Sample Book

2006

32cm x 52 cm x 10cm

 

Description

Book covered in 1950s kitchen curtain fabric, black cloth pages

 

A collection of textile pieces and objects

 

Source book and repository for textures, samples and examples.

 

Includes found fabrics and textile related objects from light hearted polka dot patterns, doll’s dresses, souvenirs and haberdashery to examples of exhibition work and exploratory samples.

 

 

Themes, Comments and Storylines

 

Handkerchiefs

Handkerchiefs dry tears of sadness. Two handkerchiefs embroidered with text refer to two different kinds of grief and mourning, private and public, singular and collective. One, Martha’s handkerchief, has been embroidered with the text of a telegram sent in 1944 to her sister serving with the German occupying forces in Norway informing her of her sister’s death in an allied bombing raid. The text, pale and barely legible, disappearing into the thin fabric, the seam unravelling at the edge marked by a single embroidered flower. The other handkerchief with a geometrical white-work pattern, embroidered with a poem by Bertolt Brecht “A memorial for the 4000 who were sunk in Hitler’s war against Norway”, a monument, black strong words stitched as if carved into the white surface.

 

“Clouds over Germany”

21cm x 14 cm

Two oval 1950s doilies depicting Cologne Cathedral. One felted in white, the other in mottled grey wool. Looking like clouds they represent the shadows of the past hovering over post-war Germany, some darker, some gradually lifting.

 

Paper and Cloth

Exploring crossovers between cloth and fabric: a paper kitchen towel hemmed in fabric, the printed pattern traced in red thread. A white paper handkerchief hemmed in white lace, mounted on a red silk handkerchief.