Interior Pilgrimage

Year: 2026
Materials: Calico, lino print, watercolour, dye, bleach, oil and acrylic paint, thread and stitch

This quote from asacredjourney.net was the beginning of this exploration of what an interior pilgrimage looked like for Clucas. It is a work in progress, made up of daily, weekly and periodic stitching, alongside other media — a meditative process, a form of journalling through stitch.

It is:
The journey of a lifetime
The journey of a season
The journey of a day and
The journey of a moment

The idea for Interior Pilgrimage began in lockdown, on visiting a National Trust property which had an outdoor sound-based exhibition about pilgrimage. As part of that exhibition there was a poem, which talked of people going out on a pilgrimage, being watched by a monk from the window of his cell. He says:

… like them, I am a pilgrim, though I stay here.
Life is a dangerous journey to a promised land.

This piece of writing began thoughts about interior pilgrimage. The body of work explores how presence, memory and transformation accumulate across different rhythms of time. It is an attempt to render visible an interior movement — something that happens inside a person, in time, through material and gesture. The work asks quietly and persistently: How does slow making shape an interior life? How do small marks and gestures hold spiritual significance? How can a shared material space become a site for communal contemplation?

*Swags* — 4m × 25cm strips of medium-weight calico, treated as follows:
1. Plain calico with feather lino print.
2. Watercolour left out in rain.
3. Dye/bleach and polyester thread feathers.
4. Plain calico with feather lino print and acrylic paint.
5. Oil paint/Zest-it and feather lino print.
6. Acrylic paint left out in rain, with tears/frayed edges and stitch.

Sewn feathers on dyed and bleached calico

Detail of sewn feathers on dyed and bleached calico