I'm very grateful to Elen Phillips, curator of textiles at St Fagan's (the National History Museum of Wales), who has arranged for me to visit next month to research in their extensive collections. I am especially interested in samplers, as I wish to use some historically authentic motifs in a forthcoming piece of work, and also in domestic linen (tablecloths, sheets etc). At the moment a lot of my work seems to be linking with my background in history, and especially my interest in domestic and women's history, which is often recorded in artefacts rather than in the written record. The recent acquisition of a quantity of vintage French linen has enabled me to do some experimentation in using this material, incorporated into my felt and stitch work, to link my contemporary textile art to the creative legacy of generations of anonymous women.
Again, I suspect it is my background in history which makes me so keen to research this properly, using original sources, and it is great to have the huge archive of St Fagan's within an hour's drive of where I live. I'm very much looking forward to my research visit there in a month's time, and will blog about how I get on and what I find!
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