What is luxury?

 

Having seen this exhibition at the V&A Museum I’ve concluded that luxury is a personal thing and there can be no generalisations. The exhibition includes a 17th century needle lace chasuble and lights including dandelion seeds by Studio drift, both involving meticulous workmanship, expertise and rarity. There is opulence, in the form of a golden crown incorporating precious gems. Innovation is represented by one of Iris van Herpen’s laser cut dresses and a knitted necklace by Nora Fok. All of these are lovely and beautifully crafted but I don’t think wearing them would make me experience luxury in the same way that say wearing a ball gown by Vivienne Westwood might. The exhibition does not concentrate solely on artefacts though, it also considers ideas about peace and privacy being luxuries in the modern world, and makes the audience consider their own luxury. I think mine is referenced in the central installation of ‘Time elapsed’, a machine making Spirograph patterns from grains of sand – surely time and the ability to do what you enjoy is the ultimate luxury.

Dust, decay, disintegration

 

It’s good to have finished my latest series of work. I’ve been working on three hangings, one each referencing dust, decay and disintegration, linked to my work on gothic novels and the disintegration of the home. They show a progression of decay, starting with a net curtain with a lace trim across it and silk paper below, the idea being that the net curtain has trapped dust from the decaying home and is gradually silting up and turning into paper. The next curtain has less lace and more silk paper suggesting that the silting up process is turning more of the curtain into paper. And the final curtain has just a scrap of lace and is almost all silk paper. I’ve tried to photograph them in my studio, but they are each 2 m long and I haven’t managed to get good images. I will be exhibiting them at The Crypt Gallery in September though so I should be able to get good photos then. It will also be good to see them hanging in an atmospheric space and as a group.

Lace in Workbox

 

Great to see lace featured in the latest issue of ‘Be Creative Workbox’ magazine. One of Louise West’s beautiful lace wire cylinders is shown as a full page image in the Gallery section, and there is an article by Eileen Anderson about the ISIS Lacemakers’ group entry for last year’s Waddesdon manor lace exhibition. It also includes my article on subversive stitching, which features my ‘get off me’ mat (shown in the image above) as well as several of my net curtains and the virtual sampler. Of course the idea of the subversive stitch comes from Rozsika Parker’s brilliant feminist book that discusses how stitching was used to define the feminine and how women have since subverted it to comment on women’s issues and the domestic – something I continue in my practice.

Savage beauty: Alexander McQueen

 

This exhibition at the V&A Museum is breathtaking, both for the way it is displayed and the work it shows. You come out reeling from the amazing inventiveness of Alexander McQueen, not only the clothes he designed but also the headwear, shoes, jewellery and the sheer spectacle of the catwalk shows. It is a credit to the curators that they managed to convey all of this through brilliant room designs that immerse you in the themes of the collections. McQueen was also a man who knew how to use lace – it is everywhere – but always used to effect, sometimes a small piece attached to fabric, at others a huge ruffle, an entire dress, or a veil over the entire face. Veiling, or rather masking, is another key factor in many of these designs which adds to their gothic feeling of personal confinement. I was interested in the lace, but beautiful workmanship can also be seen in the embroidery, metalwork and garment construction. One of the great things about this exhibition is that the spectacle is amazing but so are the fine details. It is one of the best exhibitions I’ve seen for a long time – visit it if you can.

Photography

 

Thinking about photography yet again! This time I need some good photos of my most recent pieces - the hangings with the TB lace and silk paper. The trouble is there are three of them and they are 2 metres long and I haven’t got anywhere suitable to hang them for photography. My studio is a lovely cosy space, but not exactly a white cube environment! A friend recently told me that one of the reasons she’d held her latest exhibition was to hang all her work in a nice neutral space so that she could hire a photographer to take some good photos for her. Photos are so important when you’re trying to get selected for exhibitions that I can see her point. I will be able to take some full length photos when I exhibit these pieces in The Crypt Gallery in September, but I need some good photos before then. In the meantime I’ll just have to use close ups.  

Mounting lace

 

When I first started making traditional lace, great importance was put on how the lace was mounted onto fabric – usually a handkerchief or mat centre – with good reason, as bad mounting could ruin a lovely piece of lace. I remember the intricate steps required, including aligning the fabric and lace by removing a thread from the material, pinning, and tacking. Then the delicate stitching, using, for example, three-sided stitch, followed by the nerve wracking task of cutting away the excess fabric as close as possible to the stitching without cutting through it. Although I enjoy hand stitching I never found mounting lace very relaxing and was never entirely happy with the results. I was thinking about this mounting process as I was making my most recent piece of lace incorporating lace, fabric and silk paper. In this case I’m attaching the lace to the fabric using a simple oversewing stitch on the edge of the lace. When I’ve finished the sewing, I will remove the excess fabric by cutting it away about 1 cm from the stitching. For this hanging I am trying to represent the idea of the fabric becoming silted up with dust and turning into paper. Therefore I don’t want a formal join between the lace and the fabric, but to give the impression that they are all merging into one another. I also have the advantage that the lace will not be laundered so I’m not worried about the fabric fraying; it just has to look good on display. At the end of the day, I guess mounting is just about attaching the lace in the most appropriate way and if you do it well no one should notice it and instead just focus on the lace.

Sketchbooks

 

Some textile artists produce beautiful sketchbooks with samples of work, paintings, sketches and images of work in progress. Sadly I am not one of them! I love looking at other people’s sketchbooks, which are often works of art in themselves but I don’t produce such lovely things myself. I do keep sketchbooks, but mine are full of notes, references, ideas and analysis - they often contain more words than images. I do include photos, but mine are often pictures of the site for the work or quick images of things I’ve seen that have triggered an idea. They are working documents and are a good place to keep the records of a project, from the development of the ideas to their conclusion as well as receipts for materials and records of any press feedback after the exhibition. I frequently go back to them for information, especially to remind myself where I bought things, and also to reconsider ideas and inspiration. Reading a book on research methods the other day, the authors suggested that Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches represented his thoughts made visible by drawing and annotation, which I thought was a lovely description and represents how I use my sketchbook.