Exhibiting at Cambridge Girl Talk, Murray Edwards College

Me and my work

Artist statement

The Cambridge Girl Talk exhibition was very interesting.  Fewer exhibits than I expected, but interesting material. New works were shown in the bar area which had been designed with plenty of wall space for exhibiting.  (Murray Edwards looks like a brutalist piece of architecture, and building regs have obviously changed since, because one stairwell was incredibly narrow). Audience was largely girls from Murray Edwards but some from the wider academic community.  Quite a few boyfriends attended, and most of the audience looked seriously at the artwork before settling down to socialise and drink.

I had a very interesting conversation with a trans woman, interested in portrait photography in general, and expression in particular.

Pink Squire-Lindsay

 Pink made some very interesting remarks about this artwork.  She made the images in a university Life Class.  They are not pornographic.  She displayed them on the wall in her room.  Then received a phone call from the accommodation manager, followed by a letter instructing her to remove them. While she had infringed the rules about sticking stuff to walls, the work is not pornographic.  If the rules say no stuff on walls, I'd be interested to see whether the rules are applied consistently throughout the college.  If cleaners go into their rooms, then workplace legislation applies, and there is European legislation about no pin-ups in the workplace.  But these are life class poses, so calling it porn is inapt.  This was my best-in-show piece, for its narrative.

Kate Towsey.  Playing with the feminine and the abject

Jacobean Embroidery at the V&A with Lynne Hulse and Nicola Jarman

Brilliant class for embroiders wanting a historical basis from which to work.

Elizabethan work runs from 1558 -1603.  Jacobean work runs 1603-1625.  The Reformation took place from 1530s.  The Protestant church no longer required ornate embroidered vestments, so skilled embroiders needed other work, so shifted to the domestic sphere.  Aristocracy and middle classes took on embroidered clothes as a reflection of their position in society.

Elizabeth I blackwork smock

Embroidered clothing falls from favour after Charles I.  He favoured lavish silks - privileged the textile, not the work upon it.  (So does this link with the Hugenots weaving silks?)

Objects wear out.  But are seen in paintings - view this with scepticism - they are not a fashion journal of their time.  Shows wealth, and may indicate wealth from previous generations.

In 1600s, linen showed wealth.  They had embroidered cuffs and necklines.  Shifts were worn close to skin and would be washed.  Little else was.

1620 Embroidered jackets very popular.  Worn for show.  Nightcaps and coifs very popular.  Informal wear or during illness.

Embroidery was the only work a genteel woman could do in public, or with friends/while entertaining.  No embroidery manuals - done via oral tradition.  Middle class girls went to boarding school - made samplers.

Lawn - from Lyon. Very fine. French
Cambric - from Cambrai.  Fine. French
Holland linen - from Holland.  Coarser.

Best silks were from Southern Europe.  English silk did not hold its colour, especially black.  Spanish silk was much better quality, better mordants, twice the price.

Twisted Sisters are silk skeins. Floss is not twisted.  Silk is S or Z twist.  Catches light differently.

Where embroidered objects have no thread, the iron mordant has destroyed the threads.

Terms have changed.  In the 17th century, needlework was what we now call canvas work.  Embroidery was what was done on luxurious fabric.  Jacqui Carey notes stitch names change.  Mary Thomas who wrote an early 20th Century book, gave an interpretation which named stitches for that era.  They are not necessarily correct, or worked in an authentic way.

16th century embroidery stitch fashions moved away from geometrics, moved to speckling.  Taken from engraving, thus emulate their marks.

End 17th century, emblems come into vogue.  Mythological creatures eg wyvern.

One of the great things about this class, was that we benefitted from Lynn Hulse's knowledge of what is in the V&A archive.  She had selected about 10 items from the archive - incredibly delicate and fragile - rarely accessed. Amazing opportunity.

Blackwork shift. Black silk on linen.
Probably Spanish silk thread - still incredibly black, no degradation of thread.

Square neckline.  Edged with black lace.

Even the underarm gusset was embroidered

Showing the reverse side of work.  Very densely patterned with dense stitching.

Cuff with black lace edging.  

Lynn made no mention of symbolism of imagery.  I think I could see thistles, and maybe peas.  But not confidently enough to make definitive identification.

Linen shift

Not all blackwork was black. This is a red that has discoloured.

Pattern was stamped on.  This pattern 16 different motifs in a 4 x 4 grid.
Underarm gusset was not embroidered

Cuff

Embroidered hood.  Rinceau scrolling

Expensive lace edging.  

Inserted V panel to enable hood to sit well over shoulders.
Insert is virtually invisible, and is embroidered over.

Some stitching has rotted away.
I wonder whether it is where it has been handled to hold it under the chin,  that has  rotted the thread?

This was my favourite headpiece.
Unfortunately displayed the wrong way up, because the  buttonholed loops are for a cord to draw it in around the neck.

Many different plant - pear, pea, carnation.
Raised chain band in metal thread.

Inside of hood

Different hood.  More metal threads.  Shows gathers at top of head.
Hair would be grown long, then worn in a bun or coil under the hood.

With lace edging.
This was the most expensive hood shown, because of the amount of metal thread, and lace edging..

Black thread has rotted away. But stitch holes can still be seen

Much of the black silk has rotted.
English silk, dyed with iron mordant, which has deteriorated.

Head cloth, worn under hood.

Unusual motifs, and stitched with spun black and white threads, giving the effect of grey shading

I found these unworked patterns to be the most interesting  items displayed.
Embroidery patterns were printed on the precious linen. 

Water damage can be seen.  The pattern is a tree of life, with various plants and flowers.  

I wonder whether the pattern is symbolising Charles I and II
as it has several caterpillars, and a pair of butterflies
positioned where a clasp might be appropriate,

I just love the way the design fits the shape.  I'd love these bodice panel shapes as wall panels.  Much more interesting than designs that fit a square frame.

I wonder whether these panels were not worked because they were placed too close together.
No seam allowance to allow them to be cut and stitched.

In the afternoon, we started the Tree of Life kits. We had exquisite hand woven linen, 130 threads to the inch.  Roisin, the weaver, came in to see us. Only using 2/3 techniques, and 2 threads.  Back stitch, Holbein stitch, seeding; and fine and very fine black silk.  I learned a new way to start a thread.  Two tight back stitches half an inch along a line with an off-knot, then take thread back to beginning and work along, and over, these stitches, then snip off the off-knot.  Likewise to finish off.  No weaving/oversewing on the back.  Back stitches to be c1.5mm long!!  and reduce it when going around a tight curve!  I think I managed about 3" of stitch that afternoon!

The following day, I worked around a flower, then we started infilling with seeding, in 2 grades of thread.  I think I overworked mine a bit, but there's plenty more space to refine it.  I might go back and selectively increase the density of the stitching to define the moulding.  There are lots of tiny insects - endemic to the era.  So I stitched a spider and a flea.  Other class members picked out the bed bugs, ticks and caterpillar.  The butterfly is apparent again - I'm sure these are symbolic of Charles I and II, so are Royalist motifs.  Lynn had some silver metal thread for purchase - dates from 1920s, from a convent that was closing.  I had 4 lengths.  Maybe some couching?  Maybe along the lengths of the tree of life?  Or circular couching on the flower centres?

Lynn Hulse is a great person for my network.  She is really hot on historical techniques and academically robust.  Coincidentally, I'd booked a class at The School of Textiles in Coggeshall in April,  and lo and behold, Lynn and Nicola are running this too!  There is a choice of techniques here, and I think I'd like to do metal thread embroidery rather than colour shading.  Lynn had some good advice for picking threads, and recommended Au Ver de Soie, 7 strand, splittable silks.

Ulster Museum 4/1/19

Two great small exhibitions at Ulster Museum.

Fashion & Feminism  A trip through history showing the impact of certain women:

Mary Wollstonecraft 1759-97, favoured clothing "simple, elegant and becoming" so the wearer felt natural and at east.

Rational Dress Society 1881, protested against "any fashion in dress that either deforms the figure, impeded movement of body or in any way tends to injure health". (There was also a Women's Rational Cycling Society that had trousers for its members to wear when cycling).

By Women for Women

1893.  Looser corsetry and leg of mutton sleeves gave an illusion of a smaller waits. Previous fashion was for tightly corseted waists and narrow shoulders.

Callot Soeurs.  Parisienne dressmakers - using the name 'sisters' was a bold move when female businesses were met with disapproval and denigration.  Trained and promoted Mme Vionnet.

Mme Vionnet ran 1200 dressmakers in 1920s fashion house.  Vionnet promoted Callot Soeurs design house and "a very feminist structure which promoted women and femininity".  Vionnet promoted bias cut - soft drape and folds.  Comfortable to wear.

Dior's New Look was an old idea - inspired by 100 year old corsetry.  Notably post WW2, the female population was very thin (rationing) and many women would have had the tiny waist required for Dior's New Look, and his designs included hip padding to falsely accentuate the tiny waist.

Jacques Fath 1950s.  Gorgeous/impractical fashion - exaggerated femininity - pink raw silk shirt suit, associated with return to home and traditional gender roles after WW2.

1980s Power Dressing.  Male designer Thierry Mugler puts masculine traits into womenswear.  Huge shoulders, dropped waists with a skirt.  Vivienne Westwood "I've never thought it power to be like a second-rate man". Bondage trousers and hobble straps.

Virginia Woolf: "Vain trifles as they seem, clothes have, they say, more important offices than merely to keep us warm.  They change our view of the world and the world's view of us."


Making Her Mark, Women Printmakers from the Ulster Museum Collection

Printmaking can be a reaction to the rising industrialisation of day-to-day life.

Therese Lessore. 1884-1945  Etched but look like linocut:  reduced lines and shapes.  Married to Walter Sickert:  known primarily for that relationship and not for her own work.

Lady Elizabeth Thompson Butler. 1846-1933 Was denied election to RA in 1870s.  Paints the most popular war image Rollcall, at the Royal Academy exhibition and Queen Victoria buys it - yet Queen Victoria does not vote for her election to RA! (Two votes short of election)  Women used art criticism to communicate wider views that would be dismissed in wider journalism (this is what I'm doing!).

Elizabeth Thompson Butler

Gertrude Hermes 1901-83 and Agnes Parker 1895-1980 Both were printmakers whose income was the primary funding in the household and both financially supported their husbands.

Margaret Clarke 1988-1961. Second women elected to Royal Hibernian Academy - any awards and exhibitions.  After death, known as wife of glass artist Harry Clarke, and assistant to William Orpen.  Now 5 posters for Empire Marketing Board being promoted.

Doris Blair. War artist.  Prints show women took on men's work in wartime but still do most of domestic work.  Women are always active in her images.

Doris Blair

Katherine Cameron. 1874-1965 Flower painter.  Often denigrated but actually a shrewd business move.  If women needed to work from home and have an income, flower paintings were possible in the home environment, popular, and genteel women would buy them from other genteel women.

Ann Bailey. 20th C Little known.  30% of professional artists were women, but historically excluded from academy and gallery systems.  Thus work is less often recorded and written about.  Thus women join groups and exhibit together for their work to be seen.

Notes of tutorial - 9/1/19

Notes of Tutorial – Jill Journeaux, Imogen Racz, Cathy MacTaggart

I went through my activities over the Christmas break: much reading and writing, completed border on Manual Worker Woman sampler, found the font for Ford logo script for alphabet, went to Belfast Linen museum (total disappointment), went to Women & Power exhibition at Mount Stewart House, and Women Printmakers and Fashion & Feminism at Ulster Museum; checked out Redbridge museum as potential art venue – not suitable; have approached Dagenham library, with recommendation as good venue.

JJ confirmed I’d  grasped setting my work in a context.  She said it was time to create the format for the full 20,000 word essay, in order to get the structure right.  Start with all script in (Ford!) blue, then change to black when I think it is sufficiently finessed.  Possibly put right hand column for single word descriptors about the purpose of each paragraph, to identify flow/positioning for each one.  I may use comment function to question myself, when I’m not clear what I’m saying. Create a legend to colour code what the colours mean. Produce first draft by end February.

IR provided Kolb learning cycle for spiral of research and Harvard referencing system.  (IR – your powerpoint slides were fine, and your simple layout and font are easier for people with dyslexia to read).

Actions: 

Create The Essay to first draft stage by 29/1, second draft by end Feb.

Read and use Harvard referencing system.  

Find book on optimal qualities of even weave linen for embroidery.

Write about drawing methodology

Send PV invite for Girl Talk exhibition at New Hall Murray Edwards College to JJ/IR

Jacobean Blackwork embroidery class at V&A 28 and 29 Jan 2019

On waiting list for Richard McVetis at West Dean 19-22 Feb 2019

DONM Tuesday 29 January 1400

Freddie Robins - Gendering Materials

Lucy Day, Eliza Gluckman, Freddie Robbins, Unpicking the Narrative: Difficult Women, Difficult work.  Textile: Journal of Cloth and Culture, pp311-318 23/3/18

Hierarchy of Value and gendered nature of materials.

FR. "The reality is the textiles are stills so strongly associated with the feminine that whenever a male artist employs the medium, it is viewed as unusual.

FR. Karen Wright, curator of Entangled: Threads and Making, did not set out to curate a show ... of female artists, (but)... focus(sed) on "the experimental hand and the process of making ... which ... led to an all female line-up:

FR. "I have no serious concern about the gender imbalance in the discipline and the gendered nature of textiles but I do have serious concerns about what this means in reality for those of us who practice through the medium. We continue to live in a made dominated society.  The patriarchy looms large and usually fills and controls the purse.  And whilst the patriarchy might appreciate textiles, for the most part it does not value it enough to invest in it.  The hierarchy of value continues.

Working with textiles -v- thinking through the medium.

FR. "Through the physical act of making and the handling of materials, the work takes on an authentic voice and an authority.  ... The act of making enables ideas to develop in different and often unexpected directions.  The movements o the hands allow the thought processes to flow, giving ideas time to develop.