Motherline – Finding our Line

Motherline is a year-long project where women come together to create, explore and reflect on stories of identity and connection. At our monthly sessions we explore different facets of creativity, using the image of the ‘motherline’ as a guide.

We were lucky enough to have Lynda Sterling of OT Creative Space join us to facilitate two of our sessions. At the first session, she guided us through a process of finding lines in our surroundings, looking at the architecture of HOME and its urban setting, finding precious scraps of nature in the city, considering lines hard and soft, recording them in our sketchbooks as we delved deeper into the art of noticing.

We then transferred the lines that spoke to us on to pieces of A3 card. We started to find the connections between each card by laying them on the floor and draping colourful ropes on top to create a map of the imagination, with no clear destination yet revealed. The collective piece triggered associations of branching trees, mycelia, veins and roots tangling and weaving together to nod towards something earthy and ancient, not totally in our control.

We then turned our hands to carving lines in lino to make blocks inspired by our morning’s endeavours. Gouging the lines felt physical and forceful, quite a contrast to the reflective morning. In our follow-up session at OT Creative Space, we used these lino blocks to print on long strips of paper, creating ribbons of paper that made us think of maypoles, ringlets of hair, paper streamers and drifting autumn leaves. OT Creative Space became a hive, buzzing with energy and laughter.

Ultimately, we needed to share as well as create, so we spent the afternoon teasing out ideas of how to display our work – another adventure guided by Lynda. We “dressed” a tailor’s mannequin in these colourful coils, a proud female figure rising from the paper froth – a craft-inspired Venus or a homespun suffragette, take your pick.