Scotland - The Burrell Collection

Jim and I had a dreadful journey to Scotland.  5 hours from Dumfries to Glasgow.  We drove about 250miles to make 60 miles progress.  Jim drove from Dumfries to New Cumnock, where the River Nith had flooded the road, back 20 miles, and went to Crawfordjohn where that river had flooded, then back almost to Dumfries and up the A74 to the M74 where the river had overflowed and blocked the motorway.  Then we skirted the motorway on back roads, and finally got to Glasgow. 


I had a lovely afternoon in the Burrell Collection.  I gathered data for Content Analysis.  Content analysis is a technique to interpret artefacts displayed in museums to produce valid and trustworthy inferences. There are 5 types of content analysis - written; oral; iconic (drawing, painting, icons etc); audio visual; hypertexts (internet).  In this case I am focussing on iconic. 


Content analysis shares the scientific re-elaboration of the object examined, and is repeatable ie gives the same results if the exercise is repeated. 


Key questions are "Who says what, to whom, why, to what extent and with what effect".  I hope to apply these questions to the data I gather.

"A research technique for the objective, systematic and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication".

Uses: Inferences about 1.antecedents, 2.characteristics, 3. effects of a communication.

Which data are analysed?
How are they defined?
What is the population from which they are drawn?
What is the context relative to the data that are analysed?
What are the boundaries for the analysis?
What is the target of the inferences?


Burrell Small Textile Gallery

28 Embroidered pieces:
2 band samplers - 1 colour, 1 whitework
10 panels - 7 religious: Solomon and Sheba; Susanna and the Elders; Judith and Holofernes; Esther and Aheserus; Ambraham and Isaac x 2; Isaac and Rebecca. All silk
- 3 tessellated rinceau (foliage) patterns. Silk and metal
4 royal costume pieces - 2 silk and metal shoes, 1 cap,1 red quilted waistcoat.
4 Coptic tunic pieces
4 Falconry set - Embroidered gauntlet, pouch, lure and hood.

Burrell Collection - Gilt and Silk exhibition 1600-1620

16 pieces.  All have flowers. 
3 nightcaps Borage/starflower, pea pods (for fertility), pansy (pensee) for thought;

Metalwork embroidery on nightcap - peapods for fertility

Metalwork embroidery - rinceau with carnation for love

6 coifs + 1 forehead cloth (used when sick or after giving birth) One has peapods - fertility symbol, and carnations (pure love)

Embroidered coif - rinceau with flowers

2 gloves - silk and metal

2 sweetbags - silk and metal.  Cornflower reliability and fidelity

1 jacket - rinceau.  Sweetbriar rose - courtly love

2 x petticoats (huge) (possibly for Anne of Denmark)
- Rinceau and thistles.  Multisymbolism - not sure what they indicate
Bird with leaf
Honeysuckle
Borage
Daffodil
Lily
Strawberry
Acorn and oakleaf
Peapod open and closed
Carnation  

1 x coif - needlelace whitework
1 x coif menagerie.  Dog -represents smell, stag hearing, monkey taste, plus bird, leopard,lion, serpent and imaginary animals.  Not sure of symbolism.  All 5 senses represented apparently.

A Trip to Shropshire

Jim and I had a great time in Shropshire.  The plan was to do some family research with Doreen and Allison about Aunt Joan.  Doreen gave me some lovely anecdotes about being Joan's little sister, and wrote these out on some pages of a handmade sketchbook.  Allison got stuck into the Wreck This Journal and created some lovely pages.  I think I might make Joan's sampler focus on her needle skills.  I knew she did dressmaking, upholstery, knitting, embroidery and flower arranging. I did not know that she was a leather worker as well.  Allison said Aunt Joan had made lots of pairs of gloves, cutting the leather, punching stitching holes and sewing up, wrong sides facing.  She also made leather skirts and jerkins, stitching seams and gluing seam allowances.




Allison let me have one of the most complicated sweaters that Aunt Joan made, her pulled thread embroidery sampler and book, and a few other bits. 




Allison tried to do some oral history recording, but the recording device was not co-operating, I think it was full.  I shall buy another device and try again later.  I can visualise an exhibition where there is an audio recording available for every sampler, and I think this will give a greater experiential depth as the hearing sense is added in to the experience.


Photos to follow

The plan until New Year

Tomorrow Jim and I go to Shropshire to stay with Aunt Doreen.  We will stay a couple of days, with the purpose of doing some oral history research about Aunt Joan with cousin Allison.  I hope to get some artwork done too.  I have a new copy of Wreck this Journal, and hope to complete this book on the subject of Aunt Joan with Allison and Dor's contributions.

Then we go to Scotland for a few days to stay with Jim's friend Grace.  I will go to The Scottish National Portrait Gallery and the Gallery of Modern Art, with the intention of doing some content analysis.

The SNPG is small enough to walk round and count how many portraits on display are of men/women/ clothed/unclothed.  Last time I was there, there was a room devoted to women.  I intend to list the women depicted, and note their status, how they were valued in order to be in an image and anything else that occurs to me.

I will probably do much the same in the Gallery of Modern Art, which has an exhibition Modern Scottish Women 1885-1965.  I am mostly interested in the 20th Century.

Then if I have the time and inclination in early 2016, it would be interesting to do the same in the National Portrait Gallery in London, and again in the Elizabeth Sackler Centre, Brooklyn Musuem, in New York.  I wonder if I could get to New York around Easter?  Jim is keen for me to do whatever I need, and although he does not want to come too, wants me to go.

What is a Portrait?

I have been running around the internet to find definitions of portraits.  I think the Scottish National Portrait Gallery has some good ideas listed below:

"A portrait is an evocation of a person. It gives the sense of that person.  It doesn't necessarily need to look like the person, but it would have to give some impression." Lesley Stevenson, Senior Paintings Conservator

"A portrait is a creative collaboration between an artist and the sitter, and it's unique in that sense as an art form and that's what makes it really different from any other art forms."  Sarah Saunders, Deputy Head of Education.  So does this mean that as the majority of my samplers of women are about dead people, what I am creating is not a portrait?  The National Portrait Gallery Collections policy states they seek work about people who are alive i.e. created from a sitter.  Maybe my work is memory work, not portrait?

"A portrait can be many, many things.  It depends on the one who takes the portrait, who makes the picture and on the sitter because the sitter chooses, most of the imps he chooses in a sitting the person who makes the portrait of him and he hopes that it represents him.  That's all"  Gerd Sander.

"I think a portrait is probably different things to different people but in general terms it's a depiction of a person which cane idealised to flatter them or it can be an impression of their personality, or it can even be an abstract depiction of some element about them". David Taylor, Senior Curator

"A portrait's a picture of an individual human being that places, what, emphasis on their uniqueness, as simple as that"  Sandy Moffat.

"I think a portrait is normally thought to be a sort of visual representation of someone.  Normally that's in oil paint or it might be a sculpture, carving but I really like the idea of a portrait being the sound of people's voices."  James Holloway.  This is interesting.  Lewis has given me notes on how to conduct oral history interviews - so could I record family members talking about my women and use these as part of the "portrait"?  Particularly if I want to play on how we experience the world through all our senses, rather than just our eyes?

"f course a portrait doesn't have to necessarily be a portrait of a person. It can also be a portrait of a thing as well.  Keith Hartley Chief Curator

"I think a portrait is a representation of an individual, usually an individual human being by another individual and it's a created object that acts as a kind of remembrance of that person"  Nicola Kalinski.  This is much more what I am looking for.  Nothing about the person being a sitter (i.e. still alive).

"It's like being in love you know, it's the same thing you know.  You never know how it happens but if it happens right a good outcome will be there you know."  Gerd Sander

Considering Kindness

I have been thinking about how to portray attributes such as kindness.  Kindnesss is an emotion perceived by others, which is assessed by evaluating behaviour.  So how do I create artwork that portrays something that is intangible.

Within our family, Aunt Joan had a reputation for being very kind.  My brother and I both have very happy memories of two holidays when Aunt Joan took us away with her family for a fortnight in Devon.  She was very kind to my cousin, Martin, who had cystic fibrosis.  Martin was at university in Oxford, and frequently stayed with Aunt Joan at the weekend, as she lived nearby.  Martin benefitted from Aunt Joan's care and was well fed and cherished when he was with her.  Aunt Joan was brilliant at thinking up gifts for small children, and I remember her giving a wooden toddler's swing as a christening present to friends of the family.  She also knitted sweaters and made quilts for nieces going to university.  I also benefitted from accommodation when I was doing weekend classes or summer school at Missenden Abbey.  At first I was worried and felt guilty that I was costing her money for my keep, but later realised she enjoyed the company.  I can talk for Britain, and she very much enjoyed conversation, as she became increasingly blind and arthritic, and was unable to knit or sew. I used to arrive, cook dinner (she could not lift a pan of veg for two), talk all evening, go to bed, make breakfast, talk until I left for class, and then she could rest during the day.  It took me a while to realise my conversational contribution was equal to her contribution of hospitality.

So, Aunt Joan shared experiences (holidays), supported those in need (time and care), identified and paid for appropriate gifts (wooden swing), made useful objects (sweaters and quilts), shared her home.  To me, giving time, sharing experiences and supporting others is what kindness is about.  It is only slightly allied to spending money.

I have also looked up "kindness in art" on the internet.  This led me to a website Random Acts of Kindness.  There were hundreds of examples of how people take Personal Social Responsibility by doing kind things.  A random list is below

1. Send someone a hand written note of thanks.
2. Make a card at home and send it to a friend for no reason.
3. Buy a lottery ticket for a stranger.
4. Put some coins in someone else’s parking meter.
5. Buy a coffee for the man on the high street selling The Big Issue magazine.
6. Cut your neighbour’s hedge.
7. Walk your friend’s dog.
8. Give a compliment about your waiter / waitress to his / her manager.
9. Send someone a small gift anonymously.
10. Stop and help someone replace their flat tyre.
11. Let someone jump the queue at the bank.
12. Support someone in their team sport. 

I think it is interesting that most of them involve doing something, rather than buying things.

Chambers Dictionary defines Kindness as the quality or fact of being kind.  However Kind is defined as n. those of kin, a race: sort of species, a particular variety: fundamental qualities (of a thing): produce, as distinguished from money. - adj. having or springing from the feelings natural for those of the same family: disposed to do good to others: benevolent.

Bloomsbury's Dictionary of Word Origins by John Ayto defines Kind as: Kind the noun and Kind the adjective are ultimately the same word but they split apart in pre-historic times.  Their common source was Germanic kunjam, the ancestor of English kin.  From it, using the collective prefix ga- and the abstract suffix -diz was derived the noun gakundiz, which passed into Old English as gecynde "birth, origin, natrue, face". The prefix go- disappeared in the early Middle English period.

The Dictionary of Word Origins says of Kin: Kin is the central English member of the Germanic branch of a vast family of words that trace their ancestry back to the prehistoric Indo-European base.  Amongst the Germanic descendants of this base was jun-, from which was derived the noun kunjam, source of English kin 'family".  Kindred was formed from kin in early Middle English by adding the suffix -red ' condition'.

So, kind and kindness, appear to have originated as how people relate to family.  I find this a bit challenging.  I can see evidence for kindness is more easily gathered within a family setting, but I think kindness can be exhibited outwith the family.  The evidence I have for Aunt Joan's kindness is certainly demonstrated in her relationships with family, although I would say she had some stereotypical attitudes of her generation towards people who were "not like her" i.e. not white and middle class.   Having said this, I remember one of my last conversations with her, when she was 93.  Aunt Joan said that at one time, it would have been her biggest horror to have neighbours who were ethnic minorities, but now she had Sabrina and Peter next door, she had found them to be good neighbours, and she adored their son Sebastian, who was born soon after they moved in.

So this leaves me with a question.  How is kindness manifested in art?

As part of my contextual review, I think I need to go to a few galleries and see whether I can find artworks that portray people who are kind. And analyse them.

Goya and Giacometti

I have been wondering how artists represent kindness in paintings.  So I took myself off to London to see two portraiture exhibitions - Goya at the National Gallery, and Giacometti at National Portrait Gallery.  I did not see anything about kindness but had a great day out.

Goya (1746-1828) was the last of the great Masters, and is probably the best known of the spanish painters.  He is known for dark and melancholy works, (which would not appeal to me) but this exhibition was of his portraiture, by which he earned his living.  Like many painters, his first works of portraiture were quite busy, including a lot of symbolic references, but over time they simplified.  The exhibition started with an image of the Count of Almeira (1787), who was a tiny man.  He is portrayed in full scarlet uniform, but seated upon a bespoke low chair, with his arm resting on a normal height table, meaning his elbow is the same level as his ear.  It is a very compassionately drawn portrait, because the Count is portrayed as being completely in proportion, yet alludes to his small stature, by the use of the table.  It led to commissions of the rest of the family.

I had an audio guide which expands the narrative about the paintings and noted the music played after each description was appropriate to  the date at which the sitter posed.  Clever use of combining different senses to understand a situation.

There was a self portrait of Goya painting in front of a window.  The window alludes to the times of the Enlightenment.  Goya was a deep political man who had grave concerns about the religious and social habits of the times, and who was particularly opposed to the Spanish Inquisition.  However he trod a fine line between being patronised by Royalty and the Church and the liberal thinkers who were pushing political reform.  He wears an interesting hat in this self portrait.  It is a type of top hat, but has spikes around the edge, to hold candles, so he could work in the failing light.

There was interesting positioning of 3 portraits in the room Official Painter to the Spanish Court.  There is a pair of paintings of the King of Spain with his faithful spaniel looking up to him (symbolising the adoring populous looking up to their King) and a flattering portrait of the Queen.  Apparently after many pregnancies, she was toothless and ageing, but is portrayed as full cheeked, unwrinkled and dewy skinned, with beautiful arms (of which she was particularly proud)  enhanced by a black lace mantilla.  Facing these two images, there is the image of the Duchess of Alba, a famous if eccentric beauty with a fiery temper.  Apparently they did not get on!

There were some good observations of fashion.  I particularly like one of a count wearing very close fitting trousers - more like tights.  Apparently clothing that tight would make your skin smart - and is how we have come to the term "smart clothing".  Only the right could afford clothes so close fitting it smarted, and the poor had softly wrapped and pinned unshaped clothing.

Another pair of portraits were of the Minister of Grace and Justice, who was resting his head on hand as if deep in thought, with a detailed, considered painting style, and the Minister of Finance and War (because wars cost a lot?) who was meant to be decisive and a man of action, so was painted quickly to convey the different temperaments of the men.

General observations are that the audience had a high proportion of Spanish and French people attending; disability was well represented in the artworks (Goya was deaf from age 48, a person with reduced height, a person who had had a stroke and self-portrait of acute illness); and lots of affluent women.

Then I went on to see Giacometti at the NPG.  Not so enjoyable, but still good.  I am not sure why the Goya was 9 GBP for student rate with great explanatory booklet and 3 GBP for audio guide and 71 images, whereas Giacometti was 15 GBP student rate, no booklet or audio guide and only about 48 artworks.

His work moved from being strongly post impressionist as a youth, influenced to his father, to experimentalist at his death.  I very much liked his early works - mostly portraiture but with a highly coloured palette.  Bright and joyful.  Then his works moved to strongly linear, still portraiture, but moving through a person in a room using colour, to a person in a box motif mostly monochrome, to a head and shoulders, to a head in grey with penetrating eyes  Very distinctive scratchy linear lines and mark making.  Quite a few sculptures.  Very limited range of models - often his younger brother Diego, wife Annette, or later, model Caroline.  One or two portraits of key collectors of his work.  I wonder why he focussed on such a restricted range of subjects.

Art class with Vanda

We had a great art class at the Shedio.  One of my best ever.  We were working from our own objects, using inspirational techniques from artists who exhibited at the Jerwood Drawing Exhibition.  Not only did we have our usual people (Vanda, Jane and Karin) but Brenda dropped in before uni for an hour, and we had Lesley and Sheila as well.  

We used 4/5 different techniques - paper cuts, piercing, prints, before lunch.  Then after lunch, we reviewed what went well/badly and had to decide whether to use 5 more artist inspired techniques, or whether to explore the first ones further. I was a wuss, and wanted to be told what to do, so was instructed to explore one or two techniques further.  I ended up stitching on paper, changing one thing at a time.  Without thread, with thread, small, large, with black thread, with white thread, with both colours. I had a lovely time.

Papercuts.  Inspired by a sweater image from Aunt Joan's knitting book
They could vary in scale, be piled up, be used as stencils and templates

Papercuts piled up.  Could be pushed further .

(Unthreaded) Machine stitching knitted patterns, through paper

Drawing the shapes of the patterns - lobster claw cable, stocking stitch and rib.

Making a slipknot, and a series of chain stitches from newspaper.
Using these to print, to see what pattern results.

A single print on a page to see what happens when it is positioned to privilege it.

Unthreaded machine stitching to create line drawing of a series of chain stitches in paper

The printing implement and the stitch drawing

What happens on the back when you forget to put the presser foot down.
Every machinist will recognise it!

Line drawing by machine stitching (with thread)

Machine stitch drawing enlarged to page size

Machine stitch drawing using black thread, followed by white thread.

A Good Final Day at Uni

I had my feedback for my Literature Review from Lewis.  I was most flattered when he said my work was amongst the most resolved in the class.  I think this is because I have known for some time what interests me, and Linden gave me some excellent pointers for reading.  I was a good student, because I read what she suggested … and a bit more !

I was quite amused by Lewis describing me and Gareth as being like bookends in relation to the rest of the class.  Something in there about us holding the class together and preventing people falling over.  I have a mental picture of wooden gargoyle bookends, with Gareth and his beard one end, and me with my ginger hair the other!

So I need to get my act together over the Christmas holidays.  I need to finalise the Proposal, and the Literature Review, and write a presentation about the literature review.   Additionally I want to do some oral history research with Aunt Doreen and cousin Allison. This involves a trip to Shropshire for the interviews, and I also thought I would get them doing some artwork in a handmade sketchbook (made by me, using flour bags, old dressmaking patterns and found paper) and a Wreck This Journal.  Not a lot to do then!

Presentation on Valuing Women Project to date

Yesterday everyone in class had to give their presentations on progress to date.  Gareth took notes for me, of my feedback.

Linden picked up on, "really liked", one of the questions I posed in my presentation, to which I did not have the answer:  How do I do this Valuing Women work, without being nostalgic?"  I don't think we came to a conclusion on it, but I will look up the word nostalgic, and then pose this question to my Shedio art group, and also might put it on our Facebook page.

Class members liked my sketchbook work, particularly the drawing of a cross stitch gesture, then interpreting it in cross stitch, weaving it, enlarging it etc.  The cross stitch gesture captured an energy. (Well done Vanda for creating the exercise - well done me for following through!)

Consider making samplers in different materials - modern, not natural fibres.  Think about where the fibres come from.

Interested in not alienating men.  The prison work (Fine Cell Work) - was it gender specific?  What is the gender specifically in prisons.  FCW work with women to teach knitting, and men to stitch canvas work cushions to retail in high end outlets.

"Critical Craft Network"  The real perspective on the doing aspect of the work.  Look this up.

"How you publicise" could be the source of inclusiveness of men rather than alienating men.  What about interviewing men in working men's clubs.  This would need me to take a large brave pill!

Charity shop/reworking old clothes from relatives. "Aunt Joan" materials.

Artefacts - Could be used in the exhibition.  Maybe display in Valentines Mansion, Ilford, as most women depicted lived there.

Will you include photos of the women?  Might be interesting to form our own image.  I was going to include photos of these women in a collage about each one, and maybe in a sketchbook about each one, but not in the sampler.  Yet, what is a portrait?  Is it a likeness of the person, or could it be about the artefacts and interests of the individual?  Need to research this further.

The portrait - engage in the debate.  What is the portrait in this situation?  Recognising a small part of ourselves or the person.

Clothing works like a photograph.  Does it destroy the mystery?

Punchy, gutsy, firm, forward looking.  Your underlying rule set.  and your criteria (hidden text forms the baseline).

The Beaney Museum, Canterbury

I had a few days away with Shirley, my sister-in-law, while her Mum is in respite.  We went to the Beaney Museum which was an excellent, small, local museum.  They were hot on representing the local community.

They had the Garden Room dedicated to paintings by local artist Thomas Sidney Cooper.  He painted lots of domestic animals, from all sorts of angles, varied in size - 16" x 12" up to 12' x 16'.  A popular rise was c 4' x 3' - suitable for the domestic Victorian parlour.  They also had a room where portraits depicted the kentish community - from old Van Dykes of affluent local landowners, to Dame Laura Knight's portrait of Hop Picking Granny, a gypsy.

The local school children community had an obvious presence.  They had done decorations for the Christmas tree and stairwell.  Also they had been involved in a workshop about the homeless. Excellent outreach work had been done with the homeless community (of which there are many in Canterbury) getting them to depict their situation, painting on cardboard boxes and waste paper.  Great  use of ground materials continued in a children's workshop where the pupils had drawn on paper bags to illustrate what they would take with them if all their belongings had to fit into a paper bag.  Very thought provoking.

Stuart Hall: Representation: Cultural Representation and Signifying Practices

I have been reading the chapter on Genre and Gender.  It is written in relation to soap opera, but I think there are some points that I can apply to my samplers which Value Women.

Hall notes (1997, p345) in a male dominated publishing environment, there is often a space designated for women - the women's page, Woman's Hour - while there is no corresponding section for men.  The feminist analysis of this situation is that the norm is to be masculine and only women's culture needs to be specifically gendered and therefore catered for, by a tiny time/space allocation.  The feminist implication is that mainstream values are actually masculine, when the common, unanalysed, view is that they are gender free.  This leads on to women's issues becoming a deviation from the norm.

The questions Hall poses are: "how is gender constructed in representation; how does gender impact on the cultural forms that do the constructing, and how does the space designated "woman's" differ from the masculine norm?"  He uses soap opera to analyse the questions, but I will try to apply the principles to my creation of samplers (a female specific creation) that portray women.

Hall identifies (p346) the difference of the stereotypical woman (similar to my Mother's definition - stay-at-home mother and wife), and the psychologically rounded character and notes the cultural signifiers which are applied generically to the gender, rather than reflect the gender identities specific to the individual.  He says the psychologically rounded character in the media is as much an artificial construction (albeit more complex) as the stereotype (which is usually simpler).  I think my 6 individual women described on separate samplers will try to show the diversity of why I value them, thereby indicating they are not generic but individuals with assorted skills.

Hall (p347) describes the Marxist view where the groups who own the means of production (i.e. mass media) control and publicise a society's views.  This leads to the rich and powerful classes who control the media drip feed their own ideologies which make the status quo appear natural and suppress the individual analysis of observation and social circumstance (domination). Hall goes on to say that Gramsci adapted the view of domination by introducing hegemony.  Hegemony says power in democracy is partly achieved by force, but importantly, also by persuasion and consent - therefore it is always in a state of flux.  This had led to the targeting of groups, e.g. marginalised and minority viewpoints and negotiation between social, political and ideological perspectives to gain/alter power bases.  Representation is a key site for this.  Hall notes how the "Black is Beautiful" slogan changed race relations in the US and UK.  I wonder if I could make a mark for feminism by a "Women are Valuable" slogan.  (An alliterative slogan trips off the tongue better)

Trip to the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester

Vanda and I had a trip to Manchester to see the Art Textiles exhibition at the Whitworth Gallery.  This was in an old redbrick building that was part of the Manchester University campus.  The Gallery has had a huge modern extension put on the back, and this is where the textile exhibits were.

As usual, about two thirds of the exhibits left me cold, but the others were great.  The ones I liked were Ann Wilson's beautifully mounted squares of double damask, where the damaged area had been embellished by tiny blanket stitch around the hole, then the most minuscule seeding in blue (or brown/red/orange) like a shooting star.  The three pieces were about 24 x 18" and the holes varied from 2p, 20p and cigarette burn size.  Delightful.

Ann Wilson.

Vanda was really impressed by Mary Sibande's work from South Africa which commented on the role of the maid servant, the all-encompassing nature of her role and how she worked with her mother.  Vanda liked the size of the exhibit and the appropriate use of space in the large exhibition hall. Most imposing.

Mary Sibande

I liked the work by Lyn Malcolm, The Subversive Stitch.  Rozsika Parker' s book The Subversive Stitch was originally printed in 1984, but was reprinted in 2011, with a hand stitched sampler for the front cover.  Lyn Malcolm's work at the Art Textile exhibition was the original sampler!  It was stunningly beautifully stitched - very simple cross stitch and back stitch - and framed with a 6" calico mount all around it, thus privileging the work in the frame.  Exquisite.  

I was also very taken with an antique sampler by Doris A.R. from the 18th century.  It showed different mending techniques on a hemmed square of cloth - darning, patching, reverse appliqué, pulled work, hanging loops.  I was also impressed with a Suffrage banner, stitched in 1911 by Miss Burton and Miss Gosling, of the Women's Freedom League, captioned Dare to be Free.  It had obviously been out in the rain, as the colour from the stitching had bled into the ground velvet.   

A comment about Feminist Art was:  Don't illustrate the problem; challenge it.  Is this what I am doing with my samplers?  Not railing that women's skills are not recognised, but creating artwork that recognises it?