‘Looking out of a Window’'
So, what is going on? My name is Jodie and I have been selected as the artist for the East Midlands Railway Train Station commission at Sheffield Train Station… Exciting! I’ve decided to do a little blog to take you through the journey with me as I create the piece, so you can not only get an insight to how the work has been created and all the technical art stuff, but also get to know a little bit about the artist behind the work. That being said, here’s a little introduction to the commission and my initial thoughts and brainstorms!
This commission is based in Sheffield Train Station to mark the beginning of the Artworks Together Festival 2026- a celebration of artists that have a learning difficulty, are autistic, or both- where visitors to the festival will be first greeted by this artwork before they get to see everything else going on in the festival in Sheffield. The commission was specifically open to artists with a learning difficulty, are autistic, or both, and so the proposal I sent over to be considered surrounded the difficulties people with autism may struggle with when travelling.
As a person with autism, travel can be really overstimulating for me for a number of reasons. Lots of people, noises, things being out of my control and going wrong, transport being cancelled and not showing up… the list goes on. It’s a huge process for many people to be able to travel, and some people man not understand how challenging this can be for individuals. I wanted to highlight this, so for my artwork I suggested the theme ‘Looking out of a window’, which would visually describe a train journey, where I put my headphones in and take in the views that I can see on my journey, to subdue the anxiety I’m feeling and block out the noise and other distractions around me. To my shock and disbelief…I got the commission!
So what are my plans?
I am a textile artist that specialises in free-motion embroidery, so my plan is to create a huge tapestry implementing lots of different textile skills, which shows a scene out of a train window. I’ll use photos I have taken to create a design, and use different textile techniques to create different textures on the piece. I’m thinking, quilted pieces for fields and more 3-D elements for the trees and bushes. I want it to be tactile, after all it’s going on display in the public, so people are going to touch it. This will mean that travellers who struggle with their sight will also be able to experience the piece by touch, which is really important to me that as many people as I can possibly can will be able to be included in the commission and experience it.
I’ve never created a piece of this scale before so it’s going to be challenging, things will go wrong and plans will probably alter as it goes on, but I’m taking you along for the ride! I’ll be using this blog to document initial plans, specific skills and how to do them, and also letting you know all the background stuff, what maybe isn’t going to plan and how I figure it out. After all, not everything goes smoothly in the world of art, and that’s okay! I’ll be posting weekly updates on here and documenting absolutely everything, I’ve never written a blog before so I’m doing it all my way and figuring it out as I go. I’ll upload pictures and videos where I can, and will be getting help from the amazing team at Artworks to make all this information as accessible as possible.
Thank you for reading along and I hope to see you back next Friday, stay safe and enjoy your weekend everyone,
Jodie