On going research.

In my creative practice I have always been interested in how place and past are part of us. My curiosity is not based on fact or science.

Five years ago I developed my textile and illustration practice with and for babies through my work with Playground. I included  personal exploration focusing on the senses. At baby PG sessions at Cliftonville Library I subtly (and safely) used the scent ‘Walpole Bay’, by Goodhood from the coastal tidal bay at Margate. My interest was to ground the session at a subconscious level in the time and smell of the place where the participating babies were born and live, (carers, babies and artists were unaware of the scent or my intention).

From this seed of an idea at Cliftonvillle Library I am exploring babies, place and time.

We experience in our bodies subtle sensations through place, texture, senses and intuition, I believe this can inevitably help us navigate the world. I want to investigate babies deepest sense of being and activate/enhance this moment and place in time. This can be their place of birth, home in the first months of their lives and/or where their parents came from. Starting in Kent, UK, I references the natural and industrial landscape, the chalk and clay, tidal rivers and coastlines, the linear Downs,  golden dry fields, fruit harvests, the busyness of industry and the sound of criss crossing roads.

I have connected baby and place: Sittingbourne brick making, Maidstone with Saxon coins on the Medway at low tide and Dover’s powdery chalk cliffs. Each is underpinned by the idea  that time and environment shape the baby.

A challenge with this research is conveying the conceptual nature of this work through a narrative that is readable in everyday visual language, how to make my ideas cohesive and easier to follow.

Further work in this rich expansive world could include developing babies emotional range and enrich ‘language’ for feelings. This could also support being safe, feeling special, having needs met and emotional regulation, which could potentially be retained as the baby lives their life.

As an artists I am an empathetic conduit offering meaning, feeling and symbolic ways to describe the inner world. This includes safe and sacred spaces, body awareness, guided journeys, confidence building and creativity, for baby, carer and artist  together. Artist, creativity, object, place, history and senses become the regulators to engage the babies mind and body using time and place as prompts.