Lace here now

This gem of a book, edited by Amanda Briggs-Goode and Deborah Dean, is packed with information. Like the lace event of the same name that took place in Nottingham in 2012/13 this book has something for everyone. For the historian, Sheila Mason has written about the history of the Nottingham machine-made lace industry and Deborah Tyler-Bennett has composed a hommage to machine lace workers. Joy Buttress and Matt Gill have produced an evocative pictorial essay about Nottingham lace. For the lace researcher, the lace collections at Nottingham City Museum and the Nottingham Trent University (NTU) archive are described by Judith Edgar and Amanda Briggs-Goode, respectively. Contemporary lace is also covered. Deborah Dean discusses the exhibition ‘Lace works: contemporary art and Nottingham lace’ which she curated at Nottingham Castle and Amanda Briggs-Goode describes the ‘Journeys in lace’ project in which students and staff at NTU used the archive as inspiration for contemporary work. The book ends with three case studies discussing the work of Timorous Beasties, Cecilia Heffer and Teresa Whitfield. As I said, something for everyone, a good read and lots of illustrations too.