Researching lace in Nottingham

I’ve been enjoying a few days in Nottingham doing some lace research - well what better place to carry out lace research! I’ve been in the NTU Lace Archive looking at some designs and sketchbooks from a curtain lace designer I’m interested in, with a view to writing about his designing style and methods. As well as that I also saw some modern machine lace from a Chinese company presented in swish presentation packs with lovely fashion drawings suggesting some contemporary uses for the different types of lace. I was also lucky enough to hear Professor Amanda Briggs-Goode’s inaugural lecture on Wednesday evening in which she gave examples of four contemporary artists whose work has been inspired by lace archives. Having covered lace curtains, fashion, and fine art and time periods ranging from the 16th to the 21st century during my short time in Nottingham, I think it’s safe to say that lace archives are still relevant and inspirational.

Anne Bronte p.200 art exhibition

I’m delighted to be part of the Anne Bronte p.200 project. The aim of the project is to celebrate the 200^th anniversary of Anne’s birth and each artist has received a page from a vintage version of her most famous novel ‘The tenant of Wildfell Hall’. The artists can respond in any way they want but have to use the page and celebrate Anne’s life and/or her work in an artwork no bigger than the size of the original page. I’m a great fan of Anne and her work and she featured in my PhD research as she was a confirmed opponent of the separate spheres ethos that relegated women to the home and idealised marriage despite the abuse that could lead to. I also admire her personally as she was the only Bronte who actually left home and supported herself throughout her short life. The works will be exhibited in Scarborough in January and February next year and there will be an illustrated book to accompany the exhibition. As you can see I’m just playing with ideas at the moment but the final piece will definitely include lace and pins.

Buying lace remnants

One of the things I love doing in fabric shops is rummaging through the remnant basket for odd lengths of lace. I like the serendipity of seeing what’s in there. It’s always a treat to find some interesting little snippets of lace and because they are generally the ends of the runs they are usually a bargain. It’s nice to be able to buy them for their own sake not because you have a particular use for them but just because they are attractive. I use many of them in lace projects but I have to admit many others are just added to my collection and brought out now and again to admire. I’m planning to use the lengths in the image in my new project about Amy Atkin – the first female machine lace designer.

Paper published on the Battle of Britain lace panel

I’m delighted that my paper about the Battle of Britain lace panel and my associated commission has now been published in Textile journal. The paper focuses on the collaborative nature of the original panel and my response to it, and also considers the myths that have grown up around the panel. I’ve brought together information about the panel from the known sources and by comparing them have tried to establish facts about its design and production. I also discuss the rationale for my commission and both my textile response and the paper parachute installation. If you’re interested in reading it for yourself the publisher has made 50 copies available for free at the following link

https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/4FNFA2Z8U8DBTUWKP4ZK/full?target=10.1080/14759756.2019.1646497

Blogging about lace

I’m taking part in the Seam Collective September Instagram challenge again this year (see blog of 28 August) and today’s theme is blogs so I thought I’d write about why I blog and what I blog about. I started the blog when I did my MA as we were encouraged to keep a record of our practice and the MA journey. I started writing about and photographing my work and also wrote about the exhibitions I visited and the conferences I attended – in fact anything and everything that fed into my practice. I found it soon became a useful record of all the things I’d seen and done. When I finished the MA I decided to continue with it because I enjoyed writing and the challenge of finding new aspects of lace to write about. I also wanted to promote lace and lacemaking and encourage more people to take an interest in them. I aim to write at least one post a week and it does make me get on with my work so I have something new to write about. It also focuses me when I go to exhibitions or meetings as I’m always looking for a way to summarise and give a taste of what I’ve seen. I also try and keep the blogs short so they are just quick snippets that can be read easily with a cup of coffee. Finding that I actually had some readers was a pleasant discovery and their feedback is very interesting and encouraging.

Repaired bone lace bobbins

These three bone lace bobbins are interesting because although they were broken the owners were so attached to them that they repaired them in order to continue using them. The one on the left is inscribed with the message ‘Sweet love be mine and make me thine’ and although the neck was obviously broken at some time the lacemaker, or more probably her husband or the local bobbin dealer, has attached the shaft with the message to the neck of a wooden bobbin and sealed it in place with pewter bands so that it could continue to be used. The same has been done to the central bobbin which bears the name ‘Charls’ [Charles], although the new wooden neck has been attached in a more elegant manner with a pewter stud. The one on the right is inscribed ‘Jane Wesaley 1869’ and this one has not been repaired with a new neck, instead the neck has been whittled into a point to make a stiletto for broderie anglaise work. In this case the new point would be used to make holes or openings in fine cloth which are embroidered around with buttonhole stitches to make a decorative pattern. It’s nice to think that although these bobbins broke because they were so well used the lacemakers who owned them still wanted them to be part of their daily lives and gave them a new lease of life by repairing them.

Seam Collective September Instagram textile challenge

I’m looking forward to taking part in the Seam Collective September Instagram challenge again this year. Seam Collective are a group of textile artists who originally got together after doing MA textile degrees at Bath Spa University. They have put together a list of 30 textile-related prompts – one for every day in September. The idea is that you respond to the prompt on your Instagram feed using the hashtag #SeptTextileLove so that everyone who is interested can find the posts. You don’t have to respond to every prompt but I like the challenge of trying to interpret each one even if I don’t have an immediate response to it. I managed to find 30 response to the challenge last year and really enjoyed seeing the images from the other participants and finding new artists to follow as well. If you’re interested in trying it for yourself you can find out more @seam_collective or on their blog https://seamcollective.wordpress.com/blog/.

Knitted lace medallions

I’ve been reading Mary Thomas’s Book of knitting patterns and came across a chapter on medallions. She says that medallion knitting was popular in the 18 and 19 centuries as people used round medallions as bonnet caps and those in other shapes for making up into bedspreads, blankets and cushions. Round medallions are also the basis for lace doilies as well. The image shows a detail of an early 18 century sampler of bonnet backs. She explains how to build up the shapes using four or more needles and shows how this can be done in a geometric or straight fashion or with a swirl or bias to form hexagonal shapes. When drawing up a chart for a medallion she notes that you have to put in the building units first and then add the ornamental units that make the pattern. That’s one of the things I like about Mary Thomas – she doesn’t just provide a pattern she explains how you can build your own.

Brussels lace shawl

This beautiful Brussels lace mantle is illustrated in an interesting book I bought during my last visit to the Lace Guild. It’s a catalogue entitled Lace in fashion 1815 -1914 and was published to coincide with an exhibition of lace at Utrecht Museum in 1985. It includes some beautiful illustrations as well as two interesting essays about changing fashions for lace by Mary de Jong and Patricia Wardle (who also wrote the catalogue) and obviously brought together a range of lovely pieces from some of the major museums and collectors in the Netherlands. I thought the Brussels lace shawl, or more correctly mantle, in the illustration was an interesting example from the third quarter of the 19 century, as it is made of bobbin lace applied to machine net and embellished with needle made fillings, showing how all three types of lace could be combined. The design is also quite light and open and reminiscent of the Chantilly shawls that were also popular at this time. I wish I could have seen the original exhibition as it includes some lovely lace

Plauen lace curtain design

I found this lovely design for a lace curtain in a folder of Plauen lace designs, it isn’t dated but they are probably from the early twentieth century. I blogged about Plauen lace a couple of weeks ago when I was researching lace collars. It is generally considered one of the chemical laces in which the design is embroidered on to a backing material using a Schiffli machine and once it’s completed the backing is burnt away chemically leaving the embroidery. This one seems to be quite an open design though so must have been embroidered on to net or a fine backing. I can’t find any Plauen lace curtains in any of my old lace sales catalogues but combination guipure curtains are being sold in 1904 for 17 shillings for a pair measuring 4 yards in length and 72 inches wide.

War lace bobbins

These bobbins celebrate battles from the Crimean War (1853-1856). It was one of the first conflicts from which British newspaper correspondents sent back reports and photographs so the population at home were aware of the conflict and many lacemakers would have had relatives in the army and therefore had a personal interest in the outcome. The war began following arguments about access to Christian sites in Palestine and Russian attempts to obtain land in the area. In September 1854 the British, French and Turkish forces landed at Eupatoria and began marching to Sebastopol, the capital of Crimea and the base for the Tsar’s Black Sea fleet which threatened the Mediterranean. On the way they fought the Russians at several battles including Alma and Inkerman, which are also commemorated on the bobbins. The siege of Sebastopol lasted from October 1854 to September 1855. The conflict ended with the Treaty of Paris in which Russian power was curbed and the Turkish state was reinforced. The battles and the conflict clearly attracted public interest. These bobbins were probably made by James Compton and the Springetts in their book ‘Success to the lace pillow’ suggest that they were made as stock rather than as special orders so there was obviously a market for them.

Lace collars from 1904

I found these lace collars being advertised in a catalogue by the Samuel Peach & Sons lace company dated 1904. It includes collars, stoles and scarves made from a variety of machine-made laces ranging in price from 1/ to 10/3. 

This circular collar in Plauen lace is almost 8 inches wide and cost 2/-. Plauen lace was popular at the time as it was quite intricate, yet reasonably priced. The design is embroidered using a Schiffli machine either on to a net background or on to a backing material which can then be burnt away chemically to leave the stitched pattern. The lace collar with long stole ends in the main image is guipure chemical lace also produced in this way. Pat Earnshaw in her book on machine laces includes four patent summaries from the late nineteenth century explaining different techniques for producing chemical lace. She also notes that ‘the manufacture of guipure lace was associated particularly with St Gall (Switzerland) and of net laces with Plauen (Saxony).

This scarf is labelled as being of real Maltese lace. It is 45 inches long, 6 inches wide and costs 10/3. From the illustration it is hard to tell whether it is handmade bobbin lace or a machine copy. It is much more likely to be machine made as at this time the Leavers lace machine was capable of producing a good imitation of Maltese bobbin lace. In contrast, the pattern seems irregular in places suggesting that it is handmade, although this may just be errors in the reproduction of the image, and it is more expensive than the other collars. The Peach company clearly imported lace from companies in Plauen and St Gall but whether they would have imported handmade lace from Malta I do not know. It just seems a different business approach. It’s a shame we can’t see the actual lace and know for sure.

Filet lace panels depicting Jacobean figures

I saw this interesting piece of filet lace at the Lace Guild exhibition ‘Hidden in stores’ last month, labelled in the catalogue as depicting ‘the sons of Joseph’. It was loaned from the Dr Spriggs collection and is thought to have originated in Italy in about 1600. That date or slightly later fits in with the costumes of the figures in fashionable Jacobean dress. However, I think the panel actually depicts the sons of Jacob, as Joseph only had two sons and this is clearly a large panel with many characters. Jacob famously had 12 sons including Joseph, Benjamin and Levi whose names can be seen in the image. Their story is told in the Old Testament book of Genesis. Federico Vinciolo’s pattern book for lace and embroidery, published in 1587, includes several figures but these are in classical rather than contemporary dress. However many examples of filet lace from that time (there are some in the V&A) depict figures in fashionable costumes so perhaps these panels were one-off designs specifically created for this piece of lace.

Marking time with lace and pins

I’ve been busy this week writing about net curtains and lace panels – one article about my Battle of Britain lace panels and the other about my PhD work. The Battle of Britain article looks at how the original panels were designed and made and how I went about producing my contemporary response to them. The other article is looking at the net curtain as a metaphor for women who feel home is both a sanctuary and a prison. The work is based on female gothic novels and sensation fiction from the nineteenth century, so books such as Jane Eyre and The woman in white, but with parallels to today. In the research I used pins and needles on net curtains to produce tally marks counting out units of time, as this sewing equipment would be what the gothic heroine had to hand to record her plight. I also use the idea of the net curtain trapping whispers, secrets and the memories of the home. It’s been interesting going back to the PhD work and rewriting it for a different publication – still a way to go though, it’s not finished yet. I might start counting off the days with pins!

Fire: flashes to ashes in British Art

This thought-provoking exhibition at RWA Bristol looks at the depiction of fire over the last four centuries of British art. There are so many aspects of fire – it can be creative or destructive, put to industrial use or a homely presence that provides light and warmth. It has irreversible powers of transformation when used as a material. In short a fascinating subject for art.

The main gallery was dominated by Tim Shaw’s Man on fire, seen here with Sarah Pickering’s Match in the background. This huge figure of a man being consumed by fire, in a state between life and death, was originally conceived as a proposal for the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square and is a commentary on the invasion of Iraq. Pickering’s Match is an image of a replica of the first friction match made by John Walker in 1827. The exhibition combines history, industry and domesticity throughout. Many of the older paintings by such well known artists as Joseph Wright of Derby and Graham Sutherland celebrate the use of fire in industry, the former’s Blacksmith’s workshop brilliantly depicting the effect of heat on the smiths and the play of firelight on the spectators. Historical subject include J M W Turner’s Fire at the Tower of London and HMS Ark Royal in action by Eric Ravilious. 

The modern pieces that appealed to me most were those that used fire as material. Cornelia Parker’s Red hot poker drawings (in the image at the top) combine order and chaos in the neat folding of the pristine white paper pierced by the heat of the fire. I also liked Sian Bowen’s Gaze no 14 which used the heat of laser cutting to produce images on paper. Susan Hiller’s Measure by measure II (image above), a series of test tubes each containing the ashes of one of her paintings, which she had burned to destruction, reflected on the destructive nature of fire and the fleeting essence of life.

I also enjoyed the immersive nature of Sophie Clements’ There, After, a video installation of an explosive burning experience in the studio, filmed in the round and experienced in the dark with the accompanying crackling audio sounds of the burning process. Aoife van Linden Tol also uses fire performances to create her works of art, represented in the exhibition by the remains of the process; a detail of Copper blast is shown above.

This is just a taste of the pieces in the exhibition which varied from meticulously painted depictions of fire in industry, war and home, to conceptual ideas about the fragility of life. It certainly captured the brilliance of fire’s creative potential as well as its destructive power

Lace designing: the beauty of asymmetry

I’ve long been a fan of asymmetrical designs and used that style in my own designs, like the one in the image above. I like to use the same elements in a design but subtly alter them throughout just to maintain interest and also, to be honest, make working it more interesting too. One of the pieces of lace I admired at the ‘Hidden in stores’ exhibition at the Lace Guild last week was a Honiton fan leaf worked by Emma Radford in about 1878 (see below).

I studied it for a while and I think one of the things that made it so attractive was that it wasn’t symmetrical. Although the edging was the same repeated motif all round, and several elements of the main design, such as the leaves and flowers, were the same they were arranged differently on both sides of the fan. Honiton and other pieced laces are obviously at an advantage here as you can move the motifs around to make a pleasing design once they have been made. So many fan designs are mirror images on both sides and although they may be beautifully worked it doesn’t always make for a good design. I think that so often we expect lace mats and fans to be symmetrical that when they aren’t it subconsciously makes us look again and appreciate the lace even more.

Figures in lace at the Lace Guild

I went to see the ‘Hidden in stores’ exhibition at the Lace Guild this week. What a treat to see some beautiful lace loaned from the V&A collection and the Dr Spriggs Loan collection. There were some lovely pieces on display and I was struck by the number of them that included figures. The Brussels bobbin lace cravat end illustrated above, from the Spriggs collection, includes several figures playing musical instruments and may date from the 18 or 19 century. Variations of this design exist in other museums and the fact that it is composed of several separate motifs may have meant it was easy to reproduce.

The most obvious figurative piece that dominated the room was the filet lace panel from the Spriggs collection depicting the sons of Joseph with their accoutrements. This was one of the older examples (c 1600) of lace on show and had clearly been worked in separate panels which were then joined together. Another old piece, from the late 16 century, was a scalloped bobbin lace edging showing alternating images of a sheep and a man, probably used as domestic lace bordering a cloth. The catalogue notes that this lace includes woven almond shaped leaves instead of plaits and that this can be used to identify the lace as originating from Genoa or Milan. 

Another very interesting piece was a pair of lappets from the V&A, thought to include portraits of John Churchill the first Duke of Marlborough and his wife Sarah. These are made in Honiton lace and date from 1710-1720. It was unusual to include recognisable people in lace and these may have been made to indicate the wearer’s (or her husband’s!) political allegiance. 

One of my favourite pieces was a bobbin lace flounce, from the V&A, made using a braid lace with linen and silver thread. It was made in northern Italy in the late 17 century. The design, made up of braids and net, is quite solid but what is so attractive is all the little animals, people and angels concealed within it. The silver thread has tarnished now but when it was made it would have sparkled beautifully in candlelight. The final figurative piece in the exhibition was a coloured needlelace purse depicting Chinese figures. It dated from 1700 but looked quite modern in its use of colour and design.

I have only talked about the figurative pieces here, but there is much more to see, including fine Honiton and needle laces. The exhibition ends on 21 June so do try and visit before it closes.

Buttonhole stitches in needle lace

Buttonhole stitches are so versatile - they are the basis of needle lace and are also used in white work, embroidery and general sewing. It never fails to amaze me how a skein of thread can be turned into the most delicate needle lace using the humble buttonhole stitch. Therese de Dillmont in her Encyclopedia of needlework explains how to execute the stitch in her section on plain sewing and describes many variations on the basic stitch in her chapter on needle-made laces. She shows how to make joining bars with picots and longer branched bars with double buttonhole stitches to form a more rigid structure. She also describes how to make various ground stitches using more open loosely formed buttonhole stitches, which she calls Brussels stitch. In total, she describes 40 needle lace stitches all based on the same buttonhole stitch model. The image shows a detail of some needle lace showing an open Brussels stitch, another worked over a guiding thread, and open stitches over a gimp composed of several threads forming joining bars. All made using the simple buttonhole stitch!

Veiled threats: the ambiguity of pins

I love the ambiguous nature of pins – they are small, shiney and useful but have a sharp edge to them. Their attractive appearance masks a tendency to inflict hurt and pain randomly. Katherine Walker expressed it well in 1864 in her short story ‘The total depravity of inanimate things’, in which she humorously suggests that pins and needles, among other household objects, have a life of their own. She says ‘the similar tendency of pins and needles is universally understood and execrated, - their base secretiveness when searched for, and their incensing intrusion when one is off guard’. In ‘Pinned down’ the wedding veil I made fringed with pins, a detail of which is shown in the image above, they form a beautiful glistening fringe but on closer inspection reveal their true nature to comment on the sharp reality of matrimony. Interestingly Yvonne Verdier, in a study of folk tales in rural France, links pins to maidenhood, so they seem to be an appropriate edging for a white wedding veil.  

Why do we make?

Why do we make? was one of the interesting questions explored at the ‘Craft(ing) the body’ conference held at UCA Farnham today. Although it wasn't the theme of the day it was a thread running through all the presentations. Professor Catherine Harper felt that there was a need to craft and that the interaction between the body and the thing being made was visceral. She commented that we don’t need craft but we desire it. Her keynote paper on ‘Chasing the impossible: crafting the intimate body’ compared the different approaches of female representation expressed in Judy Chicago’s Dinner party and Helen Chadwick’s Eat me, arguing that Chicago stylised and unified women as biologically feminine while Chadwick’s response was more personal and placed femininity between the biological and the social allowing multiple definitions. Interestingly the artists Gayle Matthias and Karina Thompson, who work in glass and textiles respectively, both said that it is only as mature artists that they have had the confidence to produce, exhibit and verbalise personal autobiographical work. The potter Gareth Mason noted that we make sense through craft, while artist Fiona Curran argued that craft is a form of discovery and curiosity. Daniel Fountain spoke of his practice, crafting a queer society in the form of nests from salvaged materials. The ceramicist David Jones speaking about his own practice noted that giving matter form is significant. He quoted Richard Sennett’s words that ‘making is thinking’ and Hannah Arendt’s idea that craft requires a narrative rather than mindless making. Jones argued that craft is not art or a subsidiary of art but lies parallel to it. During the question time many in the audience said they felt compelled to make, others said that they made because they had ideas to express and disseminate. Many agreed with Jones that what we can make goes beyond what we can see and thus produces nuanced layers of meaning.