Have just returned from a long weekend in London with my wonderful friend Ruth – we had arranged an itinerary which included lots of lovely things: a visit to the V&A to see the Power of Making exhibition, the wool and haberdashery departments of John Lewis and Liberty’s, the Selvedge Autumn Fair, afternoon tea (with champagne!) at the Orangery at Kensington Palace, and finally a visit to the Handweavers’ Studio, which happens to be just round the corner from where Ruth lives.
The Power of Making was very thought-provoking, and I am glad to have been able to go early in the day, because by 11.30 the queues stretched across the foyer. It was good to have time to linger over the exhibits, and read the notes in detail. There was a bit more technology/robotics/3D printing than I had been expecting (I suppose subliminally I had been thinking of it as ‘the power of hand-making’), but several of the objects caught my attention particularly.
Dalton Ghetti’s ‘Alphabet pencil tip sculpture’ looks at first glance like a nice retro kitch piece of domestic wall art, a kind of 3D collage in a box frame. But – look closer, and you’ll see that the hand-sharpened graphite tip of each pencil is carved into a tiny letter, almost like the typeface of an old-fashioned typewriter, from A-Z. Incredibly skilful (I have enough trouble sharpening a pencil to an ordinary point!) and a nice lesson in actually looking.
Textile-wise, there were quite a few goodies. The Korniakow Cooperative from Poland used to make lace for ecclesiastical linen. However, the market for this is in decline, and they have diversified. The item on display here is a gorgeous cream crochet lace G-string - very beautiful and not at all sleazy, despite the inevitable titters from some of the visitors.
The Casdagli father and son’s embroideries have received a lot of media attention, so I won’t describe them in detail – but the differences in style were interesting, and bore out Captain Casdagli’s comments about the contrast between his work and his father’s. The son’s work was a delicately coloured and dynamic sampler of images and text from the Just So Stories. His father’s, by contrast, was symmetrical and severe – stereotypically masculine, arguably, or indicative of the need for security and order in the context in which it was made – a Nazi POW camp. I thought it was a shame that the notes did not mention that there were hidden anti-Nazi messages embroidered in Morse code around the border – I knew about this from the media reporting, and I think the curators missed a trick not mentioning it.
Alyce Santoro’s ‘Voidness’ woven dress was woven by her mother Jeanette Santoro using Polyester thread and cassette audio tape, using a 1940s dobby loom. This was intended as part of an interactive installation, but it made a really attractive fabric, and looked genuinely wearable.
As a feltmaker I was amused by Heleen Klopper’s ‘Woolfiller’ – the use of needle-felting techniques to ‘darn’ holes in knitwear. The next time the moths get to my woollens I will give this a try!
But the accolade of ‘star of the show’ goes jointly to two objects. Christien Meindertsma (being half-Dutch, I was intrigued to see that many of the makers were Dutch!) had created large wooden knitting needles (a couple of inches thick and maybe 4 feet long) to knit a wall-sized giant Aran rug – using cream wool as thick as a broom-handle, which apparently took 18 merino fleeces to produce. The traditional cable designs, scaled up to several feet high, were so effective – I wanted to take this home and hang it on my wall!
The other star object for me was Susie MacMurray’s ‘Widow’ dress. A base of black napa leather was pierced by over 100,000 adamantine dressmakers’ pins some 3 inches long, giving an effect not unlike silver tinsel. The dress was an elegant evening dress, sleeveless and sweeping to a train which puddled on the floor, but lethally prickly. It is intended to be a ‘psychological portrait of a widow’, simultaneously ‘invitingly sensual and stand-offish’. Very disturbing and so beautiful.
While at the V&A I also had a look at the Jameel Prize shortlist. The Jameel Prize is a biennial award for contemporary art, craft and design inspired by Islamic tradition. I was most struck by the installation by Bita Ghezelayagh – she uses the basic idea of the felt capes and tunics widely worn across the Middle East and Asia by shepherds and others, but embellishes her tunics with embroidered text, woven metal wire, and hundreds of tiny metal charms – keys, tulips, crowns, and small rectangular charms with the image of a hero of the Iran-Iraq war printed on them. I loved the way that this artist subverted a traditional skill and garment by adding images and symbols of conflict taken from Iranian post-revolutionary popular culture. I could hardly tear myself away from this exhibit...
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