Thinking through practice – Amy Atkin and The marriage bond

 

Much of my work involves practice-based research and this study of Amy Atkin, the first female Nottingham machine lace designer, combined written research and a series of lace table mats inspired by her lace designs. Amy’s lace designs are beautiful but she had to relinquish her career on marriage, which I thought seemed a great waste of talent. I made four lace table mats to include the words from the marriage ceremony ‘for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer’ to reference her loss of work following her marriage. The idea of using table mats came from the work of the second wave feminist Judy Chicago who used place settings to commemorate inspiring women in her famous installation ‘The Dinner party’. The lace in my table mats is only tacked in place to indicate the temporary nature of Amy’s career and show how quickly women’s livelihoods can be torn away from them. If you are interested in reading more I published a paper about the research in Textile: the journal of cloth and culture entitled ‘Neo-Victorianism, feminism and lace: Amy Atkin’s place at the dinner table’ which you can access at https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/YYE6JXYJEBRQA3IRC5YR/full?target=10.1080/14759756.2021.1933346

Feminism, Amy Atkin and lace in Textile journal

 I’m delighted that my paper based on the life and work of Amy Atkin has now been published in Textile the Journal of Cloth and Culture. The title is ‘Neo-Victorianism, feminism and lace: Amy Atkin’s place at the dinner table.’ It was published online in the summer but is now in the printed journal which means I have some free copies to give away! As you will know by now if you follow this blog, Amy Atkin was the first female Nottingham machine lace designer but relinquished work on marriage as did so many other women of her time. The paper and my practice response focus on this aspect, looking at the domestic constraints women experienced at the beginning of the twentieth century and comparing Amy’s training and career with that of other female designers of the time, such as those at the Glasgow Art School. I used lace mats for my practice response entitled ‘The marriage bond’ which was inspired by the use of place settings in ‘The Dinner Party’ by the second wave feminist Judy Chicago. Each mat includes a lace design inspired by Amy’s work tacked in place to suggest how easily women’s careers can be torn away. They also include wording from the marriage ceremony ‘for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer’ highlighting the change in women’s circumstances on marriage. Neo-Victorianism reflects on the justification for using Amy’s life to comment on feminism from the viewpoint of the twenty-first century. If you’re interested there are 50 free copies available from the link below – first come first served! https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/YYE6JXYJEBRQA3IRC5YR/full?target=10.1080/14759756.2021.1933346