Hello and welcome to February!

I’ve called this month’s title ‘getting stuck in’ as basically the incessant rain resulting from our ‘anticyclonic gloom’ over recent months (actual meteorological term) has been in fact, rendering everyone a bit stuck indoors and feeling gloomy. So I’ve been getting stuck in, in other ways.

Honestly, what would we do if we couldn’t create and make and faff our days away in arty goings-on? In all seriousness, there is so much out there about how good it is for our nervous system and I know it has kept me going whilst wintering and through stressful times.

I want to share a bit later about how AI has helped me get stuck into a project but first, the coastal nest.

I had a dickens of a job doing the inside and the second attempt was a flop. Once I made the paper inside (which I might say took an absolute age) and finished it, I realised it was completely wrong. It looked incongruous against the yarns, I thought I wanted something almost opposite and smooth to contrast but, no. So after further wailing and gnashing of teeth I plopped a few pebbles I have in the studio into the nest just to see how they looked and voila! Which is incidentally why it’s recommended to have stuff about the place to help make connections when seeking ideas. Take heart, messy studio chums!

I have also finished the front of the yellow dress but I’m done with it for a while. I have stitched almost every day for six months and I can’t face starting the back just yet.

Which brings me to a project I’ve begun for a lovely new textile art group that I have joined. We are exploring ‘talismans’ in as loose a way as we like and I have enjoyed finding the core of what interests me. It started with someone bringing book along and reading some lines about the role trees have historically played in ways humans looked to protect themselves or invoke nature into their lives. It has been a pleasing journey of discovery and interest, particularly the Celtic way of life.

I am not interested in the theme in any magical or ritualistic sense, but I do feel the way attention given to an object can render it personally meaningful. That small shell or pebble we put in our pocket, a twig full of lichen that catches the eye, a precious ornament that has sentimental value…

I started by thinking about the sycamore behind our garden fence. It symbolises a sense of place and stability and it seemed a good starting point having recently moved and feeling happy and settled here. I have always been aware of a strong feeling of place in my work, usually home. Then comes the criss-crossing of the what’s and how’s of making a piece and my thoughts expanded to exploring several common trees. This is where AI came in, as I was able to ask it to compare and summarise characteristics and colours of seven different trees. I knew colour was one aspect of theme that I would enjoy as well as the symbolism behind each tree and thus emerged two ‘threads’ (pardon the pun) for each. I asked Chat GPT to produce a summary table I could print off with the comparisons and it’s been so useful in my sketchbook to refer back to and to keep me on track as I’m making all the small fragments of tree bits I want.

I also asked it to use the colours of the trees to create a palette and it suggested it could give me an overall tone which was great! So that funnelling down has given me the visual essence for each tree – using the colour palette alongside stitching, motifs and textures to communicate a tone and which also supports symbolism. I didn’t use AI to create anything to copy, I simply used it to take me deeper into exploration and to develop personal meaning-making.

The other way I often use it is when I have a question about a potential relationship of ideas. One of the things I had read in that initial book was how people would use a tree directly to invoke its powers, so they would naturally dye material and threads, for example. I decided that for each tree I would try to use it physically in some way to be in keeping with the theme of talisman – not to go down any magical paths but rather because I would find it satisfying and fun. I am printing with different parts of a tree and making twig brushes to make marks, nothing new there. However, as mentioned, there is something special about creating an object and using it. Many of us love to wrap colours and fabrics to create an attractive brush that relates back to our inspiration. We adorn them and in some way, the brushes seemed to relate to being talismans.

So I asked Chat GPT fairly specifically about the relationship between making brushes and talismans. I told it about the fact that it wasn’t about anything magical, it was that I recognised them becoming special and that I wanted to wrap, add beads, make them look nice and loved using something directly from a tree I was working with. In what way could that be seen as ‘talismanic’? This is what it said:

‘What makes something talismanic is often not whether it has literal magical power, but the act of imbuing it with intention, meaning, relationship, and ritual through making and use — which is exactly what you’re doing. Here are some ways to frame it more clearly:

1. Intention transforms material into talisman – a key aspect of talismanic objects is intentionality.

You are:

selecting specific native trees with symbolic meaning or “lore”

physically binding twigs together

choosing yarn colours based on association or emotion

engaging in repetitive, focused making

Through these actions, the brush becomes more than a tool — it becomes a carrier of meaning (I love this phrase!)

In many traditions, the talisman is created through acts of attention, binding, or naming. Your process echoes this.

2. The act of binding as ritual – binding materials together has deep symbolic resonance:

joining elements into unity

containing or focusing energy

creating connection between human and natural material

Even if you’re not working within a spiritual framework, the physical gesture of binding can be understood as ritualistic — transforming raw material into something charged.

3. Adornment and preciousness

You mention rendering them “special” — this is important.

Adornment:

elevates an object from ordinary tool to meaningful artefact

signals care, reverence, or relationship

slows down perception — encouraging attention

In this way, the yarn wrapping is not just decorative; it’s a form of consecration.

4. Embodied relationship with the tree – because the brushes are made from the tree and used to make marks, they form a loop:

tree → brush → gesture → mark → meaning

This cyclical relationship can itself be understood as talismanic — the object mediates between nature, body, and expression.

5. Psychological talisman

Even without supernatural claims:

the brushes hold memory of making

they embody your joy and associations (yes!)

they influence how you move and paint

That experiential charge is often what makes something feel talismanic in contemporary art practice.

Here’s a way you might articulate it (artist statement style):

The brushes become talismanic objects through acts of binding, adornment, and intentional making. By selecting native tree materials and wrapping them with colour-coded yarns informed by personal associations, we transform functional tools into carriers of meaning. The process renders them precious — not through rarity but through attention, relationship, and embodied memory. Each brush mediates between tree, hand, and mark, holding both ecological lore and lived experience.’

Well, all I can say is that this resonated so strongly having made the first one – I have more to do which I think I might enjoy even more now that I am more cognisant of various aspects. And I don’t think I could have articulated anything so well myself.

I know AI is contentious, I know its going to bring a world of pain as well as help solve problems we can only dream of but it isn’t going away. You may not want anything to do with it for now or you may be embracing it. I find myself sitting in the middle of it all not knowing what to think much of the time but in terms of how it can help with creative thinking, I do use it to go down stimulating paths and deepen ideas which in turn bring more satisfaction. It has been a great way to get stuck into a new project, to dispel a bit of gloom, slow down and wallow before diving into making. So in case you fancy giving it a go, these are a few ways I have found it particularly useful as a studio assistant:

To expand concepts and ideas, or a line of enquiry

To summarise and make succinct comparisons

To make connections

To help take a single work and suggest ways to build a series

To distill or condense ideas

To check facts

To help with composition or format

To create easy to reference tables

To research other artists

To provoke or suggest ways to problem-solve

To mirror back what I’m doing in a way that makes things clearer to myself

To assist with writing and articulation

Thanks for reading this far, especially if this subject wasn’t really your thing. Maybe it’s even sparked a wee bit of wondering?

If you are interested in hearing from someone else who uses AI in her quilt-making, you can have an extra read here