Repetition and Remembering – Julie Barratt

 

Needle and Thread (Detail) 2016, Artist Julie Barratt, Photo: Julie Barratt Epicormia Collective
Needle and Thread (Detail from the ‘remember the milk’ series) 2016, Artist Julie Barratt, Photo: Julie Barratt,  Epicormia Collective

 

 

Working on my daily arts practice of repetition and remembering is the ethos behind my new series of work entitled: remember the milk. These are the two key practices that assisted in repairing synapses in my brain following a period of serious illness and lengthy recovery from encephalitis.

 

Site specific practice and slow art also interest me as ways of making art, and making art accessible.

 

28 September 2016

 

Today I sit In the beautiful Campo de San Fransisco (park) in Oviedo Spain, quietly and slowly embroidering words from today’s shopping list onto whatever is at hand. Used bus and plane tickets, boarding passes, receipts, musical events tickets and all manner of ephemera that I find in my backpack are all perfect embroidery canvasses.

The added benefit of this practice is that each of these throw away items triggers a memory of a recent time and place after a month of travelling in Europe. Slowly, slowly I build a body of artwork that will come together in the form of an artist book and/ or wall-based installation works.

Since my illness, I have religiously kept lists and for me the act of embroidering a simple shopping list immediately elevates its importance. In my life the list is a crucial way of maintaining order, in this new work remember the milk, I aim to honour the importance of the humble shopping list.

And so I sit here now in Campo de San Fransisco, focusing on today’s ephemera with needle and thread in hand…

 

 

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *