Forget Me Not, pt 2.

 

 Following on from the previous post on my Cultural Shifts  I present the second one of five: 'Social Distance'. 

 All the shifts have extra long sleeves to give them, if scaled up, a span of two meters and this one has that embroidered onto paper labels on each cuff. I was horrified at how quickly large corporations were trying to sell themselves as our friends at the start of the pandemic whilst profiting from their advantage over small businesses, I felt that they were feeding on us as we sat at home helpless.

 You may notice the buff and black signature colouring of this red-edged linen shift with it's smiling vampire logo. The same entomology pins as before hold the mantra in place.

Forget Me Not ,part one.

  

 

So, what's it like not being able to touch other people for months on end? What do you feel about the world when you only interact with the packaging of things you bought online?  What is reality when you can only watch the suffering of others on a laptop screen?

 It has taken me a long time to be able to make any new work but with funding from the UK Arts Council I have developed the Forget Me Not project. There are three parts and this is the first section called 'Copes and Shifts'; a book of twelfth scale garments. It  references the couture garment sample books of the late 19thC which Paris couturiers used to show their ideas to clients abroad. This however is a book of Cultural Shifts and Emotional Copes to inhabit from afar.

 The first Cultural Shift is called 'Awake'.

  Shifts were an undergarment worn by all women as underwear until the 20thC. and the pattern for this one was found in the Janet Arnold 'Patterns of Fashion' books.

  Made from an antique linen handkerchief this little shift is embroidered with a weeping eye and looks at Elizabethan culture, activism and shame. I have a long fascination with the embroidered eyes on early modern embroidery and in particular the 'Rainbow' portrait of Elizabeth 1st with its' symbolic eyes and ears on the dress. In that portrait she is also depicted wearing a very unusual and little known garment called a conch. This is essentially a super fine shawl with a wired edge at the top, a very expensive and elite garment.I made this tiny one in cotton organdie and lightly embroidered around the edges. The word 'awake', embroidered in detached buttonhole stitch is pinned with an entomology pin to the front of the shift.

I decided to keep the original embroidery of the hanky on the back of the shift with it's little forget-me-nots.

 

Faery Fellers

 I was asked a while back to submit a piece of work to a project devised by the poet Tom Sharp. He has written an extraordinary piece called 'The Weeping Cufflinks' revealing the true and otherworldly nature of the financial markets and city traders.He called together artists from many disciplines to create their own response to this and then the virus struck.....Not to be put off by this the works are now being shown initially on an instagram account 'Faery Fellers' with a website to follow.

 This copy of the Financial Times is quite clearly the property of Christina Rossetti's goblins, in fact the only legible words on it are 'come buy' with the terrible consequences of greed being hidden under ink. The tell tale berries are growing through the header though, dark and addictive, the fragile paper sagging under the hidden glama of the trader fae. It is a rare glimpse of reality, the correlation between paper and money and human commodities. This copy had been left on a tree stump....on April 1st.

 


As the scroll rolls on.... for future reference the specific links to instagram are as follows...
1.https://www.instagram.com/p/B_iSJGOBgcF/
2.https://www.instagram.com/p/B_kz2xmB9Ec/
3.https://www.instagram.com/p/B_nlIT-BCM4/
4.https://www.instagram.com/p/B_qN2uVBaRt/
5.https://www.instagram.com/p/B_ssrMFhV36/
6.https://www.instagram.com/p/B_xrdcXB_Z-/

Studio Tour Day Seven, Stuff

 The final day of the tour, here we find the usual work disturber at work.

Staring out of the window is another thing to be done at the moment...

 A sleepy corner; a singed 1930's wedding dress and a plants' vascular system. I like a concept under glass to contemplate.

 My old dolls crib full of treasure. Lace, cotton reels, bobbins, pearl necklaces, tape measures, perfume bottles, hanks of thread...the usual contents of my handbag.

Please take a card before you  leave.

Studio Tour Day Six, Sitting Down

 
Firstly, a cup of tea...no old china escapes my grasp in this town.

 
Then to sit near the books...some cushions embroidered by me, some by my great grandmother Daisy.

...by the fire.

Studio Tour Day Five, The Cupboard

This is not a cupboard I hear you say...no it is the mirror which used to be in the cupboard which is also The Museum For Objects of Vertu which lives in the studio. For views of its other life follow the link. This is how it is in this world....

 ....my collections of show equipment, storage boxes and general materials.The glass cloches and bell jars come out for things like the Knit and Stitch show, exhibitions or open studios and sit quietly with vintage chocolate boxes which often become integral to small works.

Then we have the hoard of materials which I constantly delve into for a small bit of ......

Tomorrow some tea and a sit down.

Studio Tour Day Four, Objets

 
The most useful things in a studio are the things without purpose. Here in a corner are two old corset stands and an old piece of work.

The piece is a version of an old christening cushion, also found here.

 
 This is a tiny corset in very plain cloth which serendipitously fitted my tiny corset display stand. There was a time when I could just pick these things up at antique markets and nobody else wanted them !! She sits atop a very plain hat box from Norway.

Lastly my 1930's costume pearl necklaces nesting in a feather bowl. It is a necessary thing.

Tomorrow...the cupboard.

Studio Tour Day Three, Haberdashery

 
 Where would I be without pincushions? These were made for me by Kate Haxell from some very old pigs and lettuces!

 I have worn my fingertips out over the years with pins and needles so I now need a little help picking up my small tools. These old glass vase 'frogs' are perfect for holding my scissors just where I can grab them.

 One of my legacies from my great aunt Lily was a vast collection of old wooden cotton reels. These now live in wooden desk trays near my sewing machine where they can be admired.

Tomorrow the 'objets' !

Studio Tour Day Two, Things in Jars

  All over my studio are glass jars and domes of all sizes. These tiny ones (above) contain Elizabethan pins, glove buttons, flat metallic glass beads and apple pips.

 
 Next to those is a an Art Deco powder compact with added antique lace and feathers.

Between my two desks (actually there are three...) is an old set of shelves held up in part with books. Here I keep my tiny apothecary jars of natural objects; leaf skeletons,lichen,seed pods and so forth.

On one of the window sills are jars for some of my old wooden cotton reels; you may notice that I label my jars with their emotional contents....hope, despair, wabi sabi, luck.

Tomorrow it will be haberdashery.

Studio Tour Day One, The Desk

 Like many other creative people I am not finding a mindset that I can work in at the moment, my main thoughts at the moment are to do with getting food and the safety of loved ones. I do however find great consolation in my studio, which is ten yards from my home.With this in mind it seemed timely to share my favourite studio things. I will do this over the next seven days starting with my desk...
 The image above is what I call my inspiration plate; a large antique wooden dish loaded with antique haberdashery, trimmings, china flowers, gold ribbons, glass buttons and all things that delight me. It has always sat on my 'embroidery' desk to inspire me to do things better. Everything in it is of a very high quality from a past age when such things were still to be had.

 
 On my other desk is a lovely oak pigeon-hole shelf where I keep a selection of random loveliness. This sits at the back of a wide desk for my sewing machine and fabric cutting.