than a cursory glance from anything else.
The man who empties the bins says "nice weather for it". I ask him if he will take my picture. He empties the bins and walks off. Maybe he thought I was joking. I take no photographer with me and I ask people to take my photo only if they chat to me first. I don't want to be a chugger like pest. I want people to approach me on their own terms or not. I've been considering if a sign would spoil this. It could say "Street Studio" or "Ask if you are curious." This needs some thought. I end another hour and do my customary walk around a shop to get warm. The shop still feels cold. I can't work out if its their heating or mine which is at fault. I try to stop off for supplies on the bike ride home. My fingers are aching with the cold and the rain is coming down in cold spikes now. I can't bare to tie up my bike again and so I battle home, supply less. Two hours home soup eaten, up against the radiator and I'm still chilled. "Lets rub ourselves in deep heat and get up against the radiator" said Withnail in the film "Withnail and I". I have no deep heat will tiger balm do?
Friday 2nd February 2018
After the last storm season street day I got a terrible chest and cough, the likes of which I can't remember getting before. Only 2 hours out in the cold and that is the result. It makes me feel for those left homeless through storm or personal circumstance. It turns out its really easy to get ill when left out in the cold. The positive side for me was that I could batton down the hatches at home and crochet more of the pieces. Its a riot of discordant colours and It felt too fractured at first. A scattering of coloured circles some connecting brown and black strands seem to have brought it together now. Just one more piece to create "Shit hole countries" and then I might post a photo. I've also created an outdoor studio in a case which I'll be trying out soon.
I have 2 more Storm Season Street days to go so watch out for me and if you see me do say hello. Perhaps we might have an interesting conversation about something.
Monday 19th February 2018
I saw a film some time ago about Ai Weiwei's work at the Tate called "Sunflower Seeds". The thing which struck me was how each porcelain seeds was created. Ai Weiwei had gone to a community of Chinese potters who had a long tradition of making pots but were struggling to survive. He employed 1600 people to make the tiny seeds. Each one was hand made and painted. I often work with people who come to learn a skill and may as a result contribute a piece of work for free. I was interested in how paying those who could be said to be more expert would change the dynamics of the relationship and to some extent the work. Would we be more closely or more loosely bonded? Would the pieces created be bigger and better as a result of cash changing hands? Would the people involved enjoy it more or less? Would it enhance or complicate the existing work which people did for free? I've yet to conclude my thinking of some of these questions but I've made a start.
I wanted to show "The Beast From The East" I thought that it would be nice to portray it in the form of snowflakes. There are whole books about Crocheted snowflakes and they are something that a more advanced crocheter might move on to making. They demand an understanding of patterns and a knowledge of stitch names. Both these things I could have learnt and perfected. Instead I decided that my lack of these skills could act as a catalyst to try this pay per work model. I put out an artists brief which stated that I would pay £5/snowflake. They could be any size. There was a blizzard of replies so I had to cut my cloth according to the budget and restricted each maker to 2 flakes a piece. Some makers preferred not to be paid others were more inspired by the payment. One maker had a curtain of flakes which she wished to sell as one piece for less than £5/flake but still beyond the budget/maker. I realised how uncomfortable deals which involve cash make me feel. Maybe its a personal thing but it makes me feel like we are on different sides, not working together any more. It puts me in a strange power position which I don't feel very comfortable with. The process also amplifies something I've been aware of for a while. I go into a shop, I find something I like, I pay money to the shop keeper and I take the item away. End of transaction. I have no further obligation to the provider of my goods and services and they have no obligation to me. Our relationship is fleeting and finite. In the snowflake example only those who had contributed work for free seemed to come to the exhibition or engage in the project over a longer term. Once the cheque was sent to the paid creator we both signed off from each other. I'd like to look into the "Sunflower Seeds" process more deeply. To understand how connections were made and sustained and feed this into a re-run of my little experiment. Early thoughts are that Ai Weiwei mentions how long he had worked with the pottery village before starting to make the seeds. He says that they worked to understand how the language of perfecting a pot could be applied to a process for his art. I guess that the snowflakes touched on this but its an interesting one to explore more. The other difference, which is probably cultural, is that in China they have villages/city sections who concentrate on one thing. Some deal in plastic reclamation, others in fabric and some in pottery. We seem to have lost that here. No longer do we have a textiles quarter or a mining town. Its become much more fragmented. People are still doing those things but they are fragmented. There is something to think about there. Ai Weiwei says that because so many of the the citizens were engaged in the making process each community member knew somebody who was taking part, even the taxi driver spoke of it. It formed a common connection. How do remote people gain that sense of connection? In my experience it sometimes happens in a small way through people who act as conduits for people to know each other remotely. But that places huge pressure and power in the hands of the connector. They hold the strings of contact and if they drop them the whole network collapses. Can we build a process where the links are so interwoven that one person stepping away doesn't erode the whole set of relationships and activities. I've been aware with the snowflakes that I should collate all the details of those who took part into one place and maybe keep the links alive. As I write I'm considering that the reason I haven't done this isn't actually lack of time, focus or laziness. Instead its a feeling that there might be a better way than a fragile data base with me as its self imposed keeper. This needs more consideration and I'm sure these musings will continue beyond this project.
I also noted that to some extent the payment of a fee seemed to make it into a task rather than a pleasure. The paid makers restricted their makes to the required two and they were usually smaller and less intricate. I know myself that if I'm not watching the time to cash ratio I'll sit and make for much longer. When I start to consider the cash/hour I'll get more frantic and almost impose a kind of factory mentality on my making. I have a duality of thought here. I know that artists need to be paid and I feel strongly about this. Without money to pay the bills artists are diverted into more lucrative pursuits and the art drops off. One voice persists, that of the independently wealthy. I also know that the introduction of money muddies the waters and confuses me. I'm working on all this too. Again there is a solution we just haven't found it yet.
Its been an interesting strand of the projects with some unease and lots of thoughts. The resulting work is no better than the work given for free. For me it seems to have a certain sterility that other pieces don't have. The interest is more in the process behind it all.
The original Ai Weiwei video is here
When I started to crochet this piece the news was full of storms Harvey, Maria and Irma. Caribbean islands, including US territory Puerto Rico, were hit by one storm after another. The storms then went on to hit the US mainland. Each year this region experiences a storm season but this one has broken multiple records. The ferocity and the frequency of the storms was exacerbated by the warming sea temperatures and rising sea levels.
I started the work with this news ringing in my ears but then had a 3 months gap. The news had rolled on and I worried that I'd lost the momentum of the work. I watched news reports from the time. Chanel's such as "CNN" and "Barbados Today" CNN spoke of the shut down of Texas's oil reserves. The storms led to a 11% reduction in America's oil production, 1-2.2 million barrels a day were lost.
Alongside my impressions from September's archived news I was struck by January's news on plastic reduction and comments from Donald Trump "Why are we accepting people from these shit hole Countries?" As this new news rolled in I began to see links between the old news around the storms and the current news.
I'll take the plastics news first. Our first thought on seeing the storms hit Texas might be "What comes around goes around" i.e. as one of the most prolific users of oil and possible contributors to climate change America deserves what it gets. We might also think "Well at least its not affecting anybody I know." Whilst we might not directly see much of the oil America produces ourselves it's price is dictated by a global market. A drop of oil production anywhere signals global withdrawal symptoms. Oil spreads its tentacles over everything we do, every choice we make. Oil or fracked gas is used to produce plastic and plastic based fabrics and yarns, both in its chemical structure and in the energy needed to produce these products. As an individual I have been forced and cajoled into a reliance on plastics. I need it to contain my ready meal, to bag shopping, to keep clothes cheaper. As a consequence "Like It. Lump It" I am connected to the world wide oil trade. When I ask my politicians to stop siding with oil producing nations I don't like the look of if I'm part of the demand for oil I may not have a leg to stand on. They will point at my plastic protest banner, my prematurely new mobile phone and say that I demand oil so they must do everything they can to supply it. Pardon the pun buy they have us over a barrel. If prices go up we all see the rise in the price of our products. The news I've encountered this week was riddled with plastic. From Teresa May revealing a 25 year plan to deal with plastic to local facebook pages on zero plastic towns eliciting huge responses. As disasters, be they directly man made or not, grow our outrageous demands for plastic (and yes if we look back just 50 years or across at developing countries they are outrageous in comparison) are harder to satiate and make our world less and less stable.
That brings me on to Donald Trumps comments. He appears to have had it in for Puerto Rico since hurricane Maria struck. Even though its people are American Citizens paying taxes, just like those in say, Texas he gave less funds, visited later, allocated less resources and repeatedly blamed the growing humanitarian crisis on poor management by the Puerto Rican's. Aid seems to be being given as loans with conditions rather than as aid. If I was cynical I might expect that these conditions might weaken the territories ability to say no to the rest of America in the future. So when he asks why people from "shithole countries" are allowed into mainline America to answer is in this case and several others, they are Americans you dumb wit. That's without getting into the more high falluting ideas that we are all humans and sometimes some of us need help from those more well off.
And all of this probably creates a vicious circle. Global pimps have got us addicted to oil, too much oil use produces climate change. Changes in climate produce more disasters, disasters create more instability and leave those affected with less bargaining power. People are forced to acquiesce to oil producers and so it goes on. Its all so perfectly but horrifically connected. I think our biggest aid to positive change might be the understanding that everything is connected. Everything from what we put in our shopping baskets to the reactions of the American president.
So whilst all this has given me a bit of clarity about how to continue to crochet this part of the work it also creates new challenges. How to say all that with a small hook and a collection of yarn.
Saturday 13th January
I take to the streets to have a little slice of cold but in no way stormy weather. I sit and crochet "Storm Season". I meet a man who warns me of the fog which comes in like wild fire. I talk to a couple about the work and help the husband fill in the last of his crossword clues. It is Harvey. I sit opposite a shop selling a big pile of plastic storage boxes. I watch shoppers forced to carry bags of plastic to their cars. A confetti of plastic sweet wrappers blow past me, dropped by teens too feeble to carry them to a bin. The cold gets to me in the end. Hands stop working and after 4 hours I give up and come home. Glad to have a home. Glad that, for now at least, I can switch on the heating for a bit.Sunday 21st January
Cold bike ride into town today. Those in the indoor car boot commented on my snowy bedraggled appearance. It seems like my wish for a more inclement day to experience a small slice of storm came true. First street studio stop outside "Quality Save". I try to stay put in each place for at least an hour. Time ticks slowly as the cold bites into my fingers, drafts gather around my back. Hands cease up after a while and make handy work more clumsy. I note the difference between street dwellers and those passing through. Most people pass through in this weather. Sheltering beneath fur lined nylon hoods. Sunday pace sped up by the drizzle. Going somewhere dryer and warmer.
Another hour on a circular bench which overlooks a window display for shoes. A bit further down the hill it feels a bit more sheltered and I think I'm doing better until I realise only 15 minutes has passed. The sky gets greyer. A sad wet white pigeon stares at me from the ledge above the window. Not much more than a cursory glance from anything else.
Friday 2nd February 2018
After the last storm season street day I got a terrible chest and cough, the likes of which I can't remember getting before. Only 2 hours out in the cold and that is the result. It makes me feel for those left homeless through storm or personal circumstance. It turns out its really easy to get ill when left out in the cold. The positive side for me was that I could batton down the hatches at home and crochet more of the pieces. Its a riot of discordant colours and It felt too fractured at first. A scattering of coloured circles some connecting brown and black strands seem to have brought it together now. Just one more piece to create "Shit hole countries" and then I might post a photo. I've also created an outdoor studio in a case which I'll be trying out soon.
I have 2 more Storm Season Street days to go so watch out for me and if you see me do say hello. Perhaps we might have an interesting conversation about something.
Monday 19th February 2018
I wanted to show "The Beast From The East" I thought that it would be nice to portray it in the form of snowflakes. There are whole books about Crocheted snowflakes and they are something that a more advanced crocheter might move on to making. They demand an understanding of patterns and a knowledge of stitch names. Both these things I could have learnt and perfected. Instead I decided that my lack of these skills could act as a catalyst to try this pay per work model. I put out an artists brief which stated that I would pay £5/snowflake. They could be any size. There was a blizzard of replies so I had to cut my cloth according to the budget and restricted each maker to 2 flakes a piece. Some makers preferred not to be paid others were more inspired by the payment. One maker had a curtain of flakes which she wished to sell as one piece for less than £5/flake but still beyond the budget/maker. I realised how uncomfortable deals which involve cash make me feel. Maybe its a personal thing but it makes me feel like we are on different sides, not working together any more. It puts me in a strange power position which I don't feel very comfortable with. The process also amplifies something I've been aware of for a while. I go into a shop, I find something I like, I pay money to the shop keeper and I take the item away. End of transaction. I have no further obligation to the provider of my goods and services and they have no obligation to me. Our relationship is fleeting and finite. In the snowflake example only those who had contributed work for free seemed to come to the exhibition or engage in the project over a longer term. Once the cheque was sent to the paid creator we both signed off from each other. I'd like to look into the "Sunflower Seeds" process more deeply. To understand how connections were made and sustained and feed this into a re-run of my little experiment. Early thoughts are that Ai Weiwei mentions how long he had worked with the pottery village before starting to make the seeds. He says that they worked to understand how the language of perfecting a pot could be applied to a process for his art. I guess that the snowflakes touched on this but its an interesting one to explore more. The other difference, which is probably cultural, is that in China they have villages/city sections who concentrate on one thing. Some deal in plastic reclamation, others in fabric and some in pottery. We seem to have lost that here. No longer do we have a textiles quarter or a mining town. Its become much more fragmented. People are still doing those things but they are fragmented. There is something to think about there. Ai Weiwei says that because so many of the the citizens were engaged in the making process each community member knew somebody who was taking part, even the taxi driver spoke of it. It formed a common connection. How do remote people gain that sense of connection? In my experience it sometimes happens in a small way through people who act as conduits for people to know each other remotely. But that places huge pressure and power in the hands of the connector. They hold the strings of contact and if they drop them the whole network collapses. Can we build a process where the links are so interwoven that one person stepping away doesn't erode the whole set of relationships and activities. I've been aware with the snowflakes that I should collate all the details of those who took part into one place and maybe keep the links alive. As I write I'm considering that the reason I haven't done this isn't actually lack of time, focus or laziness. Instead its a feeling that there might be a better way than a fragile data base with me as its self imposed keeper. This needs more consideration and I'm sure these musings will continue beyond this project.
I also noted that to some extent the payment of a fee seemed to make it into a task rather than a pleasure. The paid makers restricted their makes to the required two and they were usually smaller and less intricate. I know myself that if I'm not watching the time to cash ratio I'll sit and make for much longer. When I start to consider the cash/hour I'll get more frantic and almost impose a kind of factory mentality on my making. I have a duality of thought here. I know that artists need to be paid and I feel strongly about this. Without money to pay the bills artists are diverted into more lucrative pursuits and the art drops off. One voice persists, that of the independently wealthy. I also know that the introduction of money muddies the waters and confuses me. I'm working on all this too. Again there is a solution we just haven't found it yet.
Its been an interesting strand of the projects with some unease and lots of thoughts. The resulting work is no better than the work given for free. For me it seems to have a certain sterility that other pieces don't have. The interest is more in the process behind it all.
The original Ai Weiwei video is here
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