The Kettle work is quite impressive for its scale and how it
works where it hangs. It is not easy to see it in full, you kind of have to
peer from above slightly when you view from the library, or you see it from the
other end of the work, from the café
area. Otherwise you walk past it, as it hangs on the wall, almost as a piece of
wall covering/’wall paper’, and you then only see if very close up as you walk
down a ramp.
There are three samples for people to touch on a small panel
nearby, variously of the courser sewn stitch type, a sample of what looks more
like a piece sewn from a digital rendering of more graphic work and a third in
a finer stitch type. There is a small text panel to describe how and when she
made it, and place it in context. Although there is a suggestion that the work
was partly a community-based project, where people could come and see her work
on it, and there were also suggestions that some contribution had been made by
others, but this was not elaborated on.
While I was in the café/shop
area, I also looked quickly at cards, and got quite excited to see some very
fine cards drawn by Michael Hearld. I had seen his book on Amazon, but here was
a children’s book about nature that was extremely beautiful and charming. I
went straight home and looked up his books in general, and then found a short
video on his work on Youtube: Mark Hearld - An Introduction.
But I digress, the point of the
visit was of course also Grayson Perry and the Walthamstow Tapestry. I watched
his taste programmes on 4OD (In the best possible Taste) earlier this year, and listened to his Reithlectures. He is witty, insightful and has interesting ideas, so seeing a
tapestry of his on important contemporary social issues is a treat. I had to
smile and snigger occasionally at some of the juxtapositions of brand names
against the small vignettes that make up a large part of the piece, it is quite
funny in places. He plays with scale and has covered the whole thing in small
images of people and animals, with the seven ages of man as the large thematic
illustrations running from left to right down the length of the tapestry. He
designed the piece for digital construction on a jacquard loom.
Purist tapestry weavers may
disagree that it is not a tapestry, but he is not interested in that
craft-art debate necessarily, and is more interested in social commentary
and the effect it has in woven textile. In a video interview shown in support
of the display he did refer fleetingly to historical tapestries and their
connotations of luxury, but I read his textile work more as a means for him to
narrate and talk about themes to a large audience, in groups, raising discussion, if needed (I think
his pots are good as well, but they are subtle and difficult to decipher
immediately, whereas large colourful textiles pass on their messages in an
immediate sort of way).
A couple of days later.....
It ended up being a very good day, with interesting things to see and think about, and I continue to carry some of those ideas with me still, a few days later.
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