The Preservation of Memory
I have shifted my focus from knots to memory as this was an underlying theme of my work last year and has taken centre stage in 2021.
In considering memory as a colour, I realised that for me it centred chiefly around cream; babies’ teeth, mother of pearl buttons, bone handled knives, lace doilies, linen tablecloths, embroidered napkins, samplers, old china, lace, weathered pages of old books, letters, handkerchiefs, leather gloves. I gathered up these items and to try and maintain dining space on the table I put an old wooden printer’s type face drawer at one end of the table. It gradually filled up. My plan was to place these disparate items together along the length of a chain, possibly with linen as a connecting thread.
However, I became caught up with the linens, cottons and laces associated with the table. The quality of elderly linens so carefully embroidered or crocheted. Such care and patience devoted to items made to last decades, and indeed they have. A time when tablecloths were mandatory, napkins had rings, small lace works with beads hanging from them covered the jugs, and a fine cotton throw was placed over the set table to prevent flies landing on the food. All this I remember, along with aprons, tea cosies, lace doilies, oven mitts, pot stands and the laundering of these items. The rituals around the family table and the labour involved in the detailed creation of table linens became the focus of my attention and memory. Although part of me wanted to pull in other elements waiting in the printer’s drawer, I recognised more power would lie in a single voice.
I pulled apart various napkins and a tablecloth wanting to preserve pieces of them in wax. Wax is used as an airtight plug on the top of preserves and eggs are dipped in wax to preserve them from the air. Wax candles are also associated with table settings.
Starting with beeswax it became apparent that it was too yellow. I purchased bleached beeswax and that proved too white, so a mix of both waxes gave the right scent, colour, and malleability. I had intended to make fabric links, but the waxing process made connecting the links tricky. After talking with Renee Bevan, I decided on using a fine thread, possibly from the linen fabric, and knot the links together. However, it looked clumsy, and the delicacy of the fabrics were lost, so I slowly unpicked it.
During this time while fabrics, scissors, test wax pieces, cotton, linen and silk threads spread themselves over the length of my dining table, there was also a fine metal crochet hook that somehow got in the mix and which I seemed to be constantly moving out of the way. I picked it up yet again and as I was about to put it down, suddenly realised how vital it was. The first thing you learn in crochet is how to make a chain! And of course, a chain was the perfect way to link these textiles. As I had envisioned a length of textile chain most of the fabric pieces were link shaped, so when I first crocheted up a length it looked very odd with tubes of fabric swinging in a jumble. So yet again I undid the work. I carefully unwrapped many of the waxed and sewn links so that they could hang, and their delicate beauty be ignited by light filtering through them.
Finally, a resolution that encompassed the labour, fragility, chain, handwork, and colour pallete I wanted. I settled on jeweller’s silk as my crochet thread as I discovered the linen threads from the fabrics were not strong enough, my own linen thread too thick and the cotton thread too white and not robust enough. It seemed fitting that I make the chain the length of my dining table where it had unfolded and been reworked, 2.50 metres long.
The final iteration.
For me part of the wonder and joy in making is the unexpected twists and turns along the way when you allow the materials to have their say and enjoy the serendipity.