Twisting the coil

What or who came through Brentgovel Street during the night, snagging this ambiguous relic on the wall as they passed? The ceramic and wire sculpture is by Sandra Lane and the response by writer Urve Opik.
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Relic of the Electric Seamstress

This woman kneeling with pins in her mouth
could stretch a yarn, with tactic alterations,
from Petersburg to Samarkand.
She told it with tailor’s chalk and empty loops,
she slipped herself along the ruthless
current of the buzz wire without caring
if she touched the flex.

What does you in, she said, is thinking you
can start again. Let it screech and fizz
but jolt yourself along.
There is no reward for silent fluency,
no such thing as invisible mending.
You’ll end up calcified, but that’s the prize
for twisting the coil and anchoring your line

Urve Opik

Sandra Lane worked as a journalist and a photographer prior to attending art school. She graduated from BA Fine Art Drawing at Camberwell College of Art in 2013 receiving the Camberwell Acme Studio Award. She completed an MFA Sculpture at the Slade School of Art in 2017 followed by the Slade Summer Residency and the Sydney Nolan Trust Residency. Recent projects include:  RA Summer Exhibition 2022; Blush, ASC Gallery; This Year's Model Studio 1:1 Gallery . Twitter and Instagram @artysandralane www.sandra-lane.com

Urve Opik is of Estonian heritage, grew up in Northern Ireland and lives in London. She studied art history at Manchester University and the Courtauld and worked for many years as an Arts Administrator. She became increasingly interested in the life psychotherapeutic in the late 1990s, retrained, and now practices as a psychotherapist. She retains a deep interest in the visual arts and weaves a writing practise through it all.