I do some of my best thinking when I am on the train during my weekly trip into London at ‘stupid o’clock’ in the morning. Perhaps this is because the rest of my brain is not awake yet and I can easily follow a thread without distraction.

This week I was thinking about my colour palettes and how they are a little like patchwork quilts.

It is interesting to consider how such a piece would be disregarded if it were created – yet something a simple as my palettes are held with a higher regard. This made me start to think about juxtapositioning the realities of these.

How would a piece be perceived if it were an ‘illustration’ or ‘painting’ of a “patchwork palette”. How does that affect reception and perception of the piece? It looks like it exists, but it doesn’t really. It neither exists as a physical piece, nor as a photograph of a physical piece. So does that make it a more ‘cerebral’ piece rather than a lowly ‘craft’? Does that make this work a comment on simplicity, pleasure and comfort (ultimately mood)? Or does it make it a simple reproduction and even less than ‘craft’?

I have long despised the craft/fine art division so am interested into how an idea like this would fit – or if it is worthless. Does it challenge these conceptual boundaries or is it trite?

I was reading the current issue of Art of England on the way home. I can’t even remember what the article is about, but they mentioned a ‘current trend’ in art. And that got me thinking – how does a trend (and therefore maybe a movement) start? Is it a zeitgeist of people in a certain place/time/exposure? Collective social thinking? Is it another person hanging off the tailcoats of another and it snowballing? Does a trend develop in isolation until these little islands form up to be a ‘trend’ or is it more location/culturally based?

I’ll leave that with you…