The Red House

Today Mum and I made a mother-daughter pilgrimage to The Red House in Bexleyheath, Kent. The house was commissioned, designed and lived in by William Morris, and completed in 1860. It is one of the foremost examples of architecture of the Arts and Crafts Movement, but the main reason for our visit was that The William Morris Gallery here in Walthamstow is closed, and thus this was my only real chance to have a look at some original Morris textiles.

As soon as we entered the house we were met by an early example of Arts and Crafts work; stained glass windows with birds by Phillip Webb, figures by Morris' friend Edward Burne-Jones, and floral designs by Morris himself. Two of the figures depicted by Burne-Jones represented Love and a blindfolded Fate, holding the wheel of fortune.

Stained glass window in entrance hallway of The Red House; photograph shows detail with floral designs by Morris and bird designs by Phillip Webb

Just inside the hallway are Morris' first two wallpaper designs, Daisy and Trellis, which he produced with Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. Trellis (Morris' furnishing company) was inspired by the garden at Red House.

In the first room of the house we came across the first set of textiles. A wooden printing block (which would have been used to print wallpapers and fabric) is displayed alongside samples of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.'s wallpapers and textiles.

Wooden printing block displayed with printed fabric

The dining room contained the exhibit of greatest interest to me; an unfinished wall-hanging depicting Aphrodite worked in embroidery. The craftsmanship of the needlework and scale of the piece, though unfinished, staggered me. It is a beautifully realised piece, painterly, with exquisitely subtle shading and life-like texture. I hope to one day have the time to work on such a large scale (and with such skill)! The wall hanging is thought to have been embroidered by Bessie, the sister of Morris' wife, Jane.

The house was filled with Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. designs; in the dining room stood a table by Phillip Webb, and three chairs designed and made by the company.

There is more needlework on display in Morris and Jane's bedroom; two tapestries, one a daisy design by Morris, originally completed by Bessie (but this reproduction sewn by The William Morris US Society) in couching (a technique in which wool is laid across the fabric and fastened to it with small stitches), and the other an elaborate embroidery in close stitch bearing Morris' favourite Chaucher proverb: He who loves best remember longest. This embroidery has been analysed and found to have been completed by one highly skilled needleperson and two apprentices.



Detail from the embroidered tapestry

We learnt from a tour guide that Morris was taught to embroider by "Red Lion Mary", the housekeeper of Morris and Burne-Jones' bachelor pad/student digs in Red Lion Square, London (of course, when Morris had mastered the craft he then delegated it to the women of the family! Embroidery has long been considered a "woman's craft"!)

A portrait of the man himself (looking rather sheepish)

"Is There A Cure For Love?" Embroidery Workshop @ The Mill

Tonight was mine and Tina's embroidery/love potion making workshop at The Mill community centre in Walthamstow. There wasn't a huge turn-out, but to be honest, considering it was an introductory session I was glad anyone turned up at all!

We took ingredients, negative and positive, from failed relationships, and stitched them on to ribbon, adding them to bottles to make "broken" potions. We then stitched ingredients to positively re-balance the potions, to find a "cure for love". The workshop was very therapeutic, both in its subject matter of taking something broken and making it beautiful again, and in that sewing itself is a therapeutic action (something Joetta Maue mentioned in my interview with her).

Post Post Post Post Post Post Modernism

I've just come in from the theatre to find that my Post Post Post Post Post Post Modernism cross stitch was featured on the British University Artists website. Also, Angeliki Goude of the blog domesticatedbee mentioned my interview with Joetta Maue in this blog post. Finally, the East London Craft Guerrilla gave me a little shout out for my blog post featuring an interview with their founder Debbie.

My embroidery/love potion making workshop is tomorrow. I'm excited but nervous!

Well, with that, and a scan of Post Post Post Post Post Post Modernism, I bid you good night.

Interview with Debbie of the East London Craft Guerrilla

I promised more on Walthamstow's arts and crafts scene, so here's an interview with Debbie, founder of Walthamstow's East London Craft Guerrilla. Thanks Debbie!

Founders of the East London Craft Guerrilla

Do you feel there's something of a craft revival in Walthamstow, and the wider world, at present?
Definitely, it's been going on for quite a few years now.

Do you feel any connection with Walthamstow's craft history? (I'm thinking of William Morris in particular)
Very much so. I tend to think that if William Morris were around that he'd very much like and agree with our principals as we have based our manifesto on his campaign of making craft accessible to the masses. I think he'd fit in very well and be happy to associate with us....I'm sure he would have been one of the Craft Guerrilla founding members!

Walthamstow isn't exactly as hip as Hoxton or Shoreditch! Do you feel this is a hindrance or a help to your cause?
In a way it's a help as we get a captive audience.... there's not much to do out in the suburbs!


Crafters at a Craft Guerrilla night

 Although he is a very different craftsman to you, Grayson Perry's studio is in Walthamstow. Do you admire his work/is he an influence on you?
Actually we do have lots in common as I also am a ceramicist. I absolutely love his work....though I can't say it has influenced me.

Are you involved in the E17 Art Trail?
Usually yes. I have participated in pretty much all trails since the beginning as both an individual artist and/or under the Craft Guerrilla collective banner. The Art Trail is one of the events we look forward to participating in as we can organize larger scale events and really get the community involved.

Walthamstow is "sandwiched" between the two natural spaces of Epping Forest and the Lee Valley; does this influence show at all in your own work and/or that of the Craft Guerilla?
Though I love nature I'm pretty much a "city girl". My main influences come from the city, life in the capital and its people. I love nature but I find the hub bub and energy of the city more inspiring and relevant to my work with Craft Guerrilla as we work mainly with urban dwellers and the intention is to get them making so we need to offer projects/work which they can understand and relate to.

A finished cross stitch button brooch, one of the kits which was offered at a Craft Guerrilla night

What is your particular practise as part of the Craft Guerrilla?
I'm a dab hand at all sorts of craft disciplines, though my weaknesses are knitting and crocheting, but I'm willing and wanting to learn everything I can. I would say that my favourite craft disciplines are anything stitched based so cross stitching, embroidery, sewing and anything with fabrics. I am also the founding member and the main organizer so a lot of my time is spent doing the bulk of the work which can be anything from planning an event, doing the PR, making the craft kits to chosing the play list for our market event. But the main intention is to have Craft Guerrilla as not only a platform for designer makers to sell their wares but also to serve as an educator and to create a wider creative community.

A participant knitting at a Craft Guerrilla night

0Why did you set up the Craft Guerrilla?
To begin with it started as a back lash to not having adequate craft events in the area. I had participated in other fairs in Walthamstow, and all over London, and it always left me feeling that the organizers weren't really into this because they loved craft but were involved solely because they wanted either to make money off designer makers by renting over priced stalls or to massage their own ego. Also they were very poorly subscribed to as the majority of makers were of very low quality. There's nothing wrong with having plastic beads on a string but it's not craft! Having quality, well made, well designed products is really important as if you are offering people an alternative it needs to be as good or better then what is available on the High Street.

Even though there is a huge artistic and craft community in Walthamstow it's very insular and elitist so having participative craft events like our DIY craft nights which are open to the public is our way of bringing awareness to the importance and value of hand made goods. It's also a good excuse to socialise!

My friend Kat and myself at a Craft Guerrilla night

The word "Guerrilla" might imply that you are fighting against something; is there a political side to the Craft Guerrilla?
It's basically a tongue and cheek name and the "fighting" aspect is simply the call to arms against the inadequacies, unfairness and high price in terms of environment and human costs of mass production. We just wanted to show people that there is an alternative. Craft doesn't have to equal macaroni, glitter and glue! We're very aware of consumerism and so not to just offer more products to the market we also offer craft workshops were we share our skills and teach people to be more self sufficient. It's no good just selling products it's also important to educate people too.

Also we try to serve as a resource to our design makers and try to help them in finding their way to making their business a viable one.

A very elaborate piece of craft being sewn by a member of the Craft Guerrilla

I've been to several of your craft nights at the Rose and Crown, and must admit I've only seen women crafting; do you think more men should be encouraged to craft?
We offer so many different events that we hope men will want to come along! Not just dragged along by wives and girlfriends but also to come and make. I think it's something which should be embraced by all regardless of age, sex, colour, nationality, etc. Having the chance to sit down, create something with your hands should be part of people's lives as I strongly believe craft and making is both healing and an important vehicle in getting us in touch with our humanity.

A few of that elusive crafting breed, "men", at a Craft Guerrilla night!

Working with tools and your hands is something which sets humans apart from other animals and I think it's pretty important to be in touch with that basic creative side as most of us never get the chance to do so. With today's modern technologies and busy working life styles it's easy to lose that side of our nature! We do get the occassional man at our craft nights but it is a mostly female pursuit.

The next Craft Guerrilla night will be on Thursday 10th November at Ye Olde Rose and Crown. See you there!

A Tangent

This cross stitch is a little something I've made for an upcoming collaboration with Jessica Anne Johnson; a top-secret project for now, but expect (literally) crazy goings on come January.

In other news, my embroidery/love potion making workshop is on Wednesday, and the ever-wonderful Emma Parker, aka Miss Stitch Therapy has sewn this love potion into her "stitchtionary".

I'm touched that this beautiful piece of work has been inspired by my workshop; such a clever reappropriation of an old dictionary!

Now I shall get back to stitching a "nefarious sea creature", as my friend Mark calls them...

Potion Book!

I've just unearthed this old chestnut; it's a book of potions that my best friend and I made when we were wee. Thought it was appropriate seeing I'm giving a workshop making love potions next Wednesday! Think I will bring it along with me for inspiration (or perhaps just a giggle!)

There's even a love potion recipe:



The recipe reads:

Love Potion

Ingredients

1 small red rose

3 petals of poppy

5 buttercup petals

The air on which a first kiss was carried

Sugar and spice and all things nice

2 extra tsps sugar

pinch of salt

200ml water

Method

To start with boil the water. When boiled add sugar and spice and all things nice, extra sugar, salt, and rose. Leave to simmer for 5 mins then add air and crushed flower petals. Put in fridge to cool overnight - in morning you will have a love potion.

The Alchemist

Here is my second collaboration with composer Joe Donohoe. This one, The Alchemist, has quite a different feel to Kiss the Book, in that it is brighter, both musically and in subject matter, being more of a "straight" love poem than the more cynical Kiss the Book. This time around I sent Joe the text of the poem and he composed out of that, recording my vocals afterwards. Joe used composing software to simulate tuned percussion and violins, and I think the results are very beautiful.

A few shots of the embroidery which accompanies the sound piece

The text of The Alchemist reads:

The Alchemist

My words always did look prettier in your mouth,
you alchemist
Always taking lumps of coal and dreaming them into diamonds Making something out of nothing with the slightest

Sleight of hand or
Flick of the wrist;
You undid the buttoned-up British stiff upper lip at the collar,
Slipped that starched white surgical ruff off of the
Draft diamond, gave it room to respire,
A pause for a breather;
Then went mining beneath its varnished veneer,
Told me to take my medicine when i told you i belonged back in the coal scuttle, Only just no longer merely a minor, so why don’t you try her,
Before she slips back down the mine shaft to try for another?
I want to kiss you on the mouth; I want to kick you in the teeth, Oh take out your molars and string ‘em up into a necklace and
I’ll wear you always, strung up and strung out and resting soft as clouds of
Cubic zirconium all along my collarbones;

Oh boy you just about knock me out.

Today I am sewing my next piece (which will remain shrouded in mystery until it is unveiled), listening to a lot of angry girl music (such as The Horrorpops and The Dresden Dolls!), and checking out internships at The Tate. Got a few more collaborations on the way and very happy to be busy.

A few thoughts on my interview with Joetta Maue

Much of what Joetta wrote in my interview with her chimed with my own thoughts on the process and connotations of embroidery, and with many of the contexts I am exploring through this project.


For example she wrote about the therapeutic quality of sewing, both metaphorically, in that sewing on fabric is reminiscent of suturing flesh, and literally, in that the quiet, meditative, repetitive action of embroidering soothes. 




Joetta at work

 (Just because I like to be contrary, I have to note that this, at least at first glance, appears to jar with the feminist artist and embroiderer Kate Walker's view that "passitivity and obedience (...) are the very opposite of the qualities necessary to make a sustained effort in needlework". However, in the interview Joetta goes on to write that, rather than using what is "thought to be a very passive form of expression" to "keep idle hands busy and docile", she uses her "hands and the medium to celebrate the vulnerability and strength of the female experience".)

 A fellow blogging embroiderer and Londoner, Emma Parker, goes by the online alias of Stitch Therapy. The banner at the top of her blog states that "A stitch in time saves your mind".


I certainly found sewing both soothing and (thankfully) absorbing during my long recovery from an illness.




Emma's banner for her blog Stitch Therapy
 




Joetta also wrote that one of the things which first attracted her to embroidery was its history as a woman's craft. Joetta grew up around embroidery and craft, and, like me, grew used to seeing her grandmother sew from an early age.


As she began to incorporate embroidery into her practise, she relished its ties with the domestic and thus chose to embroider on vintage linens. Like me, she feels that previously owned linens "bring their own history of women's voices and hands as well as the history of the homes they have lived in".


However, as Joetta is a professional artist and sells her work, she feels uncomfortable sewing on "inherited fabrics", whereas I sew almost exclusively on linens passed down to me by my grandmother, thus adding another layer of historical and familial context to the Cure for Love project. Joetta, however, sews on acquired vintage linens, but in a subversive fashion, while simultaneously acknowledging "the roles of the home and intimacy within the identity of the modern female". 


Though my intention in the Cure for Love project is not specifically subversive, I have created subversive embroidery in the past and imagine I will do in the future (particularly considering that a friend and I are now discussing creating a feminist zine... but more on that at a later date).

Don't Be An Art School Arsehole, an example of my slightly more subversive embroidery

Joetta also had some interesting thoughts about how "being feminist" does not mean "that you cannot embrace and choose to be feminine". She argues that the point of feminism is not "to force women to feel like they must do it all and succeed at it all and judge themselves on if they are being "feminist" enough". This nagging doubt is one I can relate to, as, being an artist writing and making art about love, I sometimes worry that I come across as some soppy dippy moonstruck teenager (which admittedly I am, save the teenager part). My current body of work is not overtly feminist, other than reclaiming a trivialised and traditionally feminine craft for contemporary purposes.

Drink Me In, one of my contemporary embroidered love poems reclaiming women's craft

Another of the points Joetta made is that autobiographical, introspective art (such as Tracey Emin's) is no bad thing, as it is often this that is most raw and universal. For example, Joetta's own work is about the universal experiences of "experiences of love, loss, joy, doubt, etc". This universal quality is something I aim for with the honesty of The Cure for Love.

Lots of interesting food for thought in my interview with you, Joetta. Thanks again!

Blogged by Joetta Maue

I recently interviewed textile artist Joetta Maue on her practise. Here's a little post she did on my work.

The Museum of Broken Relationships

Since Tina and I are holding a workshop exploring broken relationships, it seems appropriate for me to research a museum devoted to "the concept of failed relationships and their ruins".

The museum, which has been exhibited at the Tristan Bates Theatre in Covent Garden, resides in Zagreb, Croatia. It was dreamt up by artists Olinka Vištica and Dražen Grubišić, after their own relationship disintegrated (however, the pair remain friends, and celebrate the positive parts of their relationship in the museum).

The ex-couple

The idea came to the ex-couple whilst they were dividing up their possessions; they wanted to protect the memories held by the flotsam and jetsam of their relationship "from oblivion".

A wind up rabbit, one of the first exhibits in the museum, is a relic of Vištica and Grubišić's relationship; I (voyeuristically) wish I knew the story behind this memento.

Each exhibit is accompanied by details of the length of the relationship it signifies, the place in which this relationship took place, and a text written about it by the contributor. These range from the heartbreaking to the unintentionally humorous; for example one of those all-too prevalent gift shop teddy bears holding an "I love you" heart is accompanied by the text "WHAT A LIE! LIES, DAMN LIES!"

Such a shame that I missed the exhibition when it was in London. The concept puts me in mind of memento mori, or shrines to the dead; the exhibits in The Museum of Broken Relationships, however, are shrines to relationships that have died; a testament to the ephemeral. Love can be the most mundane or extraordinary experience, or often both at once; all aspects of love are displayed in the museum for public consumption.

And who wouldn't get a voyeuristic kick out of reading texts on lost love fraught with emotion, akin to the angsty and/or wistful pages of a teenage diary? Through placing these objects alongside their stories The Museum of Broken Relationships elevates them from the mundane to the sacred.



"Is There A Cure For Love?" - Embroidery Workshop @ The Mill



If you're in London on the 19th I'd really love to see you at The Mill in Walthamstow for a session of stitching love potions! Tina Bueno of The Pharmacy of Stories and myself will be hosting the night. 

The Mill is on the left hand side of Coppermill Lane, which is the road which leads on from the very bottom of Walthamstow Market. The nearest tube station is Walthamstow Central. Hope to see you there!

Interview With Joetta Maue

I wrote this blog post on Joetta's practise back in late August, and now she has very thoughtfully and (hugely) thoroughly answered some questions on her work for me. Thank you so much Joetta! Your interview makes for an engrossing read.

Why and when did you begin embroidering?
I began embroidering about 5 years ago while in graduate school. I was working to finish a previous body of work that I had been doing for a long time and wanted to do one FINAL piece freeing me to move on.

At the time I was experimenting a lot with medium and being quite conceptual about my medium choice. This previous work was based on an experience of trauma and I liked that embroidery could be a metaphor for healing both in the literal suturing act of the stitch but also the quiet meditative act of the process. I assumed that this would be a one-off piece, I had never embroidered before, but I ended up totally loving the process and got addicted. From then on I kept making excuses to keep working in embroidery. My background is as a photographer and I have no formal training in embroidery at all.

Comforts, 2008, yarn; an example of Joetta's earlier textile art

Why do you work in embroidery rather than another medium? How do your photographic and textile practises fit together?
I love the history that embroidery brings to the table. It is often considered a female practice and my work is very much steeped in the female experience and the domestic space, so conceptually the medium brings a lot.

I am also attracted to the fact that it is essentially a "useless" craft; something done for purely decorative reasons(rather then a practice like quilting or knitting where you can make something utilitarian). The decorative nature of it places it in a category of leisure and pleasure that attracts me. To me being an artist is this; it is the privilege of being alone with your thoughts and then communicating them through your medium, leisure and pleasure. It also gives the embroidery the special place of being done simply for the joy of doing it.

Technically speaking I love how it is "hand made" and therefore the hand of the maker is so present in the work, i.e do they do neat careful stitches, or messy large stitches. I love how the hand made embraces the natural flaws that exist.

I utilise my photography as the inspiration and source for my image based work but when I was asked this once before this was my answer: I fell into embroidery as an artist. In graduate school I decided to make a piece with embroidered text, because I liked the idea of embroidery as a metaphor for healing.

Unexpectedly I fell in love with the process and medium; while trying to figure out the next direction for my studio practice and work I began to explore embroidery as a medium of expression.

The medium felt very natural to me as I grew up around fabric and crafts, through my mother and grandmother, and my work had always been made from an overtly feminine point of view.

As my new work began to grow and my love towards the process of embroidery deepened I began to enjoy the subversive quality of the medium, how what was expected from a hand made embroidered piece could be so easily manipulated and yet the viewer always comes to it with the same expectation. I began to utilise the expectation of embroidered works and domestically placed linens to further my concept of exploring the roles of the home and intimacy within the identity of the modern female.

This Is Bullshit, date unknown

I was particularly drawn to how traditionally embroidery was thought to be a very passive form of expression done simply for decorative purposes but through my hands I could use the medium to give a voice to women. Instead of subverting that voice by keeping idle hands busy and docile, I used my hands and the medium to celebrate the vulnerability and strength of the female experience.

As a photographer, I mostly spent my time thinking about what I wanted to capture, and then, since I work mostly through a form of documentation, having the patience and awareness to capture that moment as it arrived. My camera was always loaded and ready to still the moment of light and life that stopped my eye. Embroidery has completely transformed my studio practice. I now spend hours and hours in my studio slowly building my work upon a linen, surrounded by thread and piles of linens and fabrics, working in a very tactile way where as when I do photography my tactile senses are not as satisfied.

Even though photography is a very fast medium, taking only a 1/15 of a second to capture your image and less then 5 minutes to print it, and embroidery is a very slow and labor intensive practice, I do not find them as different as you may expect. They both require immense patience; in embroidery the patience is in the labour intensive practice and in photography it is the waiting for the light or the right expression. They both allow for a significant amount of quiet, contemplative time. As a photographer you spend hours in a dark quiet room all by yourself waiting for your paper or film to develop, going through the same simple repetitive steps to get your print, and in embroidery you repetitively make the stitch, working hour upon hour, lost in your thoughts and quiet as your work slowly builds.

I love that both mediums leave me so much time to meditate upon the images that I create. Though the mediums seem quite dissimilar in practice, they actually share quite a bit.

After They Left, 2008, C-print; an example of Joetta's photographic practise

Why do you work on such a large scale?
I have always liked working on a larger scale- I like how one can enter the work and physically relate to it more this way. I also enjoy how one can experience the work in a different way from far away and then up close.

What leads you to choose a particular word to embroider in your text pieces?
My emotional space. Initially my text works were diaristic statements; as a life-long diary keeper I just started to embroider my statements instead of write them. Then I went through a process of writing cathartic statements, things I felt like I needed to say out loud and make tangible. Now I am interested in honoring experiences and moments. But in general they are statements that come to me in my daily life and I catch them and put them into a work.

Be Strong, 2009, one of Joetta's text pieces

Do the fabrics you use to sew on have any sentimental value?
They are all found fabrics. I have worked with inherited fabrics but since I sell my work I do not feel comfortable doing this anymore. But to me the fabrics still have sentimental value in the sense that someonemade them, someone took the time to embroider lovingly onto them, or add tatting to their edges, and they lived a life in someone's home. I love the stories they tell; are they pristine and preserved, are they stained and used, are they rotting and disregarded, are they unfinished... All stories can relate to our relationships and homes and I try to make the linens make sense with the final work that is stitched onto them.

Why do you choose to embroider on found, vintage linens?
As I have said before, they bring their own history of women's voices and hands as well as the history of the homes they have lived in. I feel like I am giving voice to this.

Some feminists would be disparaging about celebrating the domestic role, whereas you say you wish to connect with a domestic lineage. Do you think the domestic is solely the prerogative of women, or do you think a man could produce work like this?
I do not think that a man and could produce work exactly like this but do think a man could produce work about the same subject from a different point of view. When I exhibit my work it is often the male viewer that is most moved and touched by my work. Historically speaking the domestic is the domain of the woman and therefore my relationship to it as an identity, place, and role is different then a man's.

I do not know that I am "celebrating" the domestic "role"; I am more investigating what occurs within the confines of the home and the relationships, moments, and emotions that are held here.I am interested in the complicated roles that contemporary women must play.

I do get frustrated at how the roles of being a homemaker and mother are looked at as not enough and not feminist. To me the idea of feminism was to give women the option of choice, giving them the opportunity to do whatever they wish. It was not to force women to feel like they must do it all and succeed at it all and judge themselves on if they are being "feminist" enough. I also do not think that being feminist means that you cannot embrace and choose to be feminine. I do think that in general men and woman are different and think that celebrating our differences and embracing all of our sexuality is a good thing. I am a very strong and independent woman but I also love nurturing my son and honouring my husband and do not in any way think that these things need to be mutually exclusive.

The domestic space is not a space for only women but it is the space of the family and intimacy; this is what my work is about.I simply embrace the history of that space and the fact that my point of view comes from being a woman.

Eight Months, 2011

 Why do you choose to focus on yourself and your family as the subject of your work? Some might argue that this is rather introspective!
I have always worked autobiographically and have always been drawn to other artists that do this. I once heard a writer talk about writing and they said that "you have to write about what you know". What I know is my life and my experience so this is what I make art about. I like art that has a raw honesty to it so the only things that I can be truly honest about is me.

With that said I do no think my work is so specific; what I actually makework about is universal experiences of love, loss, joy, doubt, etc... I think that often the more personal you let yourself become the more accessible the work becomes.
And I would never take being introspective as a criticism. I think that many could benefit from being a little more of this.

In addition I think art in general is a somewhat narcissistic act no matter what you make. You are making something to express your point of view on something and communicate it. Being this is part of being an artist.

Have you considered combining text and image together more often?I have. This is something I have been wanting to do more of for a long time. But I work very intuitively and so far the work has for the most part stayed separate- though it is always exhibited together.Generally my image based work is about one side of intimacy and love and my text work is about the other so often they need to exist as separate works that have a conversation within the gallery. But I imagine more combining of these will come as I continue to make work.


Waking With You, 2010, a piece in which Joetta combined text and image