Scarves of red.

Hello all, it has been a loong time since I've written here! But since I spoke last I've been busy getting another job- hurrah!

I have also done a bit of making and designing and finalised designs for the Alloy Habitats show. For more of that, check my IG page.

Well, I wanted to share both an awesome 'band', song and insight to you all. It is funny how inspiration and interest can sprout so unexpectedly. It was almost more beneficial to me to have an un-searching eye (focusing on all things festive)! and let inspiration just wander across my path.

Anyway, the thing itself; my mother has become rather obsessed with this 'band' called Pentatonix. You may have heard of them...I am so out of mainstream music that I honestly wouldn't know! I use the quote marks because they are an accapella group. So all music is made from their vocals. Which holds a certain attraction for me anyway, as a singer. They have brought out a christmas album called 'That's christmas to me' and the majority, apart from the album title track are covers of songs. There are some great remixes, and I'd definitely recommend a listen. But the second track in particular has caught my attention and held it: White Winter Hymnal. It's a cover (originally done by fleet foxes), and has rather illustrative lyrics that have a simultaneously dark and innocent feeling about them.

"I was following the pack,

All swaddled in their coats

With scarves of red tied 'round their throats

To keep their little heads

From fallin' in the snow

And I turned 'round and there you go.

And Michael you would fall,

And turn the white snow

Red as strawberries in the summertime." (metro lyrics)

So I decided to look up the meaning, as one does. The first page on google was a website where you could suggest your own meanings, and people did so. Some went really dark, some went into childhood games and dramatics, and my mother even suggested biblical meanings on our drive in the car.

I then found a quote from the writer…

"This is the first song on the LP, it’s lyrically fairly meaningless I guess but it’s not really meant to mean something. As an introduction to the record, we thought it would be nice to start it with a simple jam that’s focussed on singing — on the record it starts with a tongue-in-cheek harmony thing that we hoped would make people laugh or something but I think it just confuses them. This is my favourite song to play live, though singing it live is sometimes difficult because the lyrics are so vague. Weird how that works!" Robin Pecknold (http://genius.com/Fleet-foxes-white-winter-hymnal-lyrics)

Is that not fascinating?? We as artists are trained and encouraged not only to develop our crafts and practices but to explore and extend our theory, our questions, our 'whys'. And yet if the artist takes away meaning and simply tries to exercise the medium, viewers still assume and attach meaning to it to work. I know that it is true in principle but each time I witness it, it gets me once again. How interesting the communication of ideas is.

I am not sure how it has yet, but this has inspired me. I love that song, and can't refrain from singing it! So expect something of this song to surface in my work. I might appropriate this songs intended lack of meaning and utilise its incidental meaning to create a sense of irony within my design. Not that any of that changes what you will read from my work - clearly!

Have a fantastic Christmas, and a very merry new year. Blessings!