And Then We Came to the End

Alas, today was the last day of my exhibition in the E17 Art Trail. It's been a great experience and I'll definitely be doing it again next year. I've had some lovely feedback, it's brought me my first commission, and it was the perfect excuse for a tea party.

Final feedback:

"Lovely work - hours of work, wish I had the time. Make the most of it, good luck in your degree."

"I love your subversive stitchery. Brilliant. Could I commission something?"

"Made me laugh - and so well executed too (as all artists should be!)"

"Very glad we made it to your venue. Great idea for a body of work."

"Lovely idea. Where are all the snippets from? I'll be racking my brains trying to work them out tonight. Well executed."

"Really impressive and thought provoking (for me anyway)."

"It was amazing. I love the "stopper your heart" stitching. I think you are really talented and the WI are missing out on your talents."

"I love the details of the bottles and am amazed at the accuracy of the human heart stitching! I want one!"

Jen Bervin

On the more conceptual (rather than figurative) side of embroidery, my CEP tutor has just introduced me to the work of Jen Bervin.

Bervin uses needle and thread to "map"; mapping the punctuation and markings in manuscripts of Emily Dickinson's poetry in The Dickinson Fascicles, mapping the Mississippi in a scale model composed of hand-sewn silver sequins.

The Dickinson Composites, Granary Books, 2010
Unbound pages and sewn samples from the Dickinson Fascicles

The Composite Marks of Fascicles 40, 16, 38, and 34. Sewn cotton batting backed with muslin. Each quilt is 6 ft high by 8 ft wide.

The River (Mississippi Meander Belt). Hand sewn sequins on tyvek, mull, and paper. 230 curvilinear ft, 2010

Bervin seamlessly blends writing and embroidery, using embroidery to embellish and alter the poetry of John Van Dyke with "atmospheric fields of pale blue zigzag stitching to construct a poem “narrated by the air” — “so clear that one can see the breaks.”

Page detail, The Desert, Granary Books, 2008

The Desert follows in the tradition of altered books, the most famous of which is Tom Phillip's A Humument. However, unlike most altered books, where the unwanted text is simply censored or obliterated, the obscured text in The Desert can still be made out through the machine-stitched blue thread. This offers the viewer several different readings.

William, It Was Really Something

Ah yes, the obligatory referencing of a Smiths song. My indie stock just went up by several hundred points. I digress.

Inspired by Walthamstow's greatest export, William Morris (or as I like to call him, "Willie Mozza"), I will be writing a love letter to "The Stow" and then translating it into stitch. I wrote a piece in this vein for Dartington at the end of my time there. I suspect this piece will be slightly less gushing however, as my relationship with Walthamstow is rather more complicated than my girlish crush on Dartington ever was.

William Morris

Crafternoon

Last night Kat and I went along to an East London Craft Guerilla night at the Ye Olde Rose and Crown pub in Walthamstow. There's a burgeoning arts and crafts scene in Walthamstow, as evidenced by several exhibits in this year's E17 Art Trail, including tapestry weaving and fibre craft, Knit A Year, and Dr Knit and the Knitting Laboratory!

Of course, Walthamstow has a long tradition of arts and crafts, being the birthplace of William Morris, leader of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Unfortunately the William Morris Gallery in Lloyd Park is currently closed for renovation, but I have had the pleasure of visiting it in the past. On my last visit there was a large selection of original Arts and Crafts pieces including textiles and tapestries, as well as fibre-based art created in local community art projects and by local artists.

A typical William Morris textile design



The William Morris Gallery

In fact it could be said that Morris is Walthamstow's most famous son. His textiles are still popular today; my parents' kitchen blinds are made of one of his prints. Morris' "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful" is one of my favourite adages. In addition to being a designer and artist, Morris was also a Romantic writer and founded the Socialist League. Morris (like me!) taught himself embroidery, learning to sew with wool on a wooden frame. Interestingly, once he had mastered the craft, the responsibility for carrying out trade orders was delegated to the women of the family, his wife Jane and her sister Bessie.

Evidently embroidery has a long tradition of being thought of as "woman's work", which to some extent, despite the advent of "manbroiderers" such as Mr X Stitch, is an attitude which still prevails. At the craft night, for example, I didn't spot any men trying their hand at making a cross-stitched badge or bunting necklace.

Being impoverished art students, Kat and I forgoed the craft kits and instead brought our own arts and crafts projects along, Kat her paintings on old photographs, and myself one of my in-progress embroideries on a handkerchief.

It was lovely to have a few glasses of wine, some Korean spicy chicken wings and a proper catch-up. We've been to the craft nights at the Rose and Crown before, and I'm sure we'll return again. Now, to look for a Walthamstow-based sewing circle...

Brief Encounter

Brief Encounter typifies a very particular type of Britishness that no longer exists. This is a Britain of stiff upper lip and quiet reserve. Perhaps it was the fact that this 1945 film was made during the Second World War that lent it this "Keep Calm and Carry On" feel.

The film was based on the Noel Coward play Still Life, in which two married people embark on a secret love affair. This is no tawdry affair, however; it's a brief, beautiful and bittersweet escape from the stifling mundanity of their lives. Laura (played by Celia Johnson) is Brief Encounter's narrator; she is married to Fred Jesson, and the couple have two small children. The highlight of Laura's week is her trip to the fictional Milford to do her weekly shopping and see a matinée film. One day, whilst waiting for a train at Milford Junction Station, a "smut" gets into Laura's eye. She goes into the refreshment room to seek help, and here Alec (Trevor Howard), the other protagonist, is introduced. He offers assistance, the two start chatting, and therein the love story unfolds.

Eventually the couple realise that they cannot betray their spouses and continue with the affair any longer. Their final meeting is marred by the interruption of an acquaintance of Laura's, who babbles incessantly while the two struggle to contain their feelings. Alec's train arrives and he leaves without being able to say a proper goodbye. As the train pulls away, Laura dashes out onto the platform, and for a moment it seems she will end her life. However, she dutifully returns to her husband and family. The film ends with its most famous and melodramatic speech (one which was re-enacted in The History Boys); Laura has been lost in her thoughts of Alec and what might have been. Her husband, Fred, realising that something has been amiss, says "You've been a long way away. (...) Thank you for coming back to me."

The film has been adapted for the stage by Kneehigh Theatre, a company I originally wanted to complete my CEP with.

This introduction by the director of the production, Emma Rice, is well worth a read.

I have chosen to embroider pieces based on Brief Encounter as much of my own writing deals with the idea of stiff upper lip and what it is to be British, together with thwarted love. In addition to the embroidery of the train on the handkerchief in the previous post, you can expect a sewn portrait of Celia Johnson and possibly one of Trevor Howard, accompanied by original writing on the theme of Brief Encounter.

"I Have A Smut In My Eye"

As promised, one of the Brief Encounter-inspired pieces. For this embroidery I departed from my usual translating-poetry-into-a-snippet-of-text set-up and instead illustrated a quotation from the film itself.

The text reads: "I didn't think such violent things could happen to ordinary people". This quotation is taken from a voice-over/monologue spoken by Brief Encounter's protagonist, Laura. The full quotation is "I've fallen in love. I'm an ordinary woman. I didn't think such violent things could happen to ordinary people". I illustrated the quotation with embroidery of a steam train disappearing into a tunnel, as Laura's illicit affair with Alec begins at a train station, and this setting provides the visual drama of the film.

Tomorrow I will post on Brief Encounter in more depth, but right now it's past my bedtime and I must sleep!

Arting Around

Today my dear friend Kat (a talented artist in her own right) and I braved the wind and rain to take in some local culture on the E17 Art Trail. I'd had a brief wander round the Trail with family on Saturday and yesterday, and bought this upcycled dress from an eco pop-up shop on Forest Road:

I also took in painting, photography and illustration in the Ye Olde Rose and Crown pub on Hoe Street. Several illustrative pieces were based on films, including one on a speech from Brief Encounter, a favourite of mine and the basis for some soon-to-be-posted embroideries. The Mitre Art Studio was filled with beautiful lino prints and a couple of amusing pieces, a 50s dress printed with trashy images of lowbrow culture...

and a tiny diorama containing a toy zebra and "far-away" zebras, bearing the legend "This is very small... those are far away", borrowed from Father Ted!

Today we started off in Walthamstow Village on Orford Road, in Desire hair salon, where there was a selection of Modernist/Futurist-inspired leather works depicting Olympic sports by the Mon Seedin collective. The collective had really taken the "On Your Marks" Olympic theme of the Trail as their starting point.

Next on our trip was a collection of abstract paintings named The Journey, by artist Wendy Coley, displayed in the windows of the old Town Hall. Our favourite was the red and gold triptych:

After seeing all that Orford Road had to offer (unfortunately several exhibiting venues were shut) we wandered down to the Market, stopping off at Walthamstow Library to see London... Its People and Places, an exhibition of watercolours by Ron Bowman:

Watercolour of the Ancient House, Walthamstow, by Ron Bowman

Next on our list was Waterstones, which had several prints and a photographic essay on Morocco.

After all that art it was back to mine for a well-earned bacon sarnie. There's still a couple of exhibits I'd like to squeeze in seeing, including Dr. Knit and the Knitting Laboratory...

...Paintings in Tea, Alcohol and Ink by Carne Griffiths, and the most bizarre and disturbing listing of this year, Tears of Blood, in which, apparently, "tears of blood run down the faces of cats as they emerge from beautiful or dramatic scenery"!