I'm Ann, an artist working in mixed media and stitch (not necessarily at the same time). I've been around the blogging scene on and off pretty much since it all began, but my enthusiasm and commitment has varied over time. Not one for much self-promotion, I've used a variety of usernames in the past, but my favourite and the one which somehow still feels right, is Dreaming In Stitches, and so that's what I've chosen for this iteration. Hello again.

To be honest, I hadn't really intended to return to writing online, my last post on Substack was well over a year ago. Why add yet another voice to an already overwhelmingly shouty world. Keep quiet and paint and stitch, that was the answer.

But here I am. So something changed. In fact I did miss writing. Just as I can't not paint or stitch, it felt odd not to write. I tried keeping a notebook and a journal (I still do this and intend to carry on regardless), but it didn't entirely satisfy the need. Occasionally I'd take another look at old blogs or different platforms, but it never quite pushed me into action.

And then this week I came across Tuhat (ironically reading about it on Substack) and I had that sensation you get when something resonates with you and you feel like it's a good fit. Time will tell I suppose, but I'm here today and it's a beginning.

So, that was a little background on how I came here, now I should tell you something about who I am and what I'm likely to write about.

I am an English artist inspired (often but not exculsively) by the British landscape, the changing seasons, the rich heritage of history, myth and legend associated with the British Isles from early pre-history to the late medieval, celtic and medieval art and stained glass windows. But inspiration does not mean that this is what I actually produce. As time cracks on, I find myself increasingly working abstractly rather than representationally. I'm telling you what fires my inner passions, but you may or may not recognise this in any of my work. This doesn't matter at all, but as I'm doing the introductions, I thought I'd begin to show the kind of mix of threads I may well cover when writing here in the future.

The advice to bloggers has generally been to find your niche and produce lots of top quality content targetted at that very clear niche. I should tell you right now, this is not likely to happen here. I won't comment too much on the quality question, you can be the judge. I'm no academic and to be honest I'm not all that interested in regurgitating facts or information already freely available. I'm more concerned that we dispense - here at least - with the notion that I might write content for a niche. I did try, once upon a time. It never escaped my attention that I don't know many people who share my particular mix of passions. Sure there are a great many stitchers out there - quite a lot of them make art in stitch, and there are history lovers and there are countryside lovers and there are stained glass lovers, it's just not that often you meet someone who combines them all.

My solution in the past was to create separate blogs. If you've ever done the same, you'll know just how much effort that takes, and if you're like me, you'll have run out of energy and enthusiasm about three months in. I've tried ignoring the advice and just writing randomly about whatever I fancied, and that definitely felt more sustainable, but give the experts their due, that strategy doesn't make you go viral. It doesn't make you even vaguely visible in the interweb world. I wonder if that mattered to me a few years ago. Deep down, was I really hoping to find a tribe, what was I hoping for? I've pondered this question from time to time especially in recent months when I was asking myself if I was interested in writing again.

Quite possibly this 'shall I, shan't I?' could have gone on indefinitely, but here I am, actually trying to write. And what exactly happened was reading sbr's description of Tuhat. Call me old-fashioned (truly I won't mind), but the description of a simple, algorithm-free place to share long-form writing made my heart sing. It wasn't so much a case of making a decision, more a simple visceral reaction, a gut feel.

So let's give it a go.

I'm going to come here and write whenever I feel urged to do so. There won't be a schedule and there won't be a list of topics, but I suppose I'm most likely to write about making art - the explorations, what seems to work and what doesn't, the cyclical nature of making art, how your energy ebbs and flows - that kind of thing.

I've just been away in Scotland for a couple of weeks, so I'm currently edging my way gently back into a creative rhythm. Our annual trip north fills my head and heart with so much raw essence of drama, colour and texture, it's too much to try and hold, I have to let it settle before I can begin to make sense of everything. In previous years, I thought that if I painted the landscapes I'd been looking at and photographing, I'd be able to get it all out and onto the canvas, but it's never worked that way. It's taken me so many years to realise that I don't have to be a representational artist, in fact I am much happier when I stay somewhere in the shady realms between abstraction and realism. These days, the balance tilts far further towards abstract, but it's usually begun life in some almost recognisable format - an horizon line can lift a lot of weight.

It's easy to define the things that inspire you, but I've always found it incredibly difficult to express the process of transforming that inspiration into something new. I don't think I'm alone in this. I often read other artists talking about their work and frequently they resort to quite nebulous terminology, there's a sense that they almost have a grasp on the right words, but can't quite catch it, can't quite hold what they feel.But sometimes they can, and there's such a rush of emotion at understanding exactly what another person wanted to express. So I might well drift into that territory.

I'm equally likely to ramble on about the various places I visit that resonate with the history junky in me. Not dates and all that stuff, I'm more concerned with the connection that being in specific places where history happened gives, that felt sense of 'I'm standing in exactly the spot where 'whatever' happened' If this is something that speaks to you, you'll know what I mean. So I'm not concerned with the logistics of building a medieval cathedral (well maybe just a bit), but I want to know how the stone mason felt when he was working, I want to see the stained glass through the eyes of the Fourteenth century craftsman who made it. I want to stroke the carved miserichord and commune with the carpenter, and to know his character through his work.

And I am inextricably part of the english countryside and seasonal year, so it's inevitable that I'll write about weather, birds, hedgerows, trees and the endless lines in the landscape.

I haven't mentioned stitching much in this post - I intend to save that for another day. For now all I'll say is that I have made art with threads longer than any other media and it's so much part of me and who I am I forget to speak about it. Stitch for me is a kind of meditation a portal to a deeper part of me. It will wait.

So there we have it. An introduction.

I'm as flakey as they come, but if you are a kindred spirit, do join me here.

Ann