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- Margaret Huber
- I was a teacher for many years, working with BA, MA and PhD art/design students in the US and UK. I’m originally from Minneapolis but now live in London.
DAY RETURN TO BRIGHTON
'Day Return to Brighton' was a diary project of over a thousand drawings on used train tickets from my daily commute from London to Brighton. When I started the series I set a few ground rules to help me remember what was important in the work. I limited the drawing materials to pencil, pen (black and blue ink only) and Tipp -Ex (white correction fluid), which kept the project portable. I never threw tickets away: if I made a mistake I continued to work on it until I was left with something I liked or could use, which might mean ending up with a virtually black ticket if things went badly wrong. For the most part I tried to work with mistakes, remembering that I was allowed some less than wonderful tickets over the long haul. Also, every ticket used in the series had to be mine, and only those used for my daily commute to Brighton. This reinforced my initial objective, which was to try to find a positive way to acknowledge the time and money invested in commuting. Each ticket represented one day of my working life.
VISUAL DIARY
Some pages in my diary are a real mess, but occasionally a door seems to open and something steps through, an idea or observation that sums up my day or a starting point for future work. I take my diary places I both do and don’t want to go. It helps me to get through meetings I’d rather not attend and keeps me company when visiting the dentist. I take it to restaurants in case I overhear anything interesting and on tiny adventures to coffee shops and museums. It’s also a favourite place to draw & paint while sitting in front of the TV. I enjoy the methodical approach to visual diary keeping; being able to turn the page to start again opens up the potential for new thinking.
BURDENS
I came across a painting in an auction catalogue a few years ago of a a young girl holding a package. In the painting the girl looked so sad and the package she held seemed less like a gift and more like a burden. I started thinking about burdens, what they mean and how we carry them - whether wrapped up like unwelcome gifts, worn like medals of achievement, or as heavy clouds that loom over us. This simple starting point continues to inform my work and has taken me from drawing to crochet.
CROCHET: MEDALS & CASUALS
I don't really know how to crochet but am gradually learning a few things as I go along. Nothing is really planned, as I am enjoying the surprise of not knowing what I'm making.
The Life Saving, Gymnast and Excellence award medals come from the idea that the need to succeed can be a burden. The date and time medals are about my personal history, and this work relates more to my visual diary work. The most recent 'Casuals' are a collection of dressed objects (dolls).
All images © Margaret Huber 2012