Threads of Feeling - The Foundling Museum

Textile token of foundling 12058 - seen here

I finally got to see Threads of Feeling at The Foundling Museum in London today, an exhibition of textile tokens left with the babies given up for adoption to The Foundling Hospital in the mid-eighteenth century. Little snippets of ribbon, fabric, garments, embroidery, cockades and top knots which were kept with the details of the child's admission as a means of identification should the mother find herself able to reclaim her child at a future time.

I found it an emotional experience. It is hard to imagine another gesture that so clearly evokes the power invested in an object as the giving over of these harrowingly inadequate scraps. Each entry is recorded meticulously and anonymously, although sometimes the scrap is accompanied by a letter or is marked or sewn with a name and other personal details. The fabrics look as fresh and vivid as the day they were pinned to the billet in many instances which brings one up short. Not fragile, dusty relics of history, reassuringly distant and time-worn but bright, tangible reminders of the real people and the real stories that they embody.

Mat Collishaw - Magic Lantern

Mat Collishaw - Midnight Icarus - seen here

This looks amazing - Mat Collishaw has been commissioned by the V&A to create works that animate the museum's architecture, Magic Lantern - worth a visit after dark I think:

"...A monumental zoetrope - the cylindrical device first designed in 1834 to project a rapid succession of images to simulate motion - is the result. Magic Lantern transforms the Museum's edifice into a beacon of light, brought to life by fluttering moths visible from dusk each evening. Exploiting the theme of enchantment to the full, Collishaw plays with scale, much like Lewis Carroll in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by grabbing the attention of South Kensington passers-by with his monumental fluttering moths in the Museum's uppermost dome, the crown cupola.

This commission is accompanied by a smaller replica zoetrope which will animate the John Madejski Garden during the day, allowing a close-up view of the enchanting motion of moths in flight." 

Threads of Feeling - The Foundling Museum

Worckt with flowers - Linen or cotton embroidered with flowers© Coram - seen here

An exhibition at The Foundling Museum in London's Bloomsbury called Threads of Feeling opens on 14 October. The Foundling Museum tells the story of the Foundling Hospital which was established adjacent to the current museum and demolished in 1928. The hospital came into being as London's first home for abandoned children, a place where unmarried mothers could leave their babies if they were unable to take care of them. 

Between 1741 and 1759 the children admitted to the hospital were left with a token, often a small scrap of fabric which identified them with the mother. Perhaps taken from the mother's clothing - a pocket or a cuff - it served to identify the baby but also the mother should she be able at some future time to come back for her child; but sadly this was apparently a relatively rare occurrence. The little swatches were pinned into a billet book along with a written record of the fabric and possessions of the child.

Threads of Feeling is an exhibition of these little scraps which are usually held in London Metropolitan Archive being too fragile for permanent display. This archive actually constitutes one of the country's most comprehensive collection of 18th Century textiles and gives a particular insight into the fabrics worn by everyday women of the period.

The incredible poignancy of these little tokens, the emotions that must have been invested at that moment of farewell; in that decision to give a child into another's care, are hard to look to. I am sure that the exhibition will be an emotional experience. The show continues until March 2011. 

Flowered all over with cards - Cotton or linen   

printed with a playing card pattern © Coram - seen here

Architects Build Small Spaces

Beetle's House - Terunobu Fujimori - seen here

I like the look of these architectural interventions opening tomorrow at the V&A in London. Architects Build Small Spaces features the work of seven architects chosen from a long-list of nineteen who submitted proposals. Built within the V&A galleries, the structures explore ideas of refuge and retreat.

Inside/Outside Tree - Sou Fujimoto - seen here

In-between Architecture - Studio Mumbai - seen here

Dead or Alive

Kate MccGwire - Sluice - seen here

The latest issue of Crafts magazine has been floating around the gallery office this week, and we got quite excited about an article called The Natural Order therein; I was particularly gleeful about the lovely image used of one of Nick Cave's Soundsuits. The piece is about a new show due to open in April at New York's Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) called Dead or Alive described as '...simultaneously beautiful, disturbing and monstrous.' The show brings together 30 artists who use once-living objects in their practice - bones, hair, twigs, insects, feathers, seeds...in the week leading up to the opening, visitors are able to watch the artists' making and installing their work in situ.

Nick Cave - Soundsuit - seen here

The show seeks to demonstrate the role that craft plays in contemporary fine art practice and the article puts that into context a little, including the strong opposition and resistance to that position within sections of the fine art establishment. It also makes reference to the feminist roots of the current resurgence in 'making' within art and the often notable reluctance for those roots to be acknowledged explicitly. Interesting debates!

I like this paragraph which quotes from MAD's Chief Curator, David Revere McFadden: "Artists are discovering a new thrill from taking the over-looked, unloved and ignored and investing them with new meaning." There's been a noticeable surge of interest in the "magic of making things", he adds, with a new generation of artists paying attention to process and materials. Crafts March/April 2010

Quilts: 1700 - 2010 at the V & A

Quilts: 1700 - 2010 catalogue cover featuring At the End of the Day (2007) - Natasha Kerr - Seen here

The V & A Museum is staging a major exhibition of British quilts from their own and other significant collections, Quilts: 1700 - 2010. Opening from March 20th, the show will feature 65 quilts made from 1700 to the present day. The symbolism and imagery of the designs will be explored as well as the exceptional craft of the pieces in themselves.

There are quilts from contemporary makers and artists as well as historical pieces, Tracey Emin will be represented as will Grayson Perry. The curator of the show, Sue Pritchard came to Wales to open Jen Jones' Lampeter based Welsh Quilt Centre last year and has been writing a blog about the progress of the show at the V & A. I believe there will be a quilt from Jen's collection in the exhibition. I'm really looking forward to seeing the show. Here's a Guardian picture gallery in the meantime.

Grayson Perry -Right to Life (1998) - seen here


Bishop's Court Quilt - 1690 - 1700 - seen here

Artes Mundi 4

Chen Chieh-jen - Factory - seen here

We went to The National Museum of Wales in Cardiff last night to attend the opening of Artes Mundi 4. This bi-annual competition, with its substantial prize of £40,000, is an opportunity for contemporary artists who are established in their own country but less well known in the UK to gain exposure. The broad theme of the show is 'the human condition' (although that could pretty much include any artist's work when you think of it!). The eight shortlisted artists' work is housed in a series of spaces within the National Gallery, and the winning artist will be announced on 19 May.

This year the artists were selected by Levent Çalikoğlu, Chief Curator at Istanbul Museum of Modern Art and lecturer at the Technical University, Faculty of Arts and Design, Istanbul. Viktor Misiano, both a curator and an art critic based in Moscow and Italy, a former curator at The Pushkin State Museum, and Director of the Contemporary Art Center (CAC) in Moscow.

The selected artist are: Yael Bartana (Israel), Fernando Bryce (Peru), Ergin Çavuşoğlu (Bulgaria), Olga Chernysheva (Russia), Chen Chieh-jen (Taiwan), Gulnara Kasmalieva & Muratbek Djumaliev (Kyrgyzstan), Adrian Paci (Albania).

We had such a nice time, that we didn't get enough time with the work, so I'll be going back for another visit soon. On first impressions I liked the look of Chen Chieh-jen's films but I really do think one needs a little time to mull it all over and consider the contexts of each artists work and the overall curatiorial vision...

Mat Collishaw, Tracey Emin & Paula Rego: At the Foundling

Mat Collishaw - Children of a Lesser God - seen here

I hope I get a chance to see this show at the Foundling Museum in London, it's on until 9 May. The museum memorialises Britain's first home for abandoned children. These three artists have not shown together before, but their themes and subject matter sit particularly well in this context. The Museum has a history of working with artists to highlight the plight of vulnerable children and mothers begun by William Hogarth in the 18th Century.

Here's a Guardian video about the show.

Ewenny Pottery - Wassail Bowl

Wassail Bowl - Swansea Museum - seen here

I've been thinking about this amazing pot kept in Swansea Museum. It's a wassail bowl made in Ewenny Pottery, south Wales in the mid 19th C. The pottery still thrives and is currently run by 8th generation potter Caitlin Jenkins. Her ancestors first began throwing pots in Ewenny in 1610, but there may have been a working pottery there even earlier as clay was first dug on the site in 1427.

The wassail bowl would have been used as part of a folk custom at Christmas time: "...Wassailing bowls were always decorated in the same way and this one has nearly all the expected traditional features...[the] Christmas tradition of carol singing door-to-door grew out of wassailing. The bowl contained mulled wine which the householder drank for good luck before adding more wine to the bowl." seen here

I have also seen a modern replica made in this style and apparently, it is a difficult thing to produce; this piece manages to have an amazing life and spirit in its making in addition to its virtuosity.

On my recent visit to Flow Gallery in London I saw this piece (below) by Kate Malone which has a strong resonance with the form of the wassail bowl although I don't know if it's intentional.

Kate Malone - seen here

Ceramic Collection at Glynn Vivian Gallery

C. 1814 Transfer design by James Brindley.

Whilst at the Glynn Vivian in Swansea, I had a proper look at the porcelain and Swansea china collection. There are some beautiful and lively historical pieces, really charming. Not much in the way of contemporary work, which is a shame, there's some fantastic makers working in Wales at the moment. However, the collections at Aberystwyth Arts Centre and the National Museum in Cardiff perhaps serve that function.

Wren House

Wren House made by Richard Cobb in 1869 - seen here

This lovely folk object is kept in St. Fagan's National History Museum near Cardiff. It is a replica made in Pembrokeshire in 1869 as a copy of another house made 60 years before by the same maker. The original was made for the Twelfth Night celebrations of the area. The box would contain the body of a dead wren and would be carried aloft by four men pretending to groan under its weight. It was part of a ritual involving rhyming at village doors to try to gain entry and refreshment.

I have been fascinated by this object for a long time, and made my own little homage to it recently.

Kathryn Campbell Dodd - Wren House 2009

Telling Tales: Fear and Fantasy in Contemporary Design

Jurgen Bey - Linnenkasthuis - seen here

I finally got down to London last weekend to see Telling Tales: Fear and Fantasy in Contemporary Design at the V & A Museum. Really excellent show - so glad I have seen it. Split into three themed areas the emphasis is on designers rather than artists, many of them Dutch. The exhibition sits between art/craft/design , and its themes allow for the bizarre and the unsettling to enliven the debate. Curator, Gareth Williams '...explores how more-or-less overtly functional objects – ‘designed’ objects – can be made to carry meanings and associations, or tell tales'. Seen here

My favourite section was The Forest Glade with its allusions to fairy stories and in particular Linen-Cupboard-House (Linnenkasthuis) by Jurgen Bey. Reminiscent of the ginger bread house in Hansel and Gretel, the hybrid 'guest' room is created or amalgamated from old furniture and textiles. The piece on show is number two of an edition of four; with no photography allowed, and no image of the V & A piece available - the image above is a similar piece.

I also particularly enjoyed the giant ceramic tulip vases made by various makers in the Enchanted Castle section and the creepy little taxidermy Moulded Mole slippers by Niels van Eijk in the Heaven and Hell section with their disquieting invitation to consider the use of fur in design and fashion.


Neils van Eijk - Moulded Mole slippers, seen here

Here's a really interesting little film about the show.

Chairs at St Fagans

Chairs at St Fagans: National History Museum

Looking at Angharad's chairs has prompted me to post a picture from my visit to the National History Museum at St Fagan's, Cardiff last weekend. It's one of my favourite places to visit. This picture was shot on a long exposure through the smoky interior of Abernodwydd Farmhouse.

The Jen Jones Welsh Quilt Centre, Lampeter Old Town Hall

19th C. flannel quilt from west Wales

I went to the opening of The Jen Jones Welsh Quilt Centre last Friday evening at the converted Town Hall in Lampeter, Ceredigion in west Wales. Having been to the shop run by Jen in Llanybydder recently, I was really interested to see the collection. There were many people there to celebrate the fruition of this long term project which has taken ten years to realise.

The Centre was opened by the Mayor of Lampeter and a short introduction to Jen's collection was given by the V & A textile curator, Sue Pritchard, currently researching and compiling the large show planned at the museum in 2010 Quilts 1700-2010.

The Centre is going to be an astounding addition to west Wales' cultural resources. Jen has over 300 exceptional quilts in her possession many of which will find a home at the Centre.

I was fascinated by many of the single colour pieces, intricately sewn and patterned, but my favourites were the rustic, functional quilts with their imperfections and unusual combinations of colours and textures - many have been rescued from barns and animal sheds where they had been relegated to make way for machine produced newcomers.

I feel excited about the groundswell of interest in textiles in west Wales, along with the National Woolen Museum in Drefach Felindre and the number of working mills such as Rock Mill in Capel Dewi that still produces, there is a strong local tradition and history.

Click here for a BBC news piece about the Centre.

Agnes's Jacket

Image from the Prinzhorn Collection

A few weeks ago I listened to a Radio 4 Programme, All in the Mind, featuring the American Professor of psychology, Gail A. Hornstein talking about her new book Agnes's Jacket: A Phsychologist's Search for the Meanings of Madness. My ears pricked up immediately when I heard Claudia Hammond, the presenter, comment that Tracey Emin had raved over the extraordinary artwork of the book's title.

Agnes Richter was a patient in an asylum near Dresden in Germany during the 1890's, admitted against her will and held for 26 years from the age of 40 to the end of her life. In her former life, before her institutionalisation, she had been a seamstress. The jacket she created is now held in the Prinzhorn Collection in Heidelberg.

This is an extract from Gail A Hornstein's book: "...The felt is frayed, but the course linen underneath looks indestructible. The flared cuffs, fitted bodice, and perfectly formed buttonholes reveal a skilled seamstress at work. But it isn't the jacket's design that mesmerizes every person who enters the room. It's the intricate text that has been embroidered in five colours over practically every inch of the garment. A needle-and-thread narrative unlike any other." (page ix; Introduction) The jacket was issued as part of her hospital uniform, but Agnes picked it apart and reconstructed it. During that process she embroidered her own text into every surface. It is more or less indecipherable, although there are many references to 'ich' i.e. herself.

I was trained as a lettering artist and also have a particular interest in the 'ghost' life and resonance of objects such as clothing and furniture - the powerful legacy of these formerly inhabited things; the presence held in such personal items. So this discovery feels a bit like a missing piece of jigsaw.

Kathryn Campbell Dodd detail from 'The Bone Dice quilt 2009'

Having researched the jacket a little further, I found a blog - Lulu Bird - with lovely images from the author's own visit to the Prinzhorn Collection:




Images from Lulu Bird

Yesterday, I learned about a fellow lettering artist Rosalind Wyatt who has created a body of work called The Stitch Life of Others and the resonances with Agnes's jacket are unmissable.

Image from The Guardian Online

I have thought again about Tracey Emin - I wonder when she first saw the jacket ? Her work is so strongly resonant.

Image from BBC

Telling Tales: Fantasy and Fear in Contemporary Design

Jurgen Bey 'Linen-Cupboard-House' ('Linnenkasthuis') from V&A website

I've just found out about the new show at the V&A in London, Telling Tales: Fantasy and Fear in Contemporary Design...GOT TO GO... I'm reeling a bit because of the correlations with some of the work I've been doing lately, always lovely when things connect.

Until I can get to see it - this image is pinging in my head!