meaning to stitch 9

a zoom session with Maker Membership brought up several issues around “Research” for me 

Ruth's opening input affirmed for me that: 

• disorganised digging around, finding out stuff, asking questions and gathering other people's experience are all just as much Research as a more academic approach based on published material or museum and archive sources
• research tools and resources can be personal experience, trying things out, listening, reading fiction, TV programs, magazines or sweet wrappers 
• the R-word can be scary, just like the D-word (design), but when seen as finding out, exploring and experimenting it seems much more do-able

but, more importantly for me, I am realising that rather than the results of my research influencing and inspiring my work, I am responding to the results with emotions which are impacting my life in general.......

by this I mean that I had not meant to get too deeply into looking into slavery as it is a very emotive subject and not my story to tell – but it has drawn me in, particularly the aspects specific to my family – what I am finding is making me angry and feeding my sense that the world is full of injustice, hypocrisy and people who feel they have a right to take whatever they want etc, etc – this is getting in the way for me as I feel negative and stuck, which makes me irritable and not very nice to know

so I need to find a way to turn that around, not just for the sake of my secret histories work but also for the sake of my relationships with family and friends

what I have taken on board from the session today is that it's ok for me to use that response to inspire and inform what I do next and express it in the work - and i don't have to reflect everything i have learned in the work  – reflecting on that has brought me back (in a way) to where I was a couple of months ago with words and fragments …....... conveniently neat but I think I will be exploring that for now