Close to the Skin - Patterns & Petticoats - Snibston CPD

Apart from looking at the collections under my own steam and meeting with my Mentors Barber-Swindells, I was also able to select items from the Collections Resource Centre. I was keen to look at old shift patterns and the some of the petticoats that were supported by hoops or worn under / over the bottle cages. Sarah Nicol, Inspiring Collections Officer, Leicestershire County Council, Communities and Wellbeing was a wonderful guide through my chosen items and we had a wonderful time talking about the items she had brought to show me.

 

I was very taken with the layout instructions and have a feeling I'll be coming back to these in the near future, especially as I have a whole box of vintage Vogue patterns stashed away! As I don't have the figure for couture or faith in my pattern following abilities these elements these may just become part an image but there is something very tempting about these maps of the body.

I found the shapes, crumples and wrinkles fascinating and was very drawn to the colours an textures of the old cloth. There was something playful, joyful about the swing and swish these petticoats create when in motion. I was amazed at the many variations on a theme, I thought about the restriction, freedom and support these garments brought to the wearer and even though they had lost their crisp newness they still whispered of display and attraction, dance and drudgery.

It is hard to imagine just what this metal clasp 

must have felt like next to the skin

the metalwork and the rusting hoops were 

a strange reminder of the male and female.

There was also something very moving about the signs of wear and tear. The patches, darns and repairs encased beneath skirts, the bottle cages, bustles and padding all hidden extensions of the body. Shape shifters.

Then there was the surprising, joyous red flannel, offering protection from the cold but it was also believed that the colour itself offered protection from disease and could be used to draw out inflammation.

 

It is quite bewildering to think about the amount of time it must have taken to dress and curious that many items of clothing were either there to enhance shape or protect the fabric from the body.

I was only able to make the visit to view my chosen items two days before my proposal was due to be completed and I had to write something to send to Claire and Steve the day before this visit was to take place. I didn't feel ready, nothing was flowing and to compound my anxiety, my partner took a tumble down the stairs and had to be rushed to A&E. Thankfully he hadn't broken his shoulder, just partially dislocated it, but seeing him lying in a grey, forlorn heap at the foot of the stairs did fracture my powers of thought! Whilst trying to get my thoughts in order, I felt compelled to experiment with the notions of soft (wadding, fabric) and hard (machine stitches) as a way of sorting out the jumble of seams, shifts and pattern pieces living in my head! 

I enjoyed the raw edges and the flyaway threads, but I think Claire and Steve were a bit bemused by my strange samples and having seen their meticulous work, I'm not surprised!

However there are just some times when it's important  to follow your own processes and ways of working, these samples are fragments of thought, beginnings not finished ideas.

Growth and Connections - Some Thoughts

Snibston Visit One - Part Two

Growth and nourishment are vital to life and creativity

Cabbages growing outside Barber-Swindells 

When studying English at school we had to read a story, The Wharf by Walter De La Mare which has often come back to me in later life, particularly when seeing vegetation (plants or weeds) sprouting out of the most unlikely places. In the story a young mother is sent to a farm to convalesce, it sounds as though she has had a breakdown, her nerves are in a very fragile state and the world has become a terrifying place. She hasn't been sleeping, her appetite has vanished, she can't connect with the joy and brightness of her own child. This is the only quotation I could find for the story

"Confronting her, farther down the wharf, and moored to it by a thick rope, floated on the river a huge and empty barge. There was a wrapped figure stooping there, where the sweeps jut out, as if in profound Sleep. And above the barge, on the wharf itself, lay a vague irregular mass of what had apparently come out of the barge. It was at the spectacle of the mere shape of this foul mass, it seemed, that she had begun to be afraid. It would have horrified her even if she had been alone in the solitude of the wharf"

From what I recall, the "foul mass" is a large pile of horse manure and it seems to conjure up all of her fears about mortality and death. I can't remember the entire plot but what stayed with me most vividly was her reinterpretation of the spoil heap towards the end of the story. With the arrival of spring she notices that flowers (weeds?) are starting to grow on top of the heap and the Farmer explains the part  the manure plays in the cycle of life and fertility. She is able to look at the world differently, she is able to go home and resume her life.

Things decay but out of decay new life is possible.

I was struck by the message on the front of the crumbling milk float

As part of his Residency Paul Conneally created a piece called Three Jars of Coal Dust Jelly as part of his Spoilheap Harvest which again made me think of this quotation, particularly relevant today

"The art of our necessities is strange,

That can make vile things precious."

King Lear, Act 3, Scene 2

 Walking round the scrap yard at Snibston it was

possible to identify much poignancy, beauty in decay. 

How can I use this to create something new?

Possibly by making connections 

between the literal and the abstract

Site intervention - Judo Belts - Steve Swindells

Snibston CPD Bursary

On the 23rd of September I attended a fascinating series of presentations at Snibston Discovery Centre by artists involved in Transform. It was an opportunity to see the outcomes of the first four Residencies 

• Geoff Broadway: LifeCycle – Future and Dreams
• Jo Dacombe: Snibston Myth Maps Project
• Brendan Jackson: Unearthing Stories
• Paul Conneally: Spoil Heap Harvest

and to hear from the artist pairings Claire Barber / Steve Swindells, Andy McKeown / Peter Walker and Shanaz Gulzar / Steve Manthorp, the day was hosted by the project's lead artist Maurice Maguire. Apart from seeing and hearing about inspiring projects, it was also an opportunity for the artists in the audience to meet with one or more of the pairings and to start to formulate ideas that might lead to securing a Transform CPD Bursary.

Each artist pairing had much to offer and were working in ways that interested me so, as usual, I found it hard to choose, I did manage to have a conversation with each couple and a mad dash around part of the Discovery Centre as well.

Not only are there many traces of the site's industrial heritage but there is also a fabulous Fashion Collection with garments made, sold or worn in Leicestershire. Although I don't have a body built for fashion, I've always had a passion for it, so this collection was an added bonus. 

It also helped me formulate an idea for my Bursary proposal and I'm delighted to say that my application was successful. I will be spending some time with Claire Barber and Steve Swindells during their Mining Couture Residency, will have access (within reason) to artefacts in the collections and a chance to explore my idea further. This will be research rather than making, but who knows where it might lead me!