Trace

 In his book 'Underland' Robert Macfarlane says

'sometimes, in fact, all that is left behind by loss is trace - and sometimes empty volume can be easier to hold in the heart than presence itself'

This piece from Evidence consists of a ribbon winder card, the tattered remains of lace shelf edging, two old snail shells and a web of single stitch needlelace.

   I have collected a lot of antique and vintage haberdashery over the past thirty five years. A lot was not really valued by the world until recently. I saw not just the quality of the material in the trimmings but also in the simple packaging; the winders and reels that ribbons were wound onto, the card mounts for buttons and even the thread that attached them...all good quality and yet discarded. I picked up my treasures for 10p or 50p, the prices often crudely written straight onto the paper in felt tip pen. 

  At my great grandmothers' home I found many more treasures and among them were packets of shelf edging which have paper lace borders to make decorate the shelves of larders and dressers. Many were untouched with pretty bands of paper to secure them but the packets that were opened I allowed myself to use on my shelves. Over time they wore away and like the old lace they emulate started to yellow and disintegrate.

  Old empty snail shells do not last forever, I collect them from around the garden and use them on top of garden canes but was surprised to see that they fade. Always a collector of organic packaging, shells, seed pods and galls, to me they are just like the ribbon reels.

  The web is a single Brussels stitch needlelace mesh made in the finest lacemaker thread I could find. I would have put a spiders web across them if I could but instead I made my own.

The Embroiderer's Crown

  

All those needles I get through.... I save up all the ones that have gone rusty and found many of my great aunts' too and from them made a crown! An old ribbon reel which had a metre of paper wound onto it was pressed into service as the holder of the needles. When tools have done their job we should say thankyou.

 

This joins the other pieces made from discarded objects in the 'Evidence' series.

Leave us not Little, nor yet Dark

 

 

 The second piece from 'Evidence' using the crewel work embroidery needles that I found in a 1930s pin cushion. I was aware that there were a few in there as I could feel the resistance when I put my own needle into the velvet top. As I massaged them all out there were more than a few and they were all the same type.

  The previous owner had also been an embroiderer but of crewel work. I decided to honour her needles by mounting them onto paper as they would have been when new. I then used their eyes as a cordonnet and made a simple piece of needlelace or stumpwork. My needle was then left on the end of the last strand of heavy silk buttonhole thread. 

 

  The mounting is a glassine envelope, so often used by stamp collectors, and inside is a collection of empty used envelopes. They are all addressed to the same man and date from WW2 up until the 1960s, some being sent to him whilst on active duty.

The title is a quote from the BBC production of John Masefield's 'The Box of Delights'.

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.