Whispering lace curtain

 

The lace trim on the ‘Whispering’ net curtain reflects and records the conversation overheard at a formal house party. The lace, like the party, begins formally with everything in its place, but soon degenerates as the guests talk freely among themselves and the threads of the lace unravel to reveal a tangle of whispers, hinting at coercion, control and confinement. The net curtain has captured nine whispers including It’s our little secret, What did you expect, you got what you deserved, He frightens the life out of me and Keep out it’s not your business. They reveal that all is not as it seems. There are some cries for help underlying the social veneer.

The curtain is part of a series suggesting that the net curtain acts as a sieve within the home capturing and recording conversations, atmospheres and feelings and becomes a repository for the essence of the home. I designed the main piece of lace in the Bedfordshire style and then used threads from within the lace to embroider the ‘whispers’ across the fabric of the curtain. The whispers cross over each other and the text is not supposed to be read in a linear fashion, but as snippets of overheard conversations. Therefore, the story may change depending on the order in which the whispers are read; in the same way as overheard conversations are pieced together to form a narrative, which may be correct or not.