This summer knowing, I was going to do my MA, I enrolled on the above paid for course. https://thepalerook.com/about/

The course format was an email correspondence course over 5 weeks (x2 lessons per week), these were sent out on Monday and Thursday. Johanna, The Pale Rook, sent out the emails prior to the start to explain the process, to inform each attendee the process that we needed to follow, equipment we may need, additional needs could be discussed, confidentiality statement, tuition options. Creative companion introductions were also available as an option towards the end of the course, there were attendees from all over the world, there were no zoom or teams’ meetings.

There were #palerook #thepalerookworkshop Hashtag on Instagram to upload images, and this was the only sharing platform on the course, however we were able to discuss anything with Johanna.

I found the course to be useful, firstly to reacquaint myself with my art practice as I had become lost in a void of having little direction, having little motivation to start new work, since leaving my then full-time career, a residential home manager, where I had little head space to think about anything other than work.  Once I left that role and stepped down, I was able to find direction.

The course progressed each week and through foraging for treasure, fabric scraps, gathering materials, making materials that will be used, I had used this method before to ‘age’ my fabrics, I dyed new cottons with tea, scrubbed the surface with rough stone or scrubbing brush, buried fabric in the garden in soil, it was good to learn that others do this too. Using old clothing which is part of my practice was also discussed, I continue with my passion for recycling especially clothing, there is a beautiful quality to fabric when it has aged and worn, it softens and bends, it flows and hangs, it also depends on the fabric, this is not true of all fabrics, jumpers sag and snag, bobble and rip so obviously some fabrics are better than others.

Making fabrics, stitching small sample pieces, finding faces everywhere, sitting still and finding characters for me ties into serendipity choosing old toys or dolls, not every discarded doll, teddy or toy communicate a narrative that I see when I am looking for new materials. By lesson five we were tasked with making a head, basic hand stitched head with different fastening methods discussed. I found the features part fascinating, I have worked on my own pieces to add a few lines only, a suggestion of a genderless face normally drawn on, but I experimented with several methods and found that I favoured less was more for me.

The first reflect and review was meditative look at what you have learnt in the first few weeks, was there a recurring theme, palette texture. a set of questions when answered would let the attendee get to know their preferences, what surprised me at this point was that there was a lot of pink, but on deeper inspection it was to do with structure and form and the palette was natural with all of my images of grasses, wildflowers stone walls, roots of trees lichen and moss growing on the walls.

I embraced the new challenge of following a lesson plan, carrying out tasks and recording what I found out about my own making practice. It was in lesson six that we were tasked with freehand shape making to form a body, I really struggled with the next lesson, I found a real resistance to this method, I have previously used other dolls bodies adapted these to fit my needs or used a set pattern to make a rag doll type body, this lesson was all about freestyle drawing, suggesting limbs then turning the paper pattern around, this was when the magic should happen, I struggled initially, but eventually, I battled myself but went with it, I learnt far more about myself in this process, that sometimes I have to do things that I feel resistance towards to enable me to push my ideas forward instead of falling on to known trusted methods that have the same outcomes. The picture below shows my initial shape, I hated it but kept exploring and the following pictures show the development, without this experiment beforehand I would not have got to the quilted hand, this led me to rethink some of my practice where I had stayed safe.

Considering character, I felt that this reflection review was how I have always worked, it very much resonated with my own way of working but in a different order which was very interesting as I had not considered this way of working previously. Embellishing and adding treasure was next, hair options, clothing options discussed faces, did we need one?

I have taken out of the course what I needed, I have been able to question my own practice, adding fresh insight into doll making processes, enabling me to work out if that was the avenue that I wished to push in my MA.

In truth, this course has influenced and inspired me, I will continue to use dolls to inform my practice they continue to be one of my vehicles to narrate a story, they are not the story, they are merely telling it, not just dolls, drawing, mixed media, story books and printing techniques.