http://www.jesstaylor.net en-gb jesstaylor.net 2011-10-26T00:00:00Z jesstaylor.net http://www.jesstaylor.net/page5.htm#105457 A few posts back I promised a regular feature called Letter Lucky Dip with all my exciting adventures of late I have been very lax in fulfilling this promise.....so with no further adieu I present you with the next letter lucky dip.Eastern FleetRear Headquarters.10th July 1944My Dear Olive Well Many happy returns I expect that it will be very near to the time when this parcel arrives it is the last thing I could find to buy here and I thought that it may remind you of India and my travels here I am leaving here this next week and where I am going they dont make anything like this at all so I had to get while I had the chance. I am wondering if you have had other things yet. I do hope so cause they were so very nice to put in the small desk. It seems rather strange to think the war may be over by the time these things get to you I hope it is anyhow. Well I have a heck of a lot of work to do and piles of packing and y... 2011-10-26 16:34:24 http://www.jesstaylor.net/page5.htm#104427 No your eyes are not deceiving you I did indeed win believe me nobodys more suprised than me. Like all good prize givings the announcements were in the classic reverse order and by the time it came to announcing the winner I was happily daydreaming to myself about nothing in particular. Now this is where Id like to be able to tell you that I was a most graceful winner that handled the situation with great aplomb this however was not the case. As soon as my name floated from the announcers lips into my ears my jaw seemed to have managed to detach itself from the rest of my face and hit the floor in the most undignified of manners. In my defence my only acting experience to date is playing a cockney bartender in a school production of My Fair Lady not really skills I could utilise in this situation the immortal line Come on Doolittle out you go I aint running no charity bazaar isnt the easiest to adapt. I can find some comfort in the fact that my sister was in a similar situation with he... 2011-10-11 18:06:42 http://www.jesstaylor.net/page5.htm#104050 As promised what shall follow is a continuation of my exciting and rather surprising September adventures. In my previous post I told you about all the things Ive been entering lately in the hope of getting my work out there in to the wider world. Another of these endeavours had the most magnificent and unexpected of results it involves a slightly obsessive hoarding tendency a few train journeys and an inordinate amount of grinning.It was by pure chance that I happened to notice an art competition that The Guardian were promoting called London Lives Travel I checked it out and noticed there was only a week left until the deadline normally this would have made me write it off completely but after my experiences with the QR3D and BlastBless projects I was fired up and chomping at the bit to get stuck in to something else. So I decided to just go for it what did I have to lose If youve looked around this site at some of my other work you will have noticed that a lot of it involves objects... 2011-10-6 17:50:36 http://www.jesstaylor.net/page5.htm#103303 Life like most things has a way of over taking the best of intentions hence my very shameful lack of blogging of late. But what wonders I have to fill you all in on thats if you dont already follow me on twitter where you probably would have heard this all before Well where to start.....I put my Lost Voices project on hold for a short time to focus on scouting competitions and projects that could get my creative brain cells firing away and hopefully get my work out in to the wider world the idea of which I always find mildly terrifying. I think thats pretty much true of most artists to be honest we are experts in the field of selfdoubt and those of you who arent I am more than a little jealous. Much to my suprise my endeavours have paid off rather handsomely I started by taking part in the Creative Review and Tates BlastBless project being run in conjunction with the new Vorticists exhibition at Tate Britain my piece was blessed and can still be seen on the project website. Next to cat... 2011-9-26 14:52:13 http://www.jesstaylor.net/page5.htm#96338 19th August 1941Dear StanleyI was very pleased to have your letter this morning before I set off for business and I am sure that you will appreciate the difficulties we are in visiting you on Thursday. I asked your Aunt Hetty to write you in the event of my not being able to do so by return but i will take this home and include it.On this very important occasion I should have been most glad to have given you our moral support and our joint blessing. We trust that it will initiate a period of such happiness as is only known to perfectly matched couples and if you will bear in mind the experience of your parents and ourselves that the first forty years is the worst you will overcome any trifling difficulties that will only add to your ultimate mutual happiness later.In enclosing cheque herewith I trust that you and May will have the joint opportunity of buying something suitable as a memento of the high regard in which we hold you and her and your families.Yours very sincerelyBest Lo... 2011-6-15 15:50:02 http://www.jesstaylor.net/page5.htm#96332 All good things come to those who wait this blog post hopefully being one of them. As I hang my head in shame at my complete and utter neglect of this blog I can only plead for your forgiveness. To make up for such an indiscretion I have very exciting plans for this entry so bare with me and I hope I can earn your forgiveness.For me good ideas seem to come along like buses positively Saharan for what seems like an eternity and then a flurry of them all at once. This was the case when I came up with my Lost Voices project. At the same time I came up with two other ideas that I think have promise one of which I shall tell you about now entitled Any Interesting Post. The idea grew out of the creation of my Lost Voices photographic archive. Many of the images I found were photographic postcards that had a selection of fascinating messages on the back words that were too important to ignore. The stories that unfolded on the back of these postcards were captivating and chimed with my passion... 2011-6-15 14:55:54 http://www.jesstaylor.net/page5.htm#94150 Due to a bad case of germ addled brain I decided handling heavy machinery i.e. sewing machine was probably not the wisest decision this week. So I decided to dust off my stranded cotton and flex my finger muscles with a touch of hand embroidery and I must admit I have found it all rather delightful. As you can see above my first endeavor was a bit of a promotional exercise just to clear out the cobwebs and key into the old embroidery memory box. Through a haze of coughing and spluttering I seemed to have found a rather pleasant and productive zen state. After my little adventure into PR stitching I decided to venture down my more usual and comfortable artistic path. After witnessing some really quite exquisite skies from my sick bed and a plethora of birds having a rollicking good time in them I settled on a series looking at Starlings in flight. From a very young age I have always loved birds in flight birds perching are nice enough but wow when they flew I found them captivating. In... 2011-5-17 18:27:52 http://www.jesstaylor.net/page5.htm#93074 Avoidance something I have quite artfully mastered. Up until this point I have been employing these skills quite thoroughly when it comes to finally framing my work. But this week I bit the bullet and got myself in gear. Im sure Im not alone in this struggle and there are many of you out there who do everything in your power to put off such an event. The presentation of work is such a complete and final commitment when the decision has been made and acted upon there is very little chance of undoing it. This is the particularly cruel part of the process that I like to dance around continually distracting myself with shiny objects like metallic thread see previous post.In keeping with the themes and concepts that Im working with in Lost Voices I have known for a very long time that I want to present each piece in an antique frame. So off I went trawling the seas of ebay for only the best specimens. A task I found more difficult than I expected too many of the lots were in far too good a ... 2011-5-3 23:29:35 http://www.jesstaylor.net/page5.htm#91990 I find myself having been rather tardy in updating my blog recently this has mainly been due to my possession by a sewing fiend. Due to technical difficulties printer having a temper tantrum I havent been able to do much work for Lost Voices so instead I turned to some jewellery making. I decided to play.......nay I mean work of course with dissolvable fabric or to use its technical name Solvy Vanishing Film. In no time at all a series of pencil doodles became tangible physical creations. I shall now take a moment to tell tales of my battles with metallic thread. Both my sewing machine and I are taken in by its shiny promise and then find ourselves cursing our decision to ever attempt using it. I find it has a tendency to lull me into a false sense of security by allowing me a couple of minutes of free sewing and then finding itself tiring of this decides to make my life all the more challenging. I have however now sought my revenge a dastardly plan involving my m... 2011-4-18 17:19:58 http://www.jesstaylor.net/page5.htm#90159 Rather fortuitously this Sunday 27th March is the official 2011 UK Census day but lets be honest Im sure some of you will have already filled out the form. Ive only glanced at it so far but it certainly looks long and detailed enough to take a good few hours no doubt with a few head scratching moments. Despite the hassle I do feel a strange connection with the whole process all those old census records that have played such an important part in my genealogy research and in turn my art. Part of me cant help thinking how much more juicy those old documents would have been if our ancestors had been asked half the questions we are. Throughout this blog I shall be continually trying to encourage and cajole as many of you as possible to start your own family quest. It just so happens that Ancestry are giving free access to their UK Census returns on the 27th I dare you to find a more perfect opportunity......hint...hint.It isnt only old documents that can be a great source of inspiration pho... 2011-3-25 13:00:50 http://www.jesstaylor.net/page5.htm#90106 I have always been a keen amateur genealogist. The introduction of programmes like Who Do You Think You Are and the ever increasing availability of historical records online has just added fuel to the fire. It wasnt long before this passion began to feed into my textile art. BA hons Winchester School of Art.The past and the secrets it holds have long been a fascination to me and have fueled a lot of my creative exploration. It was through this process that my current project Lost Voices was born. While researching my Grandads family I discovered that he had four sisters that he knew nothing about. These four young girls had been lost to history and their voices silenced in the family. The rediscovery of the girls spurred in me the desire to reclaim their place in history through my art and started my journey to discover Lost Voices.My newly discovered great aunts shall now with the help of this blog be able to reclaim their identity. They were Ellen Rose Violet Maud Alice Gertrude Ros... 2011-3-21 18:29:33