Marking time net curtain

 

This net curtain entitled ‘Marking time’ is pierced with pins and needles in the traditional tally pattern for counting and suggests a prisoner marking time; counting the days until their release. The use of a net curtain for such a method of counting seems unusual and even uncanny, in the Freudian sense, when the boundary between the homely and the unhomely becomes blurred. This boundary, the liminal space between home and not-home, is represented here by the net curtain.

The use of pins and needles for marking time suggests that the time keeper is using the only tools at her disposal, her needlework equipment, to record the passing of the days. This misuse of feminine sewing equipment suggests a subversion of the domestic and reflects the duality of home as sanctuary and prison. But like many uncanny experiences it leaves us with more questions than answers. Why is she not sewing quietly and contentedly? What is troubling her? Is she held against her will? Is she a victim of domestic abuse? What is she afraid of? Why does she have no voice? Is she still even enclosed in the curtained room or have we stumbled upon a scene from a fairy tale?

 

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!