Limited Comfort

Laura Hegarty

Interview by L. Valena

September 13, 2022

Can you start by describing the prompt that you responded to?

My prompt was entitled 'Agony'. It's a stained glass window with a crying female. I found it quite distressing. I'm quite concerned for the person that produced that, and hope they're okay, and it's not a reflection of something they're going through. Taking myself away from the subject, I liked the colors and found them very interesting. And the representation of the stained glass. The mixture of fine lines with thicker lines work very well as stained glass.

Where did you go from there?

I had a great adventure! I'm exploring gelli printing at the moment, so I thought I would use the structure of the stained glass window and make some prints. It just didn't work for me. I liked it, but not as a response as they felt too structured. It didn't feel right. It didn't give me the response that I wanted.. At this point I decided that I wanted to do something that would mitigate those feelings of despair and agony. So I played with cola pens in the color scheme, but again, it wasn't a strong enough response for me. I realized that what I wanted to do was bring in some softness. So I reverted back to something that brought me comfort pre-Covid, which is spinning. It just flowed. From this expression of agony, I was able to do something that has given me comfort. It has brought me back to something I had lost through Covid. That was really good.

I'm not really that familiar with the process of spinning. Did you have wool that was already dyed these colors?

Yes, it was all commercially dyed fiber that had been sitting in my stash since pre-Covid. Very fortuitously, I was able to find a match for every color that was in my prompt, which was absolutely amazing to me. I tried to pull the same colors, and use them in the same ratios.

So cool! I wouldn't have been able to put my finger on it until you said that, but you definitely got those ratios down. It's almost as if you took the prompt and distilled it down or something. It's amazing. And you got the fine lines in there too!

When you spin yarn, you get a clump of fiber and kind of tease out a strand, and put a twist in it. Then that becomes the ply of the yarn. Once you've done that numerous times, you then ply it by having two twists wrap against each other. I spun what's called a single, so it's just one length of yarn. You just join one bit to another while you're spinning, and that lets you do the color changes. Once I did that, and got it all on one bobbin, I sat there and wondered what the best way to do this was. So I added in sewing thread to make the finer lines, and plied it with a commercial yarn to get the thicker lines as well.

It looks like once you finished this, you went on and made something with it! Can you talk about that?

I crocheted two pumpkins! The color scheme felt very Halloweeny. Pumpkins are very friendly, because they don't have to be a particular shape. Again, it's a return to things I've done in the past. It was a choice of crocheting or knitting. Because knitting is linear, you don't get the clumps of color, so I very deliberately chose to crochet so there would be clumps of color like in the prompt. This whole process has been amazing.

You said before that this marks a return to something that you were doing pre-Covid. Is there a reason you haven't been doing these things all along?

Pre-Covid, I was very much a spinner and knitter. When Covid hit and we went into lockdown, I already had a table loom, but hadn't used it a lot. For me, both knitting and spinning are social activities. I think psychologically, they were tied up with that. So when that social element went, I wasn't so keen. Hand in hand with that, a table loom isn't a social thing; you can't as easily go out and weave with other people. So I took advantage of being at home by weaving. That has been a very deep dive, so it surprised me that I didn't weave anything.

I've talked to quite a few people who have gone through the same kind of thing – practices that they did pre-Covid, that they didn't do during all the lockdowns. And some of those people are opening up to those practices again now. For other people, they've decided to leave those things in the past and move on to other things. I find that a really interesting conversation to have with other creative people.

How does this piece relate to the rest of your work?

It was fun to play with the gelli printing, but it's very early days I would say. I'm interested in taking it more into the realm of art than of craft. It's allowed me to explore that part with commercial stencils, which I've seen other people using. Actually, I don't like it. It’s too rigid and not expressive enough for me at this point. In a weird way, that was a very positive thing, because I just don't have to worry about purchasing stencils just now. I'm more excited about color mixing and experimentation. Who knows where this will go next?

It's interesting that you talk about art versus craft. Sometimes I think it's hard to find the line between those two things. Do you have a theory of where that line is?

I find that very difficult. I havedescribed myself as a crafter in the past, and for me it was more about using lots of retailed products. In the deep past, I can remember being desperate for the next big thing. It would come, and then two weeks later I would wonder why I wanted it. I'm currently much happier with more basic materials that I can play with and explore in my own way, rather than in a way that is prescribed. It's very difficult to find the divide between art and craft.

Do you have any advice for another artist approaching this project for the first time?

My advice is to be open minded, and to see where the inspiration takes you. I thought I had a great idea of what I wanted to do, and it fought back. But as soon as I went back to fiber, it opened up. It gives you an opportunity to explore things you maybe haven't explored before. And also, be prepared for the strength of feeling that someone else's work may give you.

Call Number: Y88VA | Y90VA.heLi

A self taught artist, Laura has a lifelong fascination with textiles and the interaction of colours in all media. Alive to possibility and curious playfulness, she happily embraces new ways to express herself. Current interests include investigating paint and print alongside more established practices in weaving, spinning, knitting and crochet.