These are some images from recent work in progress. I was looking at the innate human ability to read meaning into shapes and dreams. I was also thinking about Rorschach's inkblots, phantom limbs and ideas of votive objects. I sent out the second image for people's responses and I'm going to work with the list that resulted. Thanks to everyone who responded with their thoughts and associations.

Work in Progress show

Images from the RCA Work in Progress show. The tears are part of the work on mourning. The 3 collages are something I'm still working on to do with sleeves.

tears

Tear drops to continue the theme of mourning. They'll be exhibited at the college Work in Progress show next week (13th-19th January).

gloves

My first attempt at screen printing. The image is to tie in with some work I'm doing at the moment about sleeves and gloves.

mourning badge

This is the result of a project at the Victoria & Albert Museum where we had to choose an item from the collection and research and re-interpret it. I chose a piece of black dress silk (for mourning use) and this badge was my initial re-interpretation of it. I am continuing to explore the theme of mourning in greater depth.

colour project

These are the results of a colour project set for the second week of term. I chose the colours quite instinctively and presented them like aura photography. Once each piece was finished I became interested in the backs of the postcards.

summer project

Two pages from the 'Who Am I?" summer project I was set before the course started last week. I looked at schoolgirl samplers, mainly from Ackworth School, which seemed suitable as I was returning to "school". I was interested in the lack of identity displayed in the samplers. Often they only give a name and birthday and feature initials and motifs of birds, flowers and houses. I chose some of these to give clues about myself without giving much away.

sewn photographs (beards)

This was a piece playing with notions of masculinity and femininity by creating something masculine (beards) out of something feminine (embroidery). I also had an idea of making them all look like Freud or archetypal psychoanalysts, in the back of my mind.

sewn photographs (lips)

Here I liked the play between the stitching looking like lipstick and sealing the mouths shut. I was referring to womens' historical lack of voice (politically and socially) and aphonia (loss of speech) due to hysteria, as described in Freud's case of 'Dora'. I was also reading about the psychological states of mind of women conforming to social demands (here illustrated by wearing lipstick) and how the apparent conformist act of embroidery helped them find ways to rebel.

sewn photographs

I took the idea of embroidery being something traditionally constructive becoming destructive on the surface of old photographs. I also began thinking of a seepage; of abnormal psychologies and them literally spilling out of the mind, and looking at early 20th Century images of female mediums and ectoplasm during séances.

Do Not Forget

This becomes a reference to Freudian repression, but also to 'women's work' -unseen and forgotten. It's an instruction, something to carry about on a handkerchief, but it doesn't say what it is you shouldn't forget. It also reminds you of tying a knot in a handkerchief corner in order to remember and it is reminiscent of 19th Century entreaties not to forget someone after their death.

Her Anxiety

This was inspired by the Yeats poem of the same name. I read that his mother suffered from depression and he thought he'd inherited a similar condition from her. I also wanted to remember the original function of a handkerchief being to wipe away tears.

Clouds (Wolken)

The title is a reference to Freud's patient Bertha Pappenheim's description of her hysterical episodes as "clouds". I like to think of the pieces in the same way as you look for shapes in clouds in the sky (which also references searching for meaning in ink blot shapes with Rorschach's test). I also wanted to explore women's experience of psychoanalysis and their relationship with the analyst.

Exemplary

This piece is based on ideas of instruction through 19th Century samplers. I was thinking about children (young girls mainly) being prepared for adulthood with sewing skills, for employment or marriage.

untitled, dress

This was inspired by a recent family discovery of an aunt who died in infancy. I became interested in an idea of the similar dual states of infancy and old age; she died as an infant, but I'd know her know as an old woman. An alphabet of illnesses seemed an unsuitable thing to learn as a child and reminds us of alphabets learnt as a child. I also like the way some of them sound like girls' names. With thanks to Andy Ho.