Innholdsfortegnelse for January - February 2022 i Embroidery

from the editor NEW YEAR is synonymous with fresh starts. But after the hiatus endured between March 2020 and July 2021, the advent of 2022 seems even more significant. Compiling our feature on the textile exhibitions announced for 2022 (p7-11) there’s plenty to look forward to, and the sense of getting back to normal in terms of pre-pandemic culture and in-person events seems promising. But we’ve all learned how quickly things can change. I really do hope that this year is a better one for the arts, and all our readers. This year marks this magazine’s 90th anniversary, making us one of the oldest – if not the longest-standing – craft publications in the UK. Founded in 1932 as a membership magazine, Embroidery focused initially on domestic needlework and those…

reading beyond borders TEXTILE TITLES FOR A READ LESS ORDINARY WHAT ARTISTS WEAR Charlie Porter’s fascinating pocketsized book reveals how artists’ attire is as potent a means of expression as their work, with garments acting as manifesto, moving canvas or creative uniform. Packed with images, you won’t be able to put this down. Penguin £14.99 pb FLAG WAVES House flags from the National Maritime Museum House flags are a mix of striking abstract designs and charming, hand sewn motifs flown on sea faring vessels, from huge passenger ferries to small recreational dinghies. This engaging book, penned by textile curator Sue Prichard, celebrates the pleasing simplicity of these utilitarian textiles. Museums Greenwich £20 pb SEATS OF LONDON A field guide to London Transport moquette patterns Andrew Martin explores the history and…

profile imperfect past tense The practice of Adelaide based artist Sera Waters is characterised by the meticulousness of her stitches and her unflinching eye for challenging subjects Facing a difficult family history, alongside grief, uncertainty and troubling future scenarios, these are challenging themes, which preoccupy Sera Waters, an artist thinking deeply about personal and national histories. ‘My position is about reckoning with my own inherited past. In Australia we have still not recognised the damage that has been done. We need to stop, and recognise, and acknowledge it: that’s a form of taking responsibility.’ Trained in paint and print-making, Waters shifted practice as she completed her first degree, attracted by the intimacy and control that textiles afford. ‘You touch every stitch; you’re part of every decision.’ At the Royal School…

what’s on On show BARNARD CASTLE North Country Quilts: In celebration of new acquisitions until 9 January. The Bowes Museum, County Durham DL12 8NP. thebowesmuseum.org.uk BATH Shoephoria! until 31 January. Fashion Museum Bath, Assembly Rooms, Bennett Street BA1 2QH. fashionmuseum.co.uk BELFAST La Belle Epoque – Fashions of the 1870s-1910s until 4 September. Ulster Museum Botanic Gardens, Belfast BT9 5AB. nmni.com BERWICK-UPON-TWEED Quilts: Resurgence, selected from The Quilters’ Guild Collection until 6 February. The Granary Gallery, Dewar’s Ln, Northumberland TD15 1ES. berwickvisualarts.co.uk BEXHILL ON SEA Cursebreakers: Alexi Marshall until 16 January. De La Warr Pavilion, Marina, East Sussex TN40 1DP. dlwp.com BRIGHOUSE The Lockdown Banners until 17 January. Smith Gallery, Halifax Road, Yorkshire HD6 2AF. museums.calderdale.gov.uk CAMBRIDGE Hand Stitched Stories: Sabine Kaner until 15 January. Stapleford Granary, Bury Road, Stapleford CB22…

embroidery loves… EYE FOR DETAIL OUR PREVIEW OF 2022 commences on the following pages – amongst this year’s highlights is Shaped By Time, a solo show by Richard McVetis. Describing his practice as an examination of perspective and scale that explores the human condition, McVetis is master of an intentional pallet of limited materials. Labour intensive, almost meditative, the work speaks of the potential of process and repetition. Don’t miss it. Crafts Study Centre 5 April-30 July csc.uca.ac.uk…

design DOUBLE VISION The design duo and twin sisters Maricor Maricar bring their modern aesthetic to embroidery, having built their Sydney design studio stitch by stitch We last spoke to you at the end of 2013, what’s been happening since? Maricor Shortly after, we got back into animation briefly. Earlier on in our design career we worked as animation directors, so it was nice to flex that side of our creative brains while we directed some commercials. We enjoyed being hands on and creative again with prop making and working with other materials. But our focus is still very much on embroidery illustration, but with more experimentation with embellishments and mixed media. And personally? Maricor This is where things have changed the most. Between two of us, our families have…

profile TEXTILE SCISSORS STONE For London artist and stone carver Marcia Bennett Male, textile offers a powerful conduit to articulate her experience PHOTO: MARCIA BENNETT-MALE ©THE ARTIST AS IRRECONCILABLE AS OIL AND WATER the two elements of Marcia Bennett Male’s artistic practice remain distinct. An established sculptor, stone carver, letter cutter and teacher, seventeen years ago Bennett Male began making embroideries. The daughter of Jamaican parents who’d come to England in the 50s, her mother had been a dressmaker. ‘She’d started in the tailoring trade,’ explains Bennett Male, ‘and worked Monday to Friday in the East End where all the factories used to be, before coming home to dress-make for large black ladies who wanted to look good in church.’ A single parent and sole provider for her and her…

material matters CAPTIVE A UDIENCE Stitched by hand over 100 years ago, Lorina Bulwer’s poignant embroidery is filled with wild meanderings that hint at madness, misdemeanors and more IN THE FIFTEEN YEARS she was an inmate in the Female Lunatic Ward of Great Yarmouth Workhouse, Lorina Bulwer (1838-1912) stitched metres of words arguing her cause. Painstakingly worked at an estimated rate of twelve words an hour, the embroideries were lost to the public until 1987, when the first example was acquired by Norfolk Museums Service. Six more have come to light in the years since. They are extraordinary documents, more witness statements than samplers. The text is packed with information – names, places, events and scandals. There are idiomatic turns of phrase, bits of salacious gossip, comical rhymes, animated arguments…

profile SMASH HIT WITH ECHOES OF THE JAPANESE ART OF KINTSUGI, ZOË HILLYARD’S PRACTICE IS AN ALCHEMY OF STITCH, CLOTH AND CERAMIC — WITH DRAMATIC RESULTS PHOTO: ZOË HILLYARD ©THE ARTIST Listening to Zoë Hillyard is a masterclass in interpreting creative process. Hillyard knows her practice – its motivations, its challenges, its joys and constraints – inside out and her generous, yet careful articulation of it is a pleasure to hear. A maker of what she terms as ‘ceramicpatchwork’ (a technique involving the wrapping and patching together of broken pieces of ceramic to reform a whole, and written intentionally as one word), it’s been 13 years since she first broke a bowl in her kitchen and lashed it back together using thread and silk remnants from a pair of old…

review BLANKET COVERAGE CONTEMPORARY WEAVING PHOTO: YESHEN VENEMA Llantarnam Grange Arts Centre, Cwmbran Oriel Davies, Newtown Shetland Arts’ Bonhoga Gallery, Shetland 28 November 2020—10 April 2021 9 October—24 December 2021 21 January—13 March 2022 THERE’S AN ADDED ELEMENT to the Blanket Coverage touring exhibition’s residency at Oriel Davies, Newtown and master hand-loom weaver Steve Attwood Wright is its star. Once the centre of Welsh hand-loom weaving, Newtown is an ideal location for the show and securing such a major body of Attwood Wright’s work is clearly a feather in Oriel Davies’ cap. Described, courtesy of the show’s text, as a ‘rural radical’, Attwood Wright and his partner Lisette de Mont live and work in the village of Sarn, about 10 miles from the Gallery. The slowness of hand weaving, which…

Talking THREADS with the Embroiderers’ Guild A series of online events featuring two artists in discussion with ‘Stitchery Stories’ podcast host Susan Weeks. Textile artists booked for the series so far are Hannah Maughan, Karen Nicol, Clare Wellesley-Smith, Mandy Patullo, Vanessa Marr and Sarah Corbett. These will be lively discussions on a number of subjects – topics so far are the arts today/education/sustainability/using textiles to make a point/wellbeing and mindfulness. We will also ask the artists to let us know a little about how they work and what inspires them. Join us for a one-off conversation about a subject that interests all of us who are involved in textiles. Pearl by Karen Nicol. 109cm x 78cm. Drawn with a pyrographer on suede with hand embroidered tattoos dedicated to family members. Hannah…