Tapestry Symposium - Here and Now, Holburne Museum, Bath, 29/9/17

I anticipated a good symposium because it was organised by Lesley Millar - my previous experience is that her conferences are high quality - and this one was likewise.

This symposium focussed on tapestry as A Narrative Voice of Our Time. The work on display explored themes of enduring relevance:  how we respond to nature and the urban environment; how tapestry can tell political and personal stories and demonstrate the skill of the handmade.

When is an artwork finished?  Rembrandt said "When I say it is". When it is cut off the loom?  No more alterations - time to let go; a release?   Tapestries contain a material truth - direct, poetic, reflecting the life of the maker (This phrase applies to my stitch work).

Erin M Riley (who makes controversial tapestries) considers the object, subject, viewer and maker.  Links the haptic and the visual.  She weaves her self into the cloth.  She has a difficult upbringing, which she references extensively in her work. (This is one of her less controversial images)

Erin M Riley, Tapestry

Hannah Ryggen, plays on the quality of haptic truth.  As the viewer looks, the viewer feels.

Hannah Ryggen, Death of Dreams,
Courtesy of Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustriemuseum

Barbara Heller, Tapestry & Eco Politics

Narrative - definition - a series of events, layers of meaning.  She expresses the difficult in a slow medium - as a form of catharsis.  Tapestry forms a good contrast (slow) to the speed of modern life.  

Narrative has always been part of societies - the listening audience used to know the popular stories of their community - now they don't.  Stories were illustrated historically for the illiterate.  Literacy was only for the educate.d. Tapestry was toured with the rich, to castles and battlefields.  Complex and detailed.  Publicised the status of the Lord.  It was patron-based art.  Then moved to aesthetics - where the weaver's own interpretation was what counted.  

Weavers were forbidden to sign their work - so included themselves in the work as self portraits.  Many artists in different forms did this - Michelangelo included himself making homoerotic kisses at the Virgin birth.  

Tapestry has respect due to the time taken to create it - but ... why do it?

Weavers are thoughtful due to the time taken by the craft.  Contemplative meaning.  Symbols and stories - contradictions of the modern world.  The medium is the message - so many messages bypass the rational mind - slow thought gets to the subliminal.  Bob & Roberta Smith creates multi coloured written artwork in capitals - which look like he is shouting - and it does not work.  Barbara Heller said she works with the Politics of Slow - this is what she is.  

Barbara Heller, section of Ozimandias tapestry.
Image courtesy of Vanda Campbell

Barbara Heller, Afghani Woman, Tapestry
Image courtesy of Barbara Heller.

More to follow