![]() About a year ago I learned Saint Catherine was selected for ARTAPESTRY6. ![]() Nonetheless, a new tapestry, currently untitled, is on the loom I am about a foot into it and I hope it will be finished before my exhibition at Ripon Cathedral next Spring.Īs well as these developments at the loom there have been some rather wonderful things happening off it. Symbolism has become an increasingly important as a way to tell stories although I do use that them somewhat obliquely, and it has been a big challenge for me to work out how much to tell and how much to leave to the viewer – I am yet to find the answer. It is a tapestry about the introspection we have all undergone due to Covid, both individually as well as nationally. Song of the Woods is about that experience, a play on medieval hunting tapestries except it is the self that is being hunted rather than a unicorn or unfortunate stag. I found a shortcut to some local woods, and those daily walks have become integral to my work, a place where I can think through my tapestries, and plan future projects. I am more than happy on my own, just me and the loom, lockdown I suspect for many artists is our natural habitat and the last thing I wanted to do was interrupt my work day with a walk but a wise friend suggested making it part of my practice. At the start of the lockdown it was put to me for my own well being I needed to get out the house. ![]() I looked at Bronze Age burials for the foetal shape of the central figure, it was nice to blow the dust off some old archaeology text books. And I was able to expunge a lot of demons with this piece. Memento Mori are a well-established genre, especially in times of plague and catastrophe. Memento Mori – remember you will die – is an inevitable theme for me, not least being an ex-archaeologist who used to focus on human remains. This idea was pushed further in Memento Mori which was the next tapestry to be completed. About this time I had started to read some medieval French poetry in an attempt to understand the cultural context of tapestries better, and I loved the role that textiles played in them, often to convey another story and I wanted to weave a textile telling a story in a textile telling a story. It had long occurred to me that the frocks of my gals are such an expanse of space to devote purely to decoration when they could be used for storytelling. I couldn’t get a pattern to fit into the skirts in a way I liked and as I knew I needed something angular I found myself weaving a landscape in the skirts. I have long loved towns and landscapes in the background of tapestries and the mysterious worlds beyond that they suggest. I am not a fan of small scale tapestry, but I had some warp left over which I could not waste and I wove a small piece. Hiding in the landscape is a burrowed rabbit, a nod to this tapestry having been woven during the lockdown, a time when everyone faced unimaginable and unexpected anxiety, when everything we thought we knew was over turned, all of us swallowed by the enormity of what was going on, all of us second guessing what once was a familiar future. About her float figures representing voices from the subconscious, the causes of anxiety, the self doubt, the intrusive thoughts their banderoles are empty for us to fill in, as all our triggers are different. ![]() The motifs in her frock are stylised irises, a play on the eyes/sight theme. The main figure holds onto the real world via a stylised plant rising up from the landscape, in her other hand sits a second pair of eyes and from them tears form waves swallowing her. Although I suspect there was some confusion with her mentally unwell mother-in-law, it did occur to me anxiety is a form of second sight, another level of seeing things albeit over and over, a constant and ever shifting reworking and second guessing, and we can cripple and drown our own selves with it. Someone told me my traditional straight laced church going great-grandmother had the ‘second sight’. Instead, somewhat overcome by anxiety, I wove Second Sight. I had been planning to get ready for my exhibition at Ripon Cathedral but of course it was postponed. When the first lockdown hit I knew I had to get a project on the loom urgently. For me, with events shut down, galleries closed and exhibitions postponed it has, unexpectedly, been an incredibly creative time as I’ve been able to focus on just me and the loom. I can only apologise and say I am using Instagram to blog at least weekly so things have got neglected here – but I thought us long over due for a catch up.Ĭovid has obviously been a strange time for many. ![]()
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