Bits and Pieces

This blog is a mixture of small exhibitions either textile or with a textile link starting with one I think I will miss as it closes this week:

The Museum of the Order of St John is a small museum in Clerkenwell, which as the name suggests, tells the story of the Museum of the Order of St John.  Most people might recognise the order for its links to St John's Ambulance.  Despite being on since October I only learnt about a week ago that they had a small (free) exhibition relating to Caravaggio's The Cardsharps, called Caravaggio: Fashion and Fabrics.  Actual textiles are displayed alongside the painting bringing the artwork to life in a very real way.  The exhibition finishes on Tuesday 31st January 2017, but mention it in case some else may do so.

However last week I did manage a visit to a modern textile exhibition by a group Texere at Gallery 50, Craft Arena, Barleylands in Billericay.  Texere  is a textiles education working group, working within European Textile Network (ETN) who have a programme of events and activities across Europe.  Although the exhibition is small, there were some excellent pieces of work on display including some weaving and embroideries.  Texere: celebrations - 25 years of Texere continues until 12 February 2017.

I was also very fortunate to be able to be invited to the Private View of Life in an English village at Braintree District Museum, Braintree in Essex.  This is an exhibition of print and drawings by the internationally famous Bardfield Artists.   I went with my friend and fellow EAST member, Susan who knew a lot about the artists and Bardfield.  Susan had used the work of Bawden and the village of Bardfield for the inspiration behind her contribution to EAST's Threads of Time project made for the millennium and now part of Braintree Museum's collection.   The collection will be the subject of a talk EAST are giving later this year at Chelmsford Embroiderer's Guild.   (Thanks to Susan, as well as Claire at the museum, for permission to use the image at the top of this page.)

Life in an English Village continues until 15 April 2017, and really shows what a beautiful county Essex can be.  It was also interesting to learn a little more about the Bardfield Artists and their wider community.

A gathering of Miss Havershams

Is there a word for a gathering of Miss Havershams?  It is not something you come across every day?

I came across them and lots of other expressions of creativity when I visited the Octopus* group's annual textile exhibition.  It is only on for a few days and finishes on Saturday 16 July 2016.  The display is within St Mary's Church in Billericay High Street, Billericay in Essex (UK).

This is just a small selection of the work on display and once again I spent more time talking and not enough taking photographs.  Also apologies for not noting down the artists' names.

Entry is free.    The exhibition is open 10am until 4pm.  Tea/coffee and a cake is £2.  Some work is for sale.

*Octopus - so called because there are eight members in the group

"Stitch by Stitch" - 5 to 31 May 2016

Instead of a blog this week, I am advertising an exhibition by the Chelmsford branch of the Embroiderer's Guild of which I am a member.

The group have been running for 30 years and the exhibition runs at the Library in Chelmsford, Essex for most of the month of May.

I will have a very small piece of work on display.

At home with Captain Harle

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Rainham Hall in Essex, UK is one of the latest National Trust properties to be opened to the public.  I made my first visit there last weekend, not only to visit the hall but to see the work of the 'Material Girls' textile group.  Their work was displayed in the hall itself last year, but some of the work has been developed since then and their open studio event not only could I see the work itself, but also see some of their ideas and development.  Each day one of the artists is on hand to tell you more about their work, so I was also lucky to catch up with my friend Helen.

The Hall itself was built in 1729 for a Captain John Harle, as a family home and although its contents were scattered many years ago, the exterior and interior have survived pretty well.  

At present the display in the hall tells the life and times of Captain Harle, although in different seasons the displays will change to tell the lives of other occupants.  At present there are displays on items not just related to Captain Harle's nautical life, but life in the eighteenth century in general, including a recreation of a coffee house in the kitchen area.  A particularly beautiful exhibit is a dress, recreated in a style perhaps not dissimilar to the sort of dress Captain Harle's bride might have worn on her wedding day.  

One display is not peculiar to the house's original origins but shows a range of objects found during the conservation process - objects lost and now found beneath the floorboards giving a glimpse into the lives of a whole host of inhabitants.  

The Material Girls will hold their open studio until the end of this week (finishes 28 February 2016) and is free to visit (there is a fee to visit the hall).  They are situated above the cafe, but unfortunately there is no disabled access.  In May they have a new exhibition Ingrebourne Valley Visitor Centre in Hornchurch, Essex.

An afternoon of silk with tea

Anna Maria Garthwaite was a designer of woven silk in the eighteenth century who, unusually for a woman of that time, not only ran a successful business, but was famous for her design skills during her own lifetime.  Over eight hundred of her watercolours form part of the Victoria and Albert Museum collection and there are examples of silk fabrics made to her designs in museums around the world.  She was born in 1688, the daughter of the Rev Garthwaite and his wife, in Grantham, Lincolnshire.  She had at least one sister, Mary, who was widowed twice.   Anna Maria went to live with Mary in York in the 1720s, before they relocated to Spitalfields a few years later.  Their house, suitably adorned with a blue plaque, still survives in Princelet Street, Spitalfields, London. Occasionally the house is open to visitors.  I do not know if Mary assisted in the business, but I imagine it was likely.  Anna Maria lived until 1763, (until she was 75), and seems to have remained single.

Anna Maria's designs reflected the 18th century love of flowers and plants, partly explained by the interests of natural philosophers (scientists) of that time.  It was her skill in painting flowers in a naturalistic style that made them so appealing. Flower painting was one of the few subjects open to women artists and I know of two others famous for their botanical paintings who lived about the same time.  One was Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) - some of her botanical prints are currently on display at an exhibition on gardens at the Queen's Gallery.  The other was Elizabeth Blackwell (1707-1758) whose drawings were published as  "The Curious Herbal".  What also connects these three women is that they all lived relatively independent lives, both socially and economically and it seems a shame they are not better known.  

Anna Maria was not only artistically gifted but technically skilled.  One of her great innovations was the design of point papers, known as Garthwaite papers, that assisted in the transfer of a painted design to something that could be woven.  They also suggest she knew how to weave.

This was just one of the fascinating insights I learnt when I went to a talk at the Warner Textile Archive in Braintree, Essex last Saturday. The afternoon started with Mary Schoeser, textile historian and President of the Textile Society, who talked about the Spitalfields silk industry and its links with Warners and Braintree.  As I have silk weaving ancestors it also gave me an insight into my own family history.  After the talk we were shown treasures from the archive by archivist, Kate Wigley. Both Kate and Mary were very generous with their knowledge and we had discussions on a range of connected topics throughout the day.   The day finished with a beautiful tea laid on by the archive staff.  It was a day very well organised by the team at Braintree.

The Warner Textile Archive exhibition area is normally open Wednesdays and the first Saturday of each month, and they have a regularly changing exhibition programme.  Researchers and groups can arrange visits and talks and I would highly recommend it as a place to visit.  They also run regular workshops so it is worth signing up for the newsletter.

For more tales of Spitalfields - I also recommend another blog Spitalfields Life.

Weaving a narrative - a portrait of every-woman (or man)?

When I knew I was visiting the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy in London last weekend, there was one work I knew I wanted to see - Grayson's Perry's Julie and Rob tapestry.  Last summer I was lucky enough to spend quite a bit of time at the Foundling Museum when the exhibition Progress was on, which included Perry's The Vanity of Small Differences (2012).  That set of tapestries followed the progress of Tim Rakewell, in a parody of William Hogarth's Tom Rakewell (Rakes Progress) - both "rag to riches" stories, that end with the protagonist having a rather untimely death. They were both portraits of a fictional life with a moral tale and both contemporary of their time.

At the time of Progress, I had spent the previous year studying Exploring Art and Visual Culture (A226) with the Open University.  It was the perfect timing to understand the art history references and symbolism that Perry includes in his contemporary narratives.  What I particularly noticed about Perry's work is that although you can enjoy it on a simple level with its bold images and contemporary references, there are always symbols and layers of meaning to discover - some humorous, some thought provoking.  

This Summer Exhibition piece is part of a body of work that tells the story of the fictional Julie Cope. Part "shrine", part holiday home, Perry had been commissioned to design a house, now built in Wrabness in Essex, and this is perhaps the most well known part of his homage to the "every-women" in Essex.   Despite being a native of Essex myself, "Julie" is not a character I fully identify with, but perhaps that is the point - there is no typical "Essex woman" (or man).  Anyway can a portrait ever tell the whole story of someone?

Julie's identity bracelet did resonate as I had a similar bracelet when I was in my teens/twenties - did my charms say something about me then?  I also wondered about the flowers - did they symbolise some personal aspect of Julie or her life?  What about the tear welling up in Rob's eye - what did that imply? The fictional Julie died, (as symbolised by the pizza delivery bike that is part of the display in the Wrabness house), but unless this Rob had some foreknowledge of her demise surely this image was supposed to be a portrayal of a couple in happier days.  Is he raising his glass or drowning his sorrows?  

Julie and Rob also reminded me of another of Perry's exhibitions which had as its main theme identity through portraiture (personal, regional, national) - the Who Are You? exhibition, which I visited in February this year at the National Portrait Gallery, London.  Not only did it examine a whole range of British identities (mainly in the medium of textiles or ceramics) but the work also questioned how we view different individuals and groups - by their appearance, by their gender, by their disability, by their religion, their lifestyle or home town. Can anyone really be identified by these things and does our identity change in different circumstances depending on who we are with and where we are at the time?  

I have found all these explorations of identity fascinating and Perry's work always challenges my thinking - opening my eyes to lives I might not have thought about before.  I think one of Perry's greatest skills is how he communicates his ideas - using contemporary themes and media we are all familiar with (ceramics and textiles, and often an accompanying TV show), his work is certainly accessible to every-woman and every-man.  And perhaps that it why his work appeals to so many - you certainly do not need to understand art history to enjoy his work, but it does give another layer of meaning.

Growing Colour

Over the last year or so I have become a regular visitor to Cressing Temple Gardens, in Essex (UK) in particular their Walled Garden.  Created to represent a garden from the Tudor era, it includes knots, a medicinal section, a nosegay garden, a potager and a flowery mead.  One of my favourite sections is the dye garden.  

This is the woad plant (isatis tinctoria) as it is currently (June 2015), in the garden at Cressing.  It has a history as a dye plant that goes back to neolithic times, and until the discovery and importation of indigo (indigofera tinctoria) from Asia was the only way of dyeing cloth blue in England for thousands of years.  For many centuries it was also needed for dyeing green - cloth was first dyed blue and then over-dyed with yellow.  It is one of the reasons that early textiles such as tapestries, change so much with age - the yellow dye is not so fast and as it fades, anything that was once green reverts to blue.

By the 16th century, most blue cloth was dyed with imported indigo.  Woad, although still home grown, was used mainly for the fermenting process needed to create a usable dye (see John Edmonds book The History of Woad and the Medieval Woad Vat.)

One of my special interests is the tokens of the 18th century foundling hospital - notes and objects left with infants brought to the hospital, many of which were fabric.  A large number of the pieces of fabric were taken from the children's clothing and many cottons and linens are blue and white stripes and checks.  These simple, rather plain snippets of fabric are not at first sight, the most interesting of the fabrics, but when you realise how many people and hours of work were needed for the creation of every piece of cloth it is a reminder that their use as tokens is only one small part of their story. Not only for the process of dyeing, but time and manpower was also needed for spinning and weaving, which until industrialisation would have been done on home based looms.  Then there was the peril of the sailors who brought indigo from Asia to dye the threads blue, and of course there is the manufacture of the cotton which depended on the despicable slave trade.

So when I looked at this unassuming plant all this came to my mind, and it was just one plant in a whole garden on historical (sometimes textile related) stories.  The garden has a whole host of other dye plants and the garden is free to visit all year around.  The Foundling Museum in Brunswick Square, London is the place to visit to find out more about the tokens.