When I was asked if I would be able to stand in for a booked speaker who had cancelled, at a local Scottish Women’s Institute meeting,  I said ‘yes of course’, mainly because I haven’t yet learnt to say no, even though it often gets me in to trouble!  This is that talk …
At the risk of sounding like I’m at an AA meeting, Hello I’m Kate MacDonald & I’m a Creative!  I think many of you will know me from various places.  I used to belong to the Kilmichael SWI, was President for a term & I have done a felt making demonstration for you.  Or, you might have been on one or two of my sewing classes or been up to the Studio Barn during Artmap weekend, or maybe through Christ Church, the Scottish Episcopal church in Lochgilphead, where I am a Lay Reader, Peoples Warden and Lay Rep and involved in organising many of the events we run.  You may also know, that I have my own business, Needlesmiths, that I am a textile artist & sewing tutor, that I do many other crafts like wet felt making and silverclay work.  I enjoy writing, short stories and poems, I have a novel on the go, and on the first of March I published my new quarterly mini magazine.  Somewhat less creatively, I’m also a Carer (with a capital C) for my husband and, increasingly, my parents.  What you possibly don’t know about me is that I suffer from depression, anxiety and stress.
After 14 years on dialysis, in September last year, my husband Brian had a very unexpected kidney transplant which has been life changing for both of us.  An incredible blessing, it hasn’t come without its problems and hitches.  One of the unexpected issues has been the emotional fallout for both of us.  Because it was so sudden, there wasn’t any preparation time.  He went on the list again on the Monday and had a transplant on the Thursday, I didn’t believe it was happening, and still didn’t really until I saw him the day after the operation and there was an 8inch wound on his tummy, so something must have happened!  Things got a bit bumpy before Christmas, but I had things to do that helped to distract me from the hospital visits and the worry, commissioned lampshades, stock for events and for the new store in Glasgow that sells my work.  Events to organise at church and the Homestyle Argyll Christmas House event, and presents and cards to make for family and friends.  It was a time of major creative output, of painting and sewing, of designing and printing, of hospital dashes, and preparations for seasonal visitors.  I couldn’t have been happier!  Then it was the kerfuffle of Christmas and New Year, I thought I would have a week or two to relax and then off I would go again.  Only that didn’t happen.  It was as though I had forgotten how to paint or sew.  Then Brian went into hospital again for a week, and then dad went into hospital for a month, and I couldn’t work.  I tried tidying up, I started two evening classes.  No dialysis meant we had more time & I could do these things.  Although I could write, I still couldn’t work.  I started to walk the dogs further in the afternoons, they didn’t complain, and it meant that I didn’t have to pretend to be working.  I started to question what I was going to do.  There was a lot of noise in my head and I didn’t know how to shut it up.  There was a rising tide of panic in my chest, settling like a stone. I was tired but couldn’t sleep.  I wasn’t hungry but picked and ate to try to squash down my feelings, an increasing waistline didn’t help the way I felt.  A fear of failure kept me from trying anything.  The insidious envy I felt at friend’s successes and holidays ate away at me.  I couldn’t read magazines because I would compare my position with others.  But to the outside world I was smiley, and all was fine.  A health scare didn’t help matters, I had no-one to share my concerns with, so carried the worry it until tests were negative only then did I ‘fess up and that I had fibbed about my whereabouts on one day.  But those dog walks, and my two evening classes, where immensely helpful.  One class was Creative writing, and the other is Printmaking.  Not an area I’m terribly familiar with so it made me think and concentrate on the task in hand.
What I now realise I should have done, was stop properly.  Take time out, enjoy doing nothing for a while.  But I’m not really made that way, & I didn’t stop to really assess how I was feeling.  Now I’m the other side of that wall of mud I can see things much more clearly.  In January there is so much flying around about planning for the year ahead, on the radio, television, on social media, in magazines, new resolutions, new beginnings, but at the time everything looked a bit grey and muddy.
I was thinking about my ‘Why’, my ‘What’, and my ‘How’, with regards to my business & our new homelife.  It is hard for someone who strives to live with less, (still trying get this through to my clutterbucket, shopaholic husband!), who has been very ‘green’ for much of her life, who hates waste and plastic, to then make products and encourage people to buy them!  But who is also unable to live without creating stuff, sewing, painting, making, writing and who also needs make a living as she is pretty much unemployable these days.
I shared a few things on-line and had some lovely responses and messages which really helped me put things into focus.  In particular, a comment from someone (who might be in the room…) who had been in one of my early sewing classes 4 years ago or so, about how she is still sewing and upcycling fabric. It made me realise that I didn't have to try to save the world on my own, and that by running workshops I can teach others how to sew and how to reuse fabric thus creating less waste.  It was a real lightbulb moment.  I was now able to plan the first quarters workshops.
My lampshades made me pause, and gave me a headache, but I was told that they bring people joy & happiness. And I do love making them.  After a bit of research, I am delighted to have sourced organic, Fairly Traded calico which I will start to use for my artwork & lampshades and that helps me to feel better about the new fabric I use.  I’ve recently been investigating recycled thread made from plastic bottles.  I still have mixed feelings about this but am willing to give it a go and see how it behaves.  Cotton, although obviously a natural fibre, isn’t very environmentally friendly to produce, I haven’t found a bamboo sewing thread yet although it is made into fabric and knitting type yarns and embroidery silks. 
With the off cuts of calico, I make hand-painted cards. The card stock is made in the UK from recycled paper. I don’t put the cards into single use cellophane sleeves but use a paper wrap to keep envelope and card together and to have somewhere to put the price label. So, I’m happy with the way I produce these.
All of my fabric waste and thread snips I send to Mary’s Meals as they can get money for scrap fabric by weight.
Subsequently I’ve found that I can marry my passion and the necessity for sewing & creating with treading more lightly on the earth. That I can sell my products in good conscience knowing that they give pleasure and happiness alongside sound environmental & ethical practice.
And that includes silverclay believe it or not.
Silverclay, and copper, bronze, and gold clays are produced by recycling the metals from computers, mobile phones and so on, combined with recycled fabric and paper fibres then mixed with a non-toxic organic oil.
I have been obsessed with textiles since forever.  As a baby I was put down to sleep (& keep out of mischief) in a large wicker costume hamper at the Birmingham Rep theatre.  My parents worked in the Props and Costume departments and I think that that early contact with fabric rubbed off on me, literally.  Playing in dad's workshop with trims and ribbons, hiding in the fabric store with bolts of material standing in corners, shelves stacked with folded textiles, tins of buttons and strings of beads.  But it took me a while to be able to create textile art, even though textiles have been at the centre of everything I’ve ever done creatively.  For my A levels I screen printed fabric and sewed it into a pair of curtains & a matching laundry bag to fit in with a ‘bedroom’ scene that I had created and that included designing and making a futon style sofa bed with storage – Parts of which still exist 30 years on.  I soaked fabric in clay slip so that it ‘fossilised’ when I was on my foundation course.  I presented an exhibition design stitched onto hessian during my degree course, which wasn’t really appreciated and probably contributed to me leaving before completing my degree!  After a few years in the wilderness that is the Sky megacorporation in Fife & West Lothian, my increasing interest in green issues and galloping disinterest and disinclination for working in a bullying office environment and a chance read of a tiny advert in a Sunday paper for casein (milk based paint) lead me to work for a building conservation charity.  There I introduced weekend workshops and lead my first workshops introducing homeowners and professional decorators to chemical free paint.  Then Brian & I moved west, and I started my first business selling natural building and decorating materials.  This was about 17 years ago, and I was well ahead of the curve and fashion.  Then Brian & I open M.A.C.K. & M.A.G.S. (Mercantile Arts Centre Kintyre & Mid Argyll Green Shop) some of you may remember, in Tarbert.  Again, we were ahead of the game, doing gluten free, dairy free, vegan, food & drinks and eco products in the shop.  Brian became ill & I couldn’t manage a 7 day a week business, a husb who at that point could barely walk, and although we don’t have children, we had three dogs and five cats and it’s not so easy to get a babysitter for those with four feet!
Throughout the time Brian was ill, learning to dialyse, sitting at hospital beds I often had a creative project on the go.  Something I didn’t really need to think about that my hands could do by themselves.  Designing my own tapestries was a good one.  Easy to pick up and put down, no counting or dropping of stitches, no forgetting which way the crosses went.  Just enough concentration to let the mind settle and get off the hamster wheel.
This was now 14 or 15 years ago, but it wasn’t really until very recently that I realised just how much creativity, making and doing was tied into how well I felt or didn’t feel. 
About three years ago I went on a creative weekend away in Cambridgeshire.  I was terrified.  Just getting there was going to be for me, an epic journey, drive to Glasgow, hotel overnight, then three trains to Cambridge where I was going to be picked up by my kindly B&B owner.  By the time I arrived down there everyone at the workshop were going to be monsters.  I was so far out of my comfort zone, I was in a different country!  Even if it was the one I grew up in!  In the end of course, it was a fabulous weekend, everyone was lovely, and I made some really good friends who I am still in touch with.  The lady who ran the weekend, Emma Mitchell, known on line as Silverpebble, has suffered from severe depression and Seasonal Affective Disorder for many years.  She has found that making things, being creative and walking, in all weathers, deliberately observing what is going on around, not just plodding head down minding the rain and avoiding the puddles, really helps to boost her mental health.  A scientist by training she has read the research that backs this up and explains how studies have shown that interacting with the natural world can influence the serotonin levels in the brain.
She wrote her first book about crafting her way through the dark days and her second book is a diary of her year in and out of depression alongside the months and seasons and how she feels. They are both very lovely books and I highly recommend them.
 
(At this point I gave a demonstration & made some silverclay mussel shells)
​
If you’re feeling blue then doing a workshop, being creative or going for a walk, will really lift your spirits.  Obviously, I run a variety of courses and creative days, in a number of different skills, but also locally Love Dove Studio – opposite the Square Peg next to the Sweetie Jar in Lochgilphead -  are doing evening & weekend workshops on floral displays and painting.  Lochgilphead college does evening classes, in pottery, printmaking, photography & creative writing, and the MS Centre has craft afternoons.
So, this, in a roundabout way with many a side-track and tangent is my story and how I manage my mental health and how out of something that looks a little bit muddy some silver will appear! 

                                                                Talk given to the ladies of Lochgilphead SWI in March 2019

And then I emailed it to people and then I got some printed...
​The Needlesmith - Journal of a Creative.  A 'lifestyle magazine', full of interesting things, Notes on Nature, a short story, a poem or two, some 'Green Living' tips, and recipes and Quick Makes and .. and ... and .... a whole lot more besides.
You can read this issue for free at issu.com/needlesmiths

Love is …
By Kate MacDonald
 
My love is
On a washing line
Fluttering in the breeze
 
Your love is
Dried on a radiator
Hot, rumpled and untidy
 
Their love is
From the tumble drier
Easy care and crease free
 
Her love is
On a whirly gig
Spinning round dizzily
 
His love is
Like a clothes horse
Folded away stiffly
 
Our love
Needs no washing
Fresh as a daisy daily
 

These pretty much sum up January & February!

Confession
By Kate MacDonald
 
A fear of failing,
Holds me
Back from the doing,
The starting,
Beginning.
 
A fear of failing,
Holds me
Back from creating.
Inhibits,
Constraining.
 
A fear of failing,
Holds me
Back from the chance
Of growing,
Succeeding.
 
This fear of failing
Closes my mind,
Roars through my head,
Fills up my chest,
Arresting my breath.
 
I know I should start.
Pick up the pen,
Just make a mark.
Wield a paint brush or
Ply a needle with thread.
 
This fear of failing
Prevents me from falling,
But it stops me from flying.
 
In my fear to start,
I wallow.
If I haven’t begun
I cannot then fail 

Facebook was telling me that my 547 friends and followers hadn’t heard from me for a while.  When I get 'head down & motoring' busy or I’m feeling a bit out of sorts, I do tend to forget to post on there.  I think ‘I'll do that/say this tomorrow' and of course tomorrow doesn't ever arrive as it is always today then it becomes yesterday, and I still haven't popped by.  The same happens with blogging.  I have a number of started blogs, or a folder of photographs, but then something happens, or is it that it doesn't happen, and items stay unwritten until I sit down with that hat on and my fingers rattle over keys and a whole pile of 'stuff' gets done.  Emails fly out into the ether, blogs get written, posts and pictures start to appear on Facebook & Instagram.  A flurry of activity and a great deal of satisfaction achieved.

​The main thing that has been taking up time recently is this 'White Butterflies Magenta Flowers' lampshade. I finally stopped painting it and sewed the butterflies on and then turned the flat to round. The client has seen photographs & her first word was ‘Stunning’ which is a bit of a relief as I really wasn’t sure about it!  It is very different from my 'usual' blue themes.

​Now it's full on with Christmas things and preparing for two SWI – Scottish Womens Institute weekend workshops on fabric collage.  They will be making a tealight or picture and I need to get some examples sorted asap and also to sort through my fabric scraps which have spent some time ‘airing’ in boxes on the cabin decking… I need to check that everything is OK there. And write lists.... lesson plan.... materials.... equipment.... samples etc....etc.... 
This picture is of a lampshade that I made inspired by an old stone wall.  

I've also started to get my Christmas hat on.  I organise the Christ Church Winter Bazaar in Lochgilphead and it now has a great reputation for being the biggest and the best event in Lochgilphead, which I’m thrilled about.  Taking place on the first weekend of November it really kicks off the Winter & Christmas Fairs and markets in the area.  I’ve already taken a LOT of bookings including I think 11 new makers so it’ll be even bigger than usual!   That's only seven weeks away, and then there is the Homestyle Argyll Christmas House .... with Friends .... Last year was such a success that we’re doing it again ….
 All of a sudden, the month I thought was going to be quiet isn't!

The utter chaos that is my studio desk..... designs, with potential and without.... and rather refelcts the state of my head at the mo!
More anon, 
Kx

Many counties now have an Open Studios route at some point in the year. A weekend or more when you can see behind the scenes of the artists life.  My local one is called Artmap Argyll.  Dad has been involved from the beginning, eleven years ago, first as a Full member then more recently as an Associate.  Mum then joined and was a full member, though rarely paints or draws now.  I only plucked up enough courage to apply four years ago. 
​Originally Dad opened one end of the steading that is his workshop to put artwork on display, but after a couple of years we were inspired to empty what is known as the ‘Victorian barn’ and converted into a seasonal gallery space.  You can see the change and the full story here www.studiobarnargyll.  Now, as well as Artmap weekends we are open from around Easter until the end of September-ish, much depends on the weather.  

​​Artmap is a difficult weekend emotionally & physically, the highs of plaudits, the lows of disinterested glances, even though you know you’re not going to be to everyone’s taste you still take it a bit personally.  Being an exhibiting artist is exhausting, you have to be on duty all day, ready with a smile to welcome to everyone who comes through the door, ready to explain the why & the how many times over.

​I never expect to sell a piece of artwork or lampshade so I'm always surprised and delighted when I do.  Behind the calm façade & fumbling fingers as they struggle with the string tie up the parcel there's an excited little happy dance going on inside!  Thank you!

Several people asked if I sold shades online… & I do so want to!  But it is only me wearing all the hats in my business and with rural broadband not being what it could or rather should be, it's going to take me a while to get to that point.  Slowly, tooooo slowly, it is being worked on, and I hope to have the proper shop up soon … (ish!)  Meanwhile do visit us on the hill!
Kx

I have made cards, mostly just for Christmas for friends and famliy, since a pre-Christmas, Christmas meal with my flat-mates when I was at college and realised that I had forgotten to buy any to go with the presnts.  Being an art student, I had a useful supply of stuff in my bedroom, coming up with some card, a gold ink pen, gold paint and a wine cork, and 5 speedy minutes later I had elegant gold holly leaves wit golden berries on black card Christmas cards.  They were received so well, that I made them for everyone I sent cards to that year.  28 years later & it has become a ‘thing’.  I have to make our Christmas cards.  My cards haven't always been ‘cards’, some have been designed to hang on the tree like the ones inspired by a Harry Potter film - I painted cork coasters dark blue, stencilled a gold crescent moon on one side and on the other were little spots of glittery stars, they hung from gold thread and were weighted with gold beads and a little bell.  Others have been stitched, like the clove scented hearts with part of the ‘Little Donkey’ carol printed onto them.  Another year it was the front of the Boots catalogue that inspired the design, interlocking Christmas trees.   I'm afraid I don't have any pictures of thse past creations.

​I decided to make some cards for sale this year when I went to the Handmade Fair at Ragley Hall.  I had a beautiful display of lampshades but knew that not everyone would want one (sadly!) so I made some cards from painted and stitched fabric left over from lampshade making.  I hate waste and couldn’t just throw these painted pieces away, So I had been keeping them thinking that one day they would in useful...  I decided to buy 100% recycled card stock & envelopes which are made in the UK.  Being a fervent supporter of the reduction of single use plastic items, I didn't want to put them in cellophane envelopes, so I had some paper strips printed saying that the card is a Needlesmiths Original, that it is a hand painted, on recycled card, & made in the UK.  It also gave me somewhere to stick the price label.  They were admired and lots of people bought them.  As a supporter of the ‘Just a Card’ campaign & now participator, I was very pleased with the reaction.  Each one is a different and tiny artwork, I have gone on to make more and they form a regular part of my stock now.  Many have been taken home to be put into frames and not sent to anyone as they are ‘too nice’!

As I make cards but am not a ‘card-maker’, I have only recently discovered another movement ‘Naked Cards’, and as you can see from the sidebar here I have 'Taken the Naked Card Pledge'.  This campaign encourages card-makers not put their cards into plastic sleeves.  Some use ‘paper belly wraps’ which turn out to be that strip of paper I had ‘invented’ to keep my card and envelope together and to put a price tag on!

I’m really pleased to support and be part of two great networks and grateful to be supported by the many visitors to events, fairs, and the Studio Barn, who buy “Just a Naked Card”. ​

Do support the 'Just a Card' Campaign if you can.  You can find them on Twitter & Instagram & Facebook.  And of course if you can support an independant artist, designer, retailer or gallery, then all the better!
More again soon
Kx

I was at the Argyll Festival in Glasgow at the weekend.  Organised by CHArts Argyll & the Isles (Culture Heritage &  Arts) who are charting all the culture, heritage & arts activities in the Argyll area.  Argyll Fest was about the best that Argyll has to offer by way of food, drink and artisan crafts.  I was delighted to have been accepted and been part of the event.  

We had arrived in Glasgow the night before as I hadn't wanted to travel across country in the early hours & it meant we could go to the cinema and see something loud and nonsensical the evening before.  Glasgow was fully booked up, my favorite hotel had run out of beds.  So we took the first one we could find with a vacancy.  Not the nicest but we went to see Mission Impossible which was loud very nonsensical and just what the Dr ordered!

After a late night, as I was up until all hours sending emails for Artmap weekend, we left the hotel to get to the venue, slightly antsy as I was tired and feeling stressed by the day to come.  Arriving early, when we realised that we had driven past the venue twice before eventually finding it, I had written it off as a waste of a weekend.  If we couldn't find it what chance did was there of any customers coming in?  Then I discovered that there wasn't any electricity as had been requested and promised.  I was stomping around by this point.  We hadn't been able to park terriby near by so I had a lot of to-ing & fro-ing to do before I could start to set up.   However an electrician arrived and power points produced, I stopped being hot and bothered & fakely smiley, was provided with a cup of tea and gradually I calmed down and properly smiled at people!  I discovered later flags and bunting etc got hung out and so people did come in to see what it was all about, LOTS of people!

The Briggait is an interesting space/venue.  Now full of workshops for over 100 artisits and creatives with a huge central space, fantastically light and bright.  (I was actually quite pleased it was a bit of a grey rainy day so that my lit lamps and shades did show up.) 
It is situated in the medieaval part of Glasgow,  Merchant City, a category A listed building originally built to house Glasgow's fish market, it was completed in 1873 and used for the market until the late 1970's.  

I didn't take this picture but have nicked it via Google from discoverglasgow.org.  I probably should have googled it before we went so that we knew what to look for when we arrived!  There's also a, now restored, steeple/clock tower, which can't be seen in this picture, that dates back to 1665, an interesting building.

I was very rubbish at taking photographs that day and was too busy chatting to customers and fellow stall holders to remember.  Periodically Mr B brought across a sample of one of the gins or whiskys or ales that were on offer and food.  It turned out to be a really nice day and we decided to stay an extra night and managed to book into our favorite quirky urban chic hotel 'The Z'.  Also an interesting old building, formally a printworks.
A very mixed weekend!
Kx

I haven't posted much about workshops recently, mainly because I've postponed most of them!  The weather has been far too good for people to want to spend time indoors.  However over the last two weeks half a dozen ladies have been making lampshades.

Lampshades in the making.  The painting was done during the first week and then this week all the detailling gets added.  One student tried free-hand embroidery for the first time and got such an adrenaline rush that she described it as being "like white water rafting but better" and, presumably, drier!

 Flat pieces ready for rolling

I hadn't been having a very good week this week, and it got worse when I realised, just as I was explaining how the lampshades went together, that I had forgotten to pack the double sided sticky tape .... and you cannot make lampshades round without it .... I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me.  There was nothing I could do, no-one I could call, nothing I could invent.  A really ghastly moment.  As I started to explain what we would/should have been doing, one of the ladies from Oban remembered that she had brought a present for the other one as a thank you for driving, a lampshade kit!  There was tape in that box and they were able to make their shades round before they went home!  The two in the pictures at the top in the gallery above.  The others were kind enough to meet me today to finish off theirs and we were able to set them on lamp bases to see how they looked lit up.  
I think you'll agree that they are all really super.  Everyone was rightfully very proud of themselves and carried off their shades destined for pride of place in their homes.

More again soon
Kx
PS If you should be in the Bellanoch area of Argyll during the week of 29 July - 3 August then do pop in to see us, Homestyle Argyll, in our pop up shop there.