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Evaluation Blanket

I knew that the evaluation could not interfere with the flow of the lab. A light touch was needed where something different might encourage people to write down a short statement, feeling or thought each day. Because the lab was about textiles I brought along an ancient Harris tweed blanket. I had bought the labels before hand and taken them to Shetland. Each day the participants were invited to fill out a label reflecting their thoughts and impressions of that day. I wove these into the blanket.

Hazel and I had spent an interesting time together at Burrastow looking and talking about the blanket. She made an expert analysis on the colour combinations and structure. Her keen eye comes from years spent translating Fair Isle swatches into the programme language of industrial knitting machines.

On reflection this woven textile with the texts superimposed or woven into the foreground is an analogy for the lab experience/creative process. When seen from a distance the blanket has muted indistinguishable tones. Closer up the rich variety of individual yarns can be seen, closer still, the very vivid colours of individual threads in the different yarns. The analogy of scale and visual distance can be likened to our engagement and involvement. As makers and lab participants we worked at these different levels simultaneously. In the lab some of our thoughts were woven together - distinctive individual threads constructing specific ideas and these ideas make the whole lab experience. The labels are like glimpses, they are fleeting thoughts or feelings on that one day. These messages were threaded into the blanket (and were easily removed). The blanket like the experience of the lab remains as a tangible thing while our daily thoughts and ideas flow on, new ones replacing old ones.

Heather Delday

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