Thus in the Winter

 

  A new series of work called 'Evidence' using antique discarded ephemera, this piece is an embroidered antique silk hairnet. The net itself is a work of art as it appears to be handmade, the silk filaments being split to create the mesh. It came to me wrapped in faded tissue paper and so I have embroidered over the net and through the paper.

the split silk strands

After a drift of french knots I inserted some 'mudlarked' pins to stabilise the tissue. The pins are at least C19th and very probably much much older.

 

I have a passion for such fragile and transient items; the hairnet, pins and paper are all disposable in their way and yet they are such personal items. Anything that is handled as much as these things carries memory and I like to catch that last gleam of energy from the previous owner.

 

The title is a quote from the Edna St.Vincent Millay poem 'What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why' (1923)

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.