2018 12 01 Embroidery Magazine

January February 2018
THE TEXTILE ART MAGAZINE £6.50
Life in the
fast lane
Pauline Nijenhuis tackles
our technological world
A way
with words
SARA IMPEY
Jordan Nassar’s new
take on traditional PLUS…
hand embroidery Diana Harrison
Helen Banzhaf
01 Julie Heaton
9 771477 372037
Celia Pym
NunoZokuScarves
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2 EMBROIDERY January February 2019
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from the editor 22
Every edition of Embroidery is a joy
to work on but this issue proved even
more exciting than most. Firstly it’s
been a real pleasure to bring together
such a divergent group of artists. We
take pains to cover a wide range of
textile and mixed media practice in
our pages but as a new year begins, it
feels timely to highlight work by artists
who enjoy the expressive potential
of embroidery. As the innovator and
educator Constance Howard said
back in 1973 (in our extract from the
Embroidery archive on p66): ‘Stitches
and textures without purpose become
boring’. So in this issue I really wanted
to present a range of approaches –
from the hand embroidery of Jordan
Nassar and Pauline Nijenhuis to the
free-machine stitch of Julie Heaton
and Helen Banzhaf to the art quilts of
Sara Impey and the multidisciplinary
approach of Diana Harrison. Each of 28
them has drawn upon life experiences
and they have much to say between
them: I hope you enjoy reading about
our artists as much as we have. Finally
I’d like to wish all of our
readers a Happy New
Year. We hope that
2019 is your year.
EDITOR
Embroidery magazine
OUR COVER this month shows a detail of Fast Landscape

Airway by Pauline Nijenhuis, 2015. 150 x 100cm. Acrylic
and thread on untreated canvas.
PHOTOGRAPHY: IVONNE ZIJP
EDITOR SUBSCRIPTIONS DEADLINES

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4 EMBROIDERY November December 2018

contents
16 28 12
48
46 34
January 2019
front features reviews
REGULARS 16 LIFE IN THE FAST LANE COURSES
07 EMBROIDERY loves Pauline Nijenhuis explores the demands of 12 Celia Pym at Hope & Elvis
08 News modern urban life through embroidery BOOKS
09 Diary 22 DRAWN TO THREAD 52 The latest textile titles
10 Subscribe! After tragedy struck, Julie Heaton took to
11 Reader Showcase
EXHIBITIONS
drawing not with paper but with thread
using free-machine embroidery 54 Suffrage, Wales
15 Liberty: History of a brand
55 Anni Albers, London
PREVIEWS 28 JUST MY TYPE 56 The Most Real Thing,
14 Scottish Samplers Former journalist Sara Impey invented Salisbury
a unique outlet for her love of language 57 Walking the Line, Wales
34 ART & SOUL WHAT’S ON
40 New Yorker Jordan Nassar draws upon
the embroidery of his Palestinian ancestors
58 Exhibition listings
to ask questions about love and life THE LAST WORD

66 From the archive:
40 ZEST FOR LIFE Constance Howard
Helen Banzhaf came to textiles after
careers in fashion and design and is now
known for her distinctive embroidery
46 BACK TO BLACK
We profile pioneer Diana Harrison, who
has exhibited internationally since her
graduation from the RCA in 1973
January February 2019 EMBROIDERY 5

TATE MODERN
11 OC T 2018 – 27 JAN 2019
ANNI
ALBERS
An artist who changed weaving.
A weaver who changed art.
© 2018 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/DACS, London
Anni Albers Ancient Writing 1936 (detail) Smithsonian American Art Museum. Gift of John Young
T H E E YA L O F E R G A L L E R I E S
Supported by
With additional support from the Anni Albers

Exhibition Supporters Circle and Tate Patrons
Media partner
EMBROIDERY loves...
Zarina Bhimji,
1/2d., white.
Hand embroidery, TATE BRITAIN’S NEW DISPLAYS include a major installation by Zarina Bhimji.
appliqué edged Consisting of over 100 unframed photographs and multiple embroideries, Lead
with coloured White is a meditation on power and beauty, and the culmination of a decade-
silks, on cotton long investigation into national archives over multiple continents.
©ZARINA BHIMJI 2018
Bhimji captures details of words, lines, stamps and embossing, excavating
these details in order to explore what archives do, how they categorise and
how they reveal institutional ideologies. The work also combines digital and
physical crafts – including the use of embroidery for the first time.
Zarina Bhimji was born in Uganda and lives and works in London. She was
nominated for the Turner Prize in 2007, exhibited at Documenta 11 in 2002,
and is represented in numerous public collections including Tate, the Museum
of Contemporary Art in Chicago and Moderna Museet in Stockholm.
Zarina Bhimji: Lead White at Tate Britain until 2 June 2019

NEWS
‘My linen collages are inspired by

places I have seen on my travels
in the UK and Ireland, and from Caroline Broadhead, detail of Incomplete Image. Beading, thread
memories of farms we visited when
I was a child. Each collage is made ReFRAME
by stitching together small lino cuts The exhibition ReFrame brings together mother and daughter award-
printed on Irish linen. I enjoy using winning artists Caroline Broadhead and Maisie Broadhead. Working
the different colours, weights and independently, they’ve made new works in response to historic
representations of femininity in paintings at Manchester Art Gallery.
textures of the linen… I can use
The new works focus on how the pictorial conventions of such
different stitches and colours of paintings and their elaborate frames affect our perceptions of the
thread to enhance the image.’ women depicted. Their aim is to provoke a dialogue about past and
present, content and surroundings and to interrogate representations
Gail Kelly’s solo exhibition is at of women and the portrayal of ‘women’s work’.
Leeds Craft Centre from
2 February-22 June 2019 ReFrame is on show at Manchester Art Gallery until 20 January
craftcentreleeds.co.uk manchesterartgallery.org
A SURREAL EXPERIENCE
Dorothea Tanning (1910–2012), one of the most exciting female
exponents of Surrealism, explored a range of media during her 70-
year career, from the enigmatic self-portraiture of her early years to
the soft sculpture she pioneered in the 1960s, including the ground-
breaking room-sized installation Hôtel du Pavot, Chambre 202, which
featured contorted and intertwined textile bodies. Tate Modern
opens a retrospective of her career in February, which promises
to be an intriguing look at this important artist.
Dorothea Tanning,Tate Modern 27 February-9 June
tate.org.uk

january
Home Work DIARY
‘The Embroidered Home’ is the
2
latest exhibition staged at the Royal
Anni Albers, Eclat 1974
School of Needlework and reflects Another thought-provoking textile
how homes have historically been show at Ruthin Craft Centre:
Indian Threads features Eleri Mills
decorated with embroidery. and Julia Griffiths Jones amongst
Taking examples from the RSN’s Eleri Mills others. Closes 27 January.
collection, the exhibits are worked ruthincraftcentre.org.uk
in a variety of techniques and display
items include bedspreads, sheets,
10
tablecloths, cushion covers and fire
screens, as well as smaller items such
as letter holders and tablemats from
the 19th and 20th centuries.
We’d say Tate Modern has done a pretty
11
Tours start from £16 per person and fine job with Anni Albers. There’s still
the exhibition runs until August 2019
14
time to see it before it closes 27 January.
royal-needlework.org.uk tate.orguk
19
18 Cecil Beaton’s
Royal portrait of
Princess Margaret
on her 21st birthday
2
Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams
Catch the exhibition of Jilly traces the impact of one of the 20th
Edwards’ woven tapestries century’s most influential couturiers.
inspired by glimpses and
memories of journeys from 10 Opens 2 February at the V&A.
vam.ac.uk
19 January-17 March at the
NCCD in Sleaford.
nccd.org.uk 15 The 15th edition of COLLECT,
the Crafts Council’s event for
collectors opens 28 February-3
March at the Saatchi Gallery.
The Adoration of the
Magi tapestry, 1894
craftscouncil.org.uk
Detail of an embroidered fire screen
24
The Textile East Fair takes place
for the third consecutive year
at Swavesey Village College in
Cambridgeshire on 22-23 February. 22
Traders include Art Van Go,
Mulberry Silks, The African Fabric Pre-Raphaelite Edward Burne-Jones
Shop and many others, as well as brought imaginary worlds to life
28
two textile exhibitions, including in awe-inspiring paintings, stained
work from the East Anglian based glass and tapestries – all on show at
textile group Tin Hut Textiles. Tate Britain until 24 February. Katharine Swales Glyphs &
tate.org.uk Loops. Hand woven tapestry
textileseastfair.wordpress.com
DIARY: ANNI ALBERS ©2018 THE JOSEF & ANNI ALBERS FOUNDATION AND
KNOLL TEXTILE. DIOR ©VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON. EDWARD
BURNE-JONES MMU SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
february
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READER
about Our readers are a talented
you bunch and we love to share

their work with the wider world
BONNIE PETERSON turned to embroidery as a means of

highlighting cultural and environmental issues. Combining a
variety of sources – from scientific data to early explorer’s
journals – Bonnie presents her findings as large, narrative wall
hangings, with words and phrases stitched prominently on
velvets and silks. ‘I find it tremendously rewarding to learn
about new scientific discoveries. Recent projects organised
by universities in Arizona and Wisconsin delved into fire
ecology, inland lake science and climate change. They
provided the basis for my series of environmental works
and are the inspiration for future work in this series.’
bonniepeterson.com
Bonnie Peterson,
On the Nature of Fire (detail)
Cecilia Ajayi (front), A Galaxy Far Away,

Deep Sea Ocean and (rear) Galaxy
From a young age CECILIA AJAYI fell in love with

the textures and shapes she found in textiles. Despite
specialising in knitwear design at Brighton University,
Cecilia turned to embroidery, describing it as her ‘true
calling’ and is currently focussed on hand crafting beaded
pieces. She loves to design three-dimensional artworks
with the emphasis on colour play and abstract shapes, even
when tackling portraits. She already has an online shop and
plans for more works are in the pipeline.
celiajayi.com
Rosie Ellen Hickman, Trace (detail)

Working with found objects allows JEN CABLE
to weave imaginary stories with her stitches.
Since childhood Jen has been fascinated by fairy
tales, and the ideas they convey
around morality and ‘the
ideas, customs, and social
behaviour of different
cultures and times’. Today
she is directly inspired
by her travels, personal
observations and the media,
all of which spark her curiosity
surrounding views
of acceptable conduct.
jencableart.weebly.com
You can’t help but be drawn in by ROSIE ELLEN

HICKMAN’S embroidered artefacts in miniature. Her
‘Trace’ collection is inspired by a collection of letters, and
draws upon the themes of nostalgia, sentimentality and
attachment. Rosie graduated last year from Falmouth
Jen Cable,
Come live with me
University with a BA in Textile Design, and is a keen hand
and be my love. embroiderer, using stitches to create intimate tactile
Silver birch, objects on a small scale.
embroidery thread.
28 x 21 x 3cm rosieellenhickman.com

COURSES
hole hearted
Discover the delights of emotional repair
I
’m in a flap. I’ve signed up for traditional techniques, what we are perfect technique but mending as
one of Celia Pym’s mending looking at is expressive mending as a means of expression and personal
workshops at Hope & Elvis, only a way of preserving ‘precious cloth – creative choice.
I’ve joined the knit day instead of cloth that holds some memory’. She then demonstrates the patching,
the sewing day. Help. I can’t knit… ‘Wear is such a drawn-out process,’ reinforcing and darning techniques
A quick phone call to Louise Asher at she explains. ‘Time is visible in a she’d like us to try, using running
H&E and I’m back on the right track. person’s clothing, and repairing it stitch throughout. Materials are
Let’s hope I fair better with darning – is essentially about preserving a provided so we begin by creating a
not something I’ve tried before. relationship.’ sampler. It soon becomes evident that
Maybe it’s the resurgence of make- The idea is that your stitches become patching and reinforcing are fairly
do-and mend, or perhaps the ever- an addition to the cloth and aren’t quick mends but woven darning is
quickening pace of fast fashion, hidden as in traditional mending much slower as you must lay the
whatever the tipping point, darning where you want the repair to be warp threads across the damaged
has made a comeback in the last invisible. Celia holds up a checked area and weave between them.
decade. And not just as a practical shirt3 that has a long vivid blue repair In the afternoon, Celia offers another
antidote to moth-eaten sweaters but down its back – the beautiful woven demonstration, looking at the
as art. The artist Celia Pym1 was one stitches underline her point: this old possibilities of working with denim.
of the few textile nominees for last shirt has a value beyond its material She begins unpicking a pair of Levis,
year’s Woman’s Hour Craft Prize and worth. explaining how the worn fabric has
the LOEWE Craft Prize 2017. I first saw She continues: ‘Repair is less about a a softness that’s perfect for patching.
her work in Cloth and Memory{2} in shortage of material or poverty: you By now we’re encouraged to start
20132. In contrast to the exhibition’s can replace things very cheaply these mending our own items and as we
monumental artworks, Celia’s small days on the high street.’ Instead we’re stitch, Celia gives a talk about her
woolly jumper caught my attention. here to ‘explore textile repair, how work, outlining some of the themes
Its shape was contorted by hand you do it and why you do it’. We’ve and projects she’s worked on.
darning, and not the invisible kind our been asked to bring along damaged By the end of the day I have a good
grandmothers were taught. The mend items to work with, so we begin grasp of the darning techniques, as
was obvious, messy and every bit by introducing ourselves and our well as lots of inspiration to think
visible. Its power lay in the questions treasures, which range from a much- about, from Boro textiles to the quilts
it provoked. What was the story loved childhood fox with a worn ear of Gees Bend. But more than this,
behind this almost-obsessive repair? to all manner of clothing, each one it’s been fascinating to think about
On the morning of the workshop, accompanied by a story or anecdote. what might motivate an act of visible
15 of us gather around a long table Celia listens carefully, making mending. As Celia says: ‘Clothing is
peering eagerly at examples of Celia’s suggestions and using examples of so personal and the act of repairing
work. She’s been exploring textile her own work to demonstrate how is the smallest gesture loaded with
repair since 2007 but this is darning a repair might look. She emphasises such love.’ e
with a difference. Although she uses that the course is not about learning Jo Hall
MENDING WITH
CELIA PYM
WHEN 16 September 2018
WHERE Hope & Elvis, Harley
Foundation Studios, Welbeck, Notts
COST £75 inc lunch & materials
BRING An item for repair
TOOLS Fiscars embroidery scissors.
Clover Sashico needles (long type)
or John James long darners.
DMC embroidery threads.
INSPIRATION The Quilts of Gees
Bend, Boro textiles, Kantha quilts
hopeandelvis.com
celiapym.com
1 Profile Embroidery Jan/Feb 2017. 2 Celia Pym, Stop Looking Like a

Sweater. 142 x 65 x 5cm. Cloth and Memory {2}, Salts Mill 2013.
3 Rik’s Shirt, 2010. Owner’s shirt and cotton embroidery, 68 x 57cm

Opposite: A working sampler.
This page: Examples of darning repairs
by Celia (top row) and stitchers on the
workshop

PREVIEW
Sewing
Stories
When little Margaret Eiston finished her
sampler in March 1810, it would have been a
valuable document of the Scottish lassie’s ability
with a needle but regarded as little else.
To its current owner, the American collector Leslie
B Durst, whose collection of 18th and 19th century
Scottish samplers is on show in Edinburgh, it
reveals much more: ‘This exhibition isn’t just about
needlework, it is about the fabric of life in 18th and
early 19th century Scotland. Made by girls often
from fairly modest backgrounds, samplers give
us an alternative view of Scottish history, one that
does not appear in the history books. They are
therefore an invaluable and fascinating slice of
Scottish social history.’
Made by hand during their formative years,
samplers record the things most dear to their
young makers, and often these are the only
records of lives that would otherwise be forgotten.
The now-ruined Dalquharran Castle in South
Ayrshire appears centre stage in Margaret’s
sampler and Leslie’s detective work into Church
and census records reveals that Margaret’s father
was a mason in Ayr and may well have worked for
the castle’s designer, Robert Adam.
The 70 samplers in the exhibition hail from all
over Scotland, with examples on show from the
main cities but also from the Western Highlands
to the Orkney Islands, and even an émigré Scots
family in upstate New York. The exhibition is also Above: Sampler by Margaret Eiston, 1810
accompanied by a book and a programme of L-R: The arms of the Flesher’s company appear in
talks and events. e the sampler of Mary Hay, 1813, a daughter of an
Edinburgh flesher (butcher)
A sampler begun by Jane Hannah of Garlieston has
Embroidered Stories: Scottish Samplers is on show this touching addition by her friend: ‘Finished by Jane
at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh Murray... The above. Lies sleeping in the tomb’, 1811
until 21 April 2019 Anne Raffan’s sampler of 1789 shows her siblings’
baptism dates. In 1792, aged 23, she added the date
nms.ac.uk/samplers of her own marriage

DESIGN
LIBERTY HISTORY OF A BRAND

The distinctive textiles and exotic wares of this 143-year-old British
institution have kept it at the forefront of fashion and retails
OSCAR WILDE DESCRIBED LIBERTY as the store opened he began importing raw silk, which L-R: Cocktail dress by the
‘chosen resort of the artistic shopper’ an adage he had blockprinted in the style of oriental fabrics. American designer Arnold Scaasi
(1961) in Eustacia Liberty fabric
that remains true to this day. He marked these fabrics ‘Made in England’ and a
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: ©ERNESTINE CARTER ARCHIVE, FASHION MUSEUM, BATH AND NORTH EAST SOMERSET COUNCIL; ©LIBERTY LONDON COURTESY
Silk and satin kaftan (1960) with

The store was the highly original vision of Arthur British brand was born.
FASHION & TEXTILE MUSEUM; OTHER IMAGES ©LIBERTY LONDON/COURTESY LIBERTY LONDON, EXCEPT EUSTACIA (FAR RIGHT) ©LIBERTY FABRIC LIMITED
embroidery
Lasenby Liberty (1843-1917) whose plan for an In 1904 the company took over a print works
Liberty silk kimonos and capes
eastern bazaar, packed with exotic wonders from not far from William Morris’ works in Merton that 1860s-1930s
across the world, would not only transform the specialised in block-printed silks. He also worked Below: The Liberty & Co
look of homewares but fashion too. with Thomas Wardle, a dyer and printer in Leek, department store in Regent Street,
Arthur opened his first store at 218a Regent who also worked for William Morris. Between London c1925
Street in May 1875 with just three dedicated staff them, Liberty and Wardle introduced dyes in Eustacia print produced at Liberty
& Co Ltd Merton print works, 1960
and bags of ambition (the current store on Great delicate pastel shades, which had previously been
Marlborough Street followed in 1924). Within a closely guarded secret of the East. These were
two years, the venture was a success, allowing named ‘Art Colours’, and they subsequently
him to buy up neighbouring properties and became known all over the world as ‘Liberty
expand his ambitions. colours’. Later on, the 1920s saw the introduction
From the beginning Arthur imported antiques, of Liberty’s Tana Lawn, which soon became the
rugs, jewellery, ceramics and embroideries from store’s bestselling fabric.
the near and far east, which proved popular Today Liberty maintains a large and historic textile
among a clientele intoxicated by all things oriental. archive comprising more than 45,000 original
This in turn influenced fashion, and Liberty designs. The in-house design studio remains at the
became a key player in fashion movements from core of all that Liberty does, with designers hand
Orientalism in the 19th century, through Art painting and creating its prints. They draw upon
Nouveau and Art Deco in the early 20th century, the archive’s original designs and still produce new
and the revival of these styles since the 1950s. collections each year, which sell around the world.
Partly this was due to Arthur’s collaboration with Arthur’s eminent store also remains a destination
influencers such as the architect and designer with discerning shoppers for its artistic and eclectic
Edward William Godwin (1833-1886) with whom range of homewares, fashion and famous fabrics.
he created the costume department complete An exhibition highlighting the unique history of
with in-house fashions to rival those of Paris. As Liberty fabrics and their impact on fashion since
a royal warrant holder, Liberty also forged strong 1875 is currently on show in Edinburgh, telling the
relationships with many British designers. story of how Liberty brought art to life through its
From the beginning Arthur also produced textiles unique textiles. e
under the Liberty name. Almost as soon as his Jo Hall
Liberty Art Fabrics & Fashion is on show at Dovecot Studios until 12 January
dovecotstudios.com

PROFILE
LIFE IN THE FAST LANE

Netherlands-based multi-media artist Pauline Nijenhuis embroiders works
that contemplate the demands of modern life, in particular the intersection
between humanity and the technologicially driven environment
Pauline, Nijenhuis, Fast Landscape

Fast World, 2013. 80 x 140cm.
Acrylic and thread on untreated
canvas. Hand embroidery
PHOTOGRAPHY: IVONNE ZIJP

T
he overriding narrative of much faster but the resulting physical strain and ‘MY WORKS ARE
of Pauline Nijenhuis’ work is the stress of doing so were sobering. The subtle HALF PAINTING AND
fast pace of our technologically degradation visible in the four works is HALF EMBROIDERY. . .
driven world. But when you look tangible evidence of her embroiderer’s I WORK LIKE A
at her work from a slightly different angle dilemma. In some ways though, the
PAINTER, ALWAYS
as it were, there are plenty of questions experiment worked ‘Coming back to
THINKING OF THE
being asked of that narrative. Pauline is embroidery after that project I found the
interested in what might be missed when slowness liberating. I got into the flow of
COMPOSITION AND
we live at such an accelerated pace. She it and became lost to time. And it was
HOW THE PAINT
uses her work to explore rather than more creative. Whereas working under WILL WORK WITH
answer questions about the human time pressure, I’d known to the minute THE EMBROIDERY’
condition when it is up against the ubiquity what time it was.’
of technology and the coming of artificial The look, the lure and the landscape of
intelligence – and what the latter might the modern city runs throughout Pauline’s
mean for the former. work. It wasn’t always so. When she moved
There is, of course, some contradiction in a to Zutphen, a small historical city amidst
mixed media artist (she prefers the term) rural surroundings in the mid-Netherlands
who works with paint and embroidery in 2007, her fascination with the Rotterdam
making speed the leitmotif in her work. cityscapes she had left behind increased:
It’s something Pauline is well aware of and ‘When I lived in the city I painted forests
has examined, particularly in her project and nature. I think because they were
Fast Work, Time Consuming Landscape, far away and I could look at them more
where she challenged herself to make four impartially. I could study them. Now when
identical pieces of work, each made in ever I go to the airport or on highways it is a
decreasing amounts of time. So the fourth new world, a new landscape for me.’
work was completed in 45 per cent less In Zutphen she also discovered embroidery
time than the first. ‘I wanted to see if I could as a means of artistic expression. In 2009
work faster, perhaps even as fast as a smart the Stedelijk Museum in Zutphen ran a
computer. My question was: is there still competition to paint the local river ‘At Above, left: Fast Landscape Ghost
room for hand embroidery in the future? first I was going to paint it but I thought Tunnel, 2013. 55 x 55cm. Acrylic
Or in general, work made by hand?’ Pauline the softness of the landscape needed paint and thread on untreated
linen. Hand embroidery
kept a logbook of the pro ect, made films something else.’ And so she completed
and recorded public reactions to it when her first embroidery. Right: Fast Landscape Airway, 2015.
it was shown at the Cityscapes Gallery in Pauline originally studied graphics and 150 x 100cm. Acrylic paint and
thread on untreated canvas (and
Amsterdam in 2017. illustration, and then painted for years. detail above, right)
Pauline found she could indeed work She now works with acrylic paint and 2 PHOTOGRAPHY: IVONNE ZIJP

embroidery on linen, approaching both with also an amateur dancer is her perhaps
a painter’s eye: ‘My works are half painting her personal escape from the pace of
and half embroidery. I start with the painting, progress. She relishes the opportunity
leaving the spaces that will be embroidered dance represents to embrace physicality
empty. I work like a painter, always thinking and centre herself in her body. Dance as
of the composition and how the paint will a liberation of the mind and body from
work with the embroidery.’ our over-reliance on technology. And
The surfaces of Pauline’s work repay close dance as answer to and a release from
inspection, full of textures and lines and the slow concentration and different
details. She wields paint in such a way that physical demands of working at
it leaves textures on the canvas, so it can embroidery for a living.
be hard to work out exactly what is paint As well as participating in two group
and what is thread. Her works are large – exhibitions in the Netherlands at the end
Fast Landscape Airway is 150 x 100cm, and of 2018 (at the Museum de Kantfabriek, Above: Pauline Nijenhuis
a new black and white series of four works Horst and Apeldoorn Center for
called Speed Buildings are all 76 x 100cm. Contemporary Culture, Apeldoorn) Right: Fast Landscape Fata
Morgana, 2017. 80 x 120cm.
They take an average of six months to Pauline has been having ideas about further Acrylic paint and thread
complete. explorations around technology. She’d on untreated canvas
Pauline’s connection to the landscape is like to explore working with scientists or Below from left:
initiated through her camera. She uses philosophers, to understand a world that Installation, Fast Work,
photography to catch images from the car, is becoming more about technology and Time Consuming Landscape,
2017 (100, 85, 70 and 55 per
a process very evident in her series called less about humanity: ‘Technology develops cent). Pauline produced the
‘Fast Landscapes’. Her photography used to very quickly but our brains don’t, and we’re first work on the far left,
consist of a few images with a lot of thought getting behind. We can’t keep up with the then set about recreating
it, reducing the stitching
about the composition, she says. Now she daily barrage of information. So I’d like time incrementally,
takes hundreds of pictures and only later to investigate what scientists say about producing the last work
looks at them in detail, also looking for these things. I want to know about other in almost half the time of
the first.
‘unidentified flying ob ects’ within the images, perspectives on the sub ect.’ PHOTOGRAPHY: IVONNE ZIJP
things that wouldn’t have been spotted by And in a pulling together of the elements
the naked eye. ‘Through my photographs I of art, craft, technology, performance and paulinenijenhuis.com
see new things, beautiful things that I didn’t science that have appeared in her work
see before. Fleeting images – when I look so far, she wants to investigate the space
back at them I see things I didn’t spot before where woman (and man) meets machine,
and I like to translate that into my work.’ particularly in relation to embroidery. ‘I want
She often includes ‘unseen’ details in her to explore the difference between human
work, such as a car, birds flying. As she says, and machine embroidery. I want to find a
we have so much information coming at us robot who can be challenged to do what
via our mobiles, computers and television humans do when they embroiderer. Me, and
that we miss details and often don’t pause other embroiderers, against the robot.’ e
to take in everything. The fact that Pauline is Jane Audas

Julie Heaton, The Bristol 2 Litre Engine
93 x 93cm (and detail, opposite), 2014.
Free-machine embroidery

PROFILE
DRAWN TOTHREAD
When a family tragedy struck, Julie Heaton took to the
sewing machine, discovering strength and beauty in stitching
challenging realist works on dissolvable fabric
J
ulie Heaton is reluctant to call herself an embroiderer. Not because
she considers the term beneath her but rather the opposite: ‘I don’t
think I deserve the title of embroiderer as I’m not highly trained but
self-taught. And I feel that embroidery should be perfect but mine is full
of flaws,’ she says modestly. She also struggles to call herself an artist
but, in spite of this lack of confidence, Julie had a very successful year in
2018, with her piece The Bristol 2 Litre Engine (2014) selected for the Royal
Academy’s Summer Exhibition.
The creative journey that took Julie to the RA show has been tortuous,
both emotionally and artistically. A midwife and mother of two, it was
only in 2008 that she decided to take up art, signing up to a foundation
course before doing a Creative Arts degree at Bath University. Tragically
during this period her husband Carl took his own life and the resulting
emotional turmoil made finding her creative way extremely difficult.
Initially Julie wasn’t drawn to textiles and tried various media. She
experimented with drawing and when she came across a box of Carl’s
possessions decided to make some pencil sketches. She showed the
results to a tutor who bluntly suggested she tried another medium. ‘It
was like a red rag to a bull,’ says Julie, ‘so I decided to try and draw with
my sewing machine and make something that couldn’t be corrected.
I love my sewing machine, it’s like my comfort blanket’. She chose to 2

Left: A Couple On The Tube,
2018. 68 x 75cm.
PHOTO: GOULD PHOTOGRAPHY
Right: We Should Smile

More… 2012. 12 x 19cm
PHOTO: JULIE HEATON
stitch Carl’s camera (We Should Smile More, 2012), an item of huge ‘I decided to try and
emotional significance, in black stitch on calico and it was much draw with my sewing
more successful than the drawings on paper.
She showed the results to her tutors again and their now positive
machine and make
reactions encouraged her to continue. Following her instinct, Julie something that couldn’t
embroidered the whole camera in stitch but, instead of sewing be corrected. I love my
it onto calico, she worked on a dissolvable fabric: ‘It was a bid to sewing machine, it’s like
push the idea about not being able to make corrections further.’ my comfort blanket’
When the embroidery was complete, she washed the ground
away and was left with an image of the camera entirely made
from stitch. ‘The threads moved around when the ground was
dissolved and it had a wonderful organic feel to it. I had tried
so hard to make the drawing accurate but now something else
had happened to the work and I just loved it’, she recalls.
The finished piece won the Bristol Scholarship Award for
Students and this gave Julie the boost required to continue
working with this combination of stitch and dissolvable fabric.
It was a technique that seemed a perfect metaphor for her life.
‘I would obsess with getting the drawing right and then wash it,
and all the stitches would move and all the flaws would show. It
was like all the things I was trying to control and get right in my
life made me see that I have to accept that things can’t be perfect
even though we might strive for it.’
After the camera, Julie worked on more of Carl’s tools. ‘I did them
because they were his and I had now learnt how to use them’, she
explains. The Bristol 2 Litre Engine followed on from these, the piece
representing another skill she had to learn as a widow. It also
refers back to her childhood – her father drove buses with Bristol
engines and the Bristol logo was a strong childhood memory.
Julie admits that engines are not traditionally associated with
embroidery, but it this combination of unexpected subject matter
and highly detailed stitching that makes her work so intriguing.
Julie won an Outstanding Student Award for The Bristol 2 Litre
Engine at her degree show, a prize which kickstarted her textiles
career. She was invited to join the textile collective Seam and her
work was exhibited at New Designers, Art in Action and at the
National Trust House Newark Park.
‘I couldn’t quite believe that it had all happened and was worried
that I wasn’t creative enough but just had an interesting process,’
says Julie. However her confidence grew as she came to terms 2

with her approach, which allowed her to put subject matter, ‘The subject matter is
rather than technical skill or decorative content, at the heart really important to me –
of her practice. ‘The subject matter is really important to
I really have to believe
me – I really have to believe in what I am drawing’ she says.
This approach can be seen in 4032 (2014).This extraordinary piece
in what I am drawing’
is all about absence and takes the form of a ghostly dress made of
Japanese Gampi tissue paper. The delicate material is scarred with
a zig-zag running from head to toe, which represents the possible
route her husband took on the day he died. The line was scorched
onto the tissue and the resulting gash worked over with embroidery.
‘I repaired the damage with embroidery as I was trying to make
something look beautiful when what had happened was not.’
Her most recent piece is A Couple on the Tube (2018), a double
portrait of an elderly couple she spotted on a London Underground
train. ‘I was fascinated by them and wondered what they were
thinking as they didn’t talk and didn’t move. I didn’t know what
was going on in Carl’s mind either.’ As well as being intrigued
by their relationship, Julie felt the subject matter was an ideal
opportunity for her to practice drawing people, something she had
been interested in doing since her university days. She gradually
worked out a technique that allowed her to build up the details
in layers, blending the colours and using the threads in an almost
painterly manner. ‘It was a massive challenge,’ she says, but her
hard work paid off as the embroidery is disturbingly life-like and
quietly moving, with the anonymous couple seeming to symbolise
something of the alienation of city life.
For the moment Julie still works part time as a midwife, but hopes
to study an MA in textiles. She is a highly courageous maker who
has pursued a challenging technique to create unexpected and
often emotionally charged works as an embroiderer and an artist Above: Stewart Box, 2016.
– descriptions she more than deserves. e 30.5 x 18cm
PHOTO: JULIE HEATON
Diana Woolf
Right: A Bar of Drinking Chocolate,
2016. 12 x 25cm
julieheaton.com PHOTO: PHOTOGRAPHIQUE

PROFILE
Just my
type
Former newspaper
journalist Sara Impey
found a unique
outlet for her love
of the written word
in her machine
stitched art quilts,
which often reveal
a compelling
narrative
TEXTILE ARTIST SARA IMPEY makes she was 17. ‘It was the first quilt I made and
intriguing quilts densely embroidered with was just made out of hexagons.’ After Oxford
lettering, which beg the question: which Sara worked as a journalist for
came first, the text or the textile? Like The Times, ending up on its parliamentary staff
the age-old problem with the chicken and in the 1980s. This was a stressful job involving
the egg, this apprears to be a conundrum covering debates in the House of Commons
that’s impossible to solve but it’s a question often late into the night and to compensate,
worth asking as these two elements are Sara turned to quilting in her free mornings. ‘I
equally significant in Sara’s work. Each of remembered that I had enjoyed making that
her artworks contains some form of text, quilt when I was 17 and it seemed an ideal way
ranging from the political platitudes of Blue of relaxing,’ she says.
Sky Thinking (2013), to the poetry of Absorption After she started a family Sara continued to
(2014), and all are quilts, with stitch marrying make quilts, almost as a form of therapy to
the two components to form a harmonious, counteract the challenges of parenthood, but
thought-provoking and often witty whole. always making fairly simple pieces for the
Setting out to solve the mystery I start home. She eventually joined a quilt group and
by asking Sara about her background. attended several quilting workshops, including
She was clearly an academic child and after one at Snape Maltings where she met the
school studied Modern Languages renowned quilter Lynne Edwards, and it was
at Oxford University but, significantly, these experiences that showed her how much
she remembers making a quilt when further she could take her quilting. 2
Above: Sara Impey, Definition (detail) 2010.

79 x 198cm. Silk, wholecloth, free-motion
machine stitch machine quilting.
Collection of the Shipley Gallery, Gateshead
PHOTO: PETER EVANS
Right: Watching Paint Dry, 2007.

91 x 121cm. Silk, wholecloth, free-motion
machine stitch, machine quilting
PHOTO: DAVID GUTHRIE

‘It was the first time that I saw people has obviously been a ‘words’ person Social Fabric, 2014
using it as an expressive artform and all her life, and had long been interested 118 x 118 cm (approx). Found
antique mattress cloth, free-motion
making quilts to exhibit.’ It proved to be in using text in her work. She explains:
machine stitched text, machine quilting.
an eye-opener and inspired Sara to move ‘From about the early 2000s I started ‘This length of fabric was given to me
on from her beloved hexagon patchwork casting about for techniques that would by a friend who bought it in a boot
to try out new types of quilting. Having enable me to stitch text in such a way sale. The text speculates on how it
no formal training in stitch allowed that it wasn’t just an add-on but an got there and why it wasn’t thrown
away. Humble and utilitarian textiles
her the freedom to experiment without integral feature of the piece’. like this, which have clearly been well
worrying about the right or wrong way She began experimenting with used have a value that isn’t monetary:
to do things and finally, in 2004, she hit combining letters in a grid pattern they speak to us of a shared past.’
on the idea of introducing lettering into and the key moment came when Sara PHOTO: MICHAEL WICKS
her work. ‘It was the first time I felt that realised she could use her own words
I had found my creative voice,’ she says. rather than quoting other people’s.
So where did the idea come from? Sara ‘I quickly realised the potential

Apples, 2017. clumsiness of reproducing an existing recognition for her work, with her quilts
30 x 34cm. Calico, wholecloth, text and started writing my own words now owned by The Quilters’s Guild
free-motion machine stitched text
to fit the grid pattern.’ and the Victoria & Albert Museum in
and outlines, machine quilted.
‘A celebration of apples. There are Sara hasn’t looked back since that the UK, as well as the Museum of Arts
hundreds of varieties. There is no light bulb moment in 2004. As well as and Design in New York. Last year four
deep meaning behind this piece – quilts arranged in a rigid format, with were purchased by the prestigious
just the pleasure of doing it. I have letters arranged in a grid, she has now International Quilt Study Center and
also made ones featuring Essex
apples, russet apples, and cider developed quilts with a looser design, Museum in Nebraska.
apples and one featuring pears’ which allow her to stitch whole essays It is the process of reproducing her texts
PHOTO: DOUGLAS ATFIELD on the fabric, harnessing both her skill in stitch that makes Sara tick creatively.
as a textile artist and what she describes She doesn’t plan or stencil her designs
as her inner ‘wannabe writer’. It’s proved in advance, instead stitching the letters
to be a very successful combination by eye as she goes along. ‘This is the
2
and Sara has achieved international really creative bit, when I am composing

I like the idea of using the labour intensive
method of free-machine stitched lettering,
which is an absurd thing in it own right
to point out other absurdities’
text in my head and estimating how circling a dark pupil. They spell out
much space I have got to fill with it as information such as passport and
I go along – it’s all done by trial and credit card numbers, as well as more
error.’ She also relishes the intrinsic quirky personal details such as zodiac
contrariness of composing long, signs, voting patterns and alcohol
discursive texts in thread. consumption, begging the question of Above: Sara Impey
The texts themselves reflect this as whether you can assess an individual’s Right: Deconstructing the Quilt, 2016.
Sara has a great sense of the ridiculous character merely from a scan of their 164 x 102cm (each tape 2.75cm
and enjoys poking gentle fun at the eyes, as well as raising issues regarding high). Cottons, some hand-dyed,
some dyed by Heide Stoll-Weber.
world. ‘I like the idea of using the labour privacy and identity.
Felt and pelmet vilene wadding.
intensive method of free-machine No Exit (2013), a quilt exploring Free-motion machine stitched text,
stitched lettering, which is an absurd dementia, uses an equally subtle machine piecing and quilting.
thing in its own right, to point out combination of design and text to add ‘While I enjoy and admire
other absurdities.’ Her targets are often an extra layer of meaning. The text academic writing about textiles,
the world of ideas and abstraction
users of flabby, pompous language is arranged in a series of concentric can seem very remote from the
such as the politicians lampooned in circles and repeats the phrases ‘I keep experience of day-by-day creative
Blue Sky Thinking (2013), a quilt worked on going round in circles’ and ‘I keep practice at the coalface. Here
with an entire political speech, full of on losing the thread’, the recurring the commentator is invited to
‘deconstruct’ a quilt via a series of
soundbites and no content. Marketing circles underlining the sad sense of
increasingly absurd and laborious
material is satirised in her quilt Spoilt bewilderment expressed in the text. instructions. What is left is literally
for Choice (2012), which reproduces a This relationship, between medium a ‘deconstructed’ quilt –
colour chart where the different colours and message, is key to Sara’s work. functionally useless and with the
have names such as ‘Cheap as Chips’ The two aspects of her work – the areas that normally carry the
aesthetic content missing.’
or ‘Pants on Fire’, while administrative text and the textile design – seem PHOTO: DOUGLAS ATFIELD
speak is highlighted in the quilt Tickbox so inextricably linked that, like the
Culture (2009) with its grid of squares chicken and the egg, it’s impossible to Below: Following the Thread, 2014.
spelling out a spew of corporate say which comes first. However, one Wooden spool 34 x 22cm. Quilted
tape approx 850 x 2cm. Calico,
gobbledygook. thing is clear: the way Sara seamlessly
free-motion machine stitched text,
The designs of each quilt are equally combines the two is what makes her machine piecing and quilting.
considered: ‘Ideally the content of work so very satisfying, both visually ‘An essay on the nature of thread,
the piece goes hand in hand with and intellectually. e rendered in thread and wound, like
the design.’ For example, the quilt Diana Woolf thread, around a spool. An attempt
to make the physical object echo
Iris Recognition (2016) is composed of the meaning of the words.’
12 large eye-like circles with letters saraimpey.com PHOTO: PETER EVANS
You can see Sara’s work in the group exhibition, Quilt Art: Material Evidence
at the Menier Gallery, London from 18-29 June

34
EMBROIDERY
January February 2019
PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND ANAT EBGI
PROFILE
art & Jordan Nassar was born and raised in New
soul
York City but draws upon the embroidery
traditions of his Palestinian ancestry to ask
bigger questions about life, love and conflict
SOFT, DEEP, LUMINESCENT COLOURS and abstract Palestine’s physical and cultural landscape into the textile.
compositions, which hint at gentle undulations of land – a Practising the stitches, Jordan instinctively felt in sync with
silhouette of graceful domes, an oasis in the desert, fields the strict grid of patterning in cross-stitch, its rules and the
ready for harvest or orchards of ripened fruit – draw the possibilities of inventively embroidering within those constraints.
eye to Jordan Nassar’s embroidery. ‘The real reason I started with landscapes was the technical
Jordan’s subjects are conjured from neat cross-stitch challenge of breaking the grid of cross-stitch embroidery and
embroidery in distinct and subtle bands of colour. Forms are being able to make shapes of colour within the pattern that
composed of a single motif that flows across these colours, weren’t composed of straight lines. Then I slowly realised,
as well as a single colour embracing different motifs. Slivers of thinking of an artist I admire, Etel Adnan, that the way she uses
unworked areas reveal the ground fabric, allowing the stitches landscapes in her painting is more of a vehicle for her to work
to stand out and the composition to sing. with colour. I think that in many ways that is the same for me.’
These finely stitched artworks, infused with the subtle beauty As he embroidered landscapes, Jordan found that the works –
of watercolour paintings, portray abstract landscapes of with their elements of the horizon, sun, hill and river – helped
Palestine, connecting the artist with his heritage. Born in New
York City to a Palestinian father and Polish mother, Jordan grew ‘The real reason I started with
up in Manhattan and often grappled with his identity as both landscapes was the technical
a Palestinian and an American. Much later, he met and married
challenge of breaking the grid
Israeli artist Amir Guberstein and, during this time, he found
himself contemplating how dating and marrying an Israeli man of cross-stitch embroidery’
sat with his Palestinian identity. In turn, this prompted a desire
to further connect with his heritage. viewers approach his work, locate themselves, stop worrying
Always drawn to craft – from origami to crochet but especially about what they were looking at, and appreciate the colour
textiles – Jordan found al-tatreez (a form of traditional work and composition. He explored the concept further and
embroidery ubiquitous in Palestine) an obvious expression to found himself conceptualising imagined idyllic Palestinian
explore in response to this quest. Traditionally the embroidery vistas based on the stories he’d heard from his elders.
is worked predominantly with cross-stitch and couching on With these images in mind he created embroideries using
garments, as well as functional and decorative textiles. his own motifs, feeling that as a Palestinian from New York
Jordan picked up a needle and thread and started to he shouldn’t use traditional motifs, symbolic of an identity
experiment, absorbing the stitches, motifs and patterns. He that implied he was from Ramallah or Jerusalem or Bethlehem.
discovered that through their form and colours, the motifs Yet as the work developed and he did a residency in Jaffa in
identify the native place and status of the wearer of the 2017, he let go of some of those restraints and drew from the
embroidered garment. Like a visual language, al-tatreez integrated rich vocabulary of traditional motifs and patterns. 2
The artist Jordan Nassar

with examples of his work

Above left: Scatter Them In ‘Unlike a

Forest And Meadow, 2018.
56 x 56cm painter I can’t
mix colours.
Above right: Would The
Valleys Were Your Streets, I collect every
2017. 71 x 71cm shade of
Left: You Confused My Heart, everything
2018. 30.5 x 86cm
I can find, so
Right: Whose Windows I have more
Are The Songs, 2017.
47 x 86.36cm colours to
work with’
All hand embroidered
cotton on cotton

Above: The Rendez-
Vous Is Over, 2018.
30.5 x 86cm. Hand
embroidered cotton
on cotton
Left: The Green

Paths Your Alleys, 2017.
51 x 51cm. Hand
embroidered cotton
on cotton
Right: Jordan Nassar

in his studio

These span a variety of motifs such as the eye, celestial bodies for – I allow myself to make choices ‘just because’, and feel
(sun, moon, stars), flowers (flower pot, rose, carnations), trees like this is what it is to be an artist. I’m not writing an essay:
(cypress, palm), birds (pigeon, swans, rooster), animals (crab, I don’t need to have everything correlate to something or be
serpent), fruits (watermelon, bunch of grapes, apples), the there for a reason. Sometimes you just feel like a composition
harp, rainbow, snowflakes and many more. Interestingly some needs a splash of red or purple, or what have you.’
of these motifs, such as the rose, are of East European Jordan embroiderers in the quiet of his Brooklyn home
provenance and were absorbed into the Palestinian motif and as the work evolves and completes itself, he – and
vocabulary thus adding another facet. In this way, Jordan the work – are silently meshing facets of race and ethnicity;
started combining traditional Palestinian motifs and patterns cultural heritage, ownership and exchange, nostalgia and
with his own, using them side-by-side or in a non-conventional contemporary life. The work becomes a meditation on the
way, enjoying the freedom of choice he now allowed himself.
His work is the result of both creative planning and a journey
‘I allow myself to make choices just
of discovery and usually involves three stages. The first is
composition, not of the colours but of the embroidered because, and feel like this is what
pattern itself. At this stage he decides the size of the work it is to be an artist. I’m not writing
and the motifs/patterns (either traditional or his own iterations an essay: I don’t need to have
of them). He thinks about the density of the pattern, especially everything correlate to something
when used in combination, so that the work ‘reads right’. or be there for a reason’
The next stage is the design process, wherein he prints out
the pattern (created in Adobe Illustrator) and then sketches
over it with pencils, translating his concept onto the page. alienation and displacement of recent decades, and a hope
Finally he selects the colours and begins the meticulous, labour for the peaceful and beautiful future of a land that lives deep
intensive stitching. Jordan embroiders on a simple evenweave, in the hearts and minds of its inhabitants and diaspora.
raw cotton fabric sourced from an old fabric store in Tel Aviv At exhibitions he finds that the works engender conversations
and typically selects a wide range of colours, keeping them about the complexities that life, history and politics unfold.
within reach at his desk. ‘My work is most especially about my own life in terms of
He embroiders with crochet thread so that the stitches showing the world that – as opposed to the assumption
remain crisp, and collects threads of the right thickness that Palestinians and Israelis hate each other – there are
whenever he comes across them. ‘Unlike a painter, I can’t Palestinians and Israelis that are enmeshed and in love,
mix colours. I collect every shade of everything I can find, and working for peace by living peace.’ e
so I have more colours to work with.’ Brinda Gill
‘The colour process is certainly the most painterly part of
jordannassar.com
my work. A lot of the colour decisions I don’t have reasons

Zest for life
Following careers in fashion, design
and teaching Helen Banzhaf came late
to textile art but ever since taking to
free-machine embroidery, she’s been
fascinated by its possibilities
S
ome distinctive colours will
always be associated with
certain artists, the supreme
example being Yves Klein Blue.
Others include the dreamy softness Indeed everywhere are lovingly
of mauve-pink and blue-green arranged still-lifes of household
of Monet; sharp swimming pool wares celebrating the colours that
turquoise for 1970s Hockney, Rothko’s she adores, but also other more
deep murky burgundy, and Mondrian’s subtle hues, like the sea-greens
clean primaries with black edges. of vintage travel posters above a
Textile artist and fashion designer cushion-strewn sofa. The effect is
Helen Banzhaf is another whose joyous but controlled, and eloquently
work and life is strongly imbued with demonstrates Helen’s immense
colour, plunging one into a bowl of pleasure in colour and form, and her
citrus fruit: lemon yellow, orange exploratory approach to living and
and lime green. making. She did admit though: ‘I’m
For this writer, having long thought really into yellow’. Above: Bending in the Wind. 30 x 18cm
‘Banzhaf = Yellow’ in a rather Helen Banzhaf describes herself as Below: Three Teapots in a Row. 19 x 38cm
reductive way, it was a joy to visit the a fine artist who happens to work in
Right: Untitled, (Tumbling Leaves Series).
artist at her south London home and textiles, fashion, and most recently 27 x 18cm
find the theory is both confirmed and jewellery. Fashion was her route into
Free machine embroidery worked on
exploded. The interior is quieter than stitch, but not straight from school, cotton calico with mercerised cotton
expected, being primarily white but, as which she detested and left as soon threads. Bending in The Wind is padded
Helen Banzhaf observes, ‘citrus runs as possible, becoming an au pair in with cotton wadding, adding a third
through everything’. Italy. On her UK return Helen studied dimension to the piece
fashion and textiles via City & Guilds,
then a foundation year at Brighton
Helen’s approach and thence to Central St Martins.
is meticulous After graduating in 1970 she worked 2
creating work that
is ‘handmade, on a
machine’. She takes
pains to make it clear
it is not digital stitch
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY HELEN BANZHAF

PROFILE

in haute couture, but found the
1 industry ‘ruthless’ and so launched
a continuing career as a freelance
designer. She makes small batch and
one-off garments and accessories taught clothes making. Textile art
for a handful of regular clients and remains important but is balanced
boutiques. by her enduring love of fashion.
Helen also had a long career in adult Helen’s approach is meticulous,
education, teaching needlework and creating work that is ‘handmade,
fashion. Despite being taught to sew on a machine’. She takes pains to
by her mother at a young age, she make it clear it is not digital stitch.
didn’t take up stitch for its own sake The designs always start with a
until she was over 40, prompted by lot of drawing in pencil and pastel.
Karen Scadeng at AEI, where she Chosen compositions are transferred
to a calico base and gradually built
up through many rows of stitching,
always in mercerised cotton. Helen
prizes the low lustre of this thread and
The compositions
are distinctive
and follow self-
prescribed rules –
‘off centre, curved
edges, irregular,
but with very
defined outlines’
1. Three Striped Bottles.

28 x 18cm
2. My Sister’s Jug. 28 x 20cm
3. Untitled (Fragment Series).
15 x 13cm
4. Untitled (Fragment Series).

15 x 12cm
5. Checks for Once!
24 x 17cm
Free machine embroidery worked
on cotton calico with mercerised
cotton threads

3 4
She is often obsessed with a particular

form and develops series around a
particular shape, for example, Eileen’s
Old Battered Tankard, which celebrates
the quality that it gives to her work, a family heirloom. Helen says: ‘My
saying she would never use embroidery vessels dangle in space and the
silks. The compositions are distinctive decorative patterns weave in and out
and follow self-prescribed rules – ‘off of the forms into the backgrounds.’
centre, curved edges, irregular, but with But homage to Art Deco china is
only a part of Helen’s output. Recent 5
very defined outlines’. Work is always
built up with straight lines of stitches whitework pays homage to 1960s
and kept flat, although sometimes French designer Emmanuelle Khanh,
it’s completed with low-key raised and her distinctive tote bags use
areas, achieved through the invisible contemporary man-made textiles
inclusion of padding to add a subtle designed for fashion trainers, with
three-dimensional quality, seen in elegant linen linings.
Bending in the Wind and Checks for Once! Helen has also exhibited in recent
The subject of her compositions years with not only the 62 Group of
was, for many years, Helen’s superb Textile Artists, whom she joined in
collection of Art Deco china vessels. 1997, but also the Society of Designer
Their shapes and colours definitely Craftsmen, London Group and United
underline the ‘Banzhaf = Yellow’ theory Society of Artists. She is attentive to
espoused earlier. There is a curious contemporary visual arts: her creative
historical aspect to this love of vessel heroes include Miro, Picasso, Grayson
forms: Helen’s surname is German Perry, Morandi, Rei Kawakubo, Yohji
in origin. It dates to the 1300s, where Yamamoto and most especially
a family of this name lived in Ulm, Sonia Delauney.
making vats and drinking vessels. Of her own practice Helen says she 2
This seems a clear case of nominative
determinism, and Helen herself agrees:
‘I clock vessels: they’re in my brain,
subliminally influencing me.’
January February 2019 EMBROIDERY 43 2

Above: Side by Side. 19 x 26cm is ‘not ambitious, but conscientious
Below: Two Tankards. 21 x 22cm and determined’. She talks of having
Opposite, top: Okay Tell Me. 27 x 22cm
gusto but working intermittently,
and ‘constantly tweaking’ her pieces,
Opposite, below: Two Companions.
as she does her living and working house for sewing, and a workshop in
20 x 25cm
environments, evolving arrangements a nearby studio complex for the space
of ‘soothing and beautiful’ decorative required to design and pattern-cut
objects and fragments she has her fashion pieces. Helen talks of how
collected and created. Her philosophy personal her artwork is to her, and
to work that is stuck is ‘don’t abandon how she prefers to make at home in
it… leave and come back’. Sometimes the family environment, to ‘connect
(probably often, one suspects) the and have others’ perception’.
solution lies in the palette. Helen Although divorced from the artist
looks for the ‘opportunity to go with Johnnie Gammell, father of her sons,
colours’. She says: ‘I love making little she speaks warmly of his strong
arrangements. I love my work. Joy as a influence and support for her work.
concept in textiles: it’s visceral.’ One of his domestic still-life paintings

Helen’s practice is split physically hangs in the kitchen, mirrored by a
between an attic room for drawing, bowl of courgettes and lemons lying
the dining table at the heart of the beneath it – a typical generous and
deliberate gesture.
Helen Banzhaf always continues to
develop: from early connections with
the long-defunct ILEA that brought

her into adult education, to her recent ‘My vessels
explorations in acrylic jewellery, which
dangle in
led her to Ravensbourne University
to master digital techniques such as space and the
vector file creation. She also relishes decorative
her weekly sessions with special needs patterns weave
students, with whom she’s worked in and out of the
for 15 years: ‘They have no hang-
forms into the
ups or rules… [and] make wonderful
exceptional work.’ backgrounds’
Although entering her eighth decade,
Helen’s energy and determination
are that of someone much younger
and she sees her future work as a
continuation of all that has gone
before. This artist, vibrant in her
thinking and her work, desires to
‘maintain a thrill for being creative’.
Long may she thrill us and the citrus
colours glow from her work. e
Liz Cooper
62group.org.uk/artist/helen-banzhaf

PIONEER
BACKTOBLACK
There is a quiet sophistication to Diana Harrison’s work
that speaks of strength and simplicity, yet her practice
evolved out of learning and translating everything that
she sees and feels both physically and emotionally
A
t the time we speak, Diana Her standards are high, her influences
Harrison is preparing to show enduring: Sol LeWitt, Mark Rothko, Sean
work in The Most Real Thing: Scully, the quilts of Gees Bend, the Amish
contemporary textiles and sculpture at and the strippies of North East England
the New Art Centre, Roche Court. The and Wales.
piece she has been invited to exhibit Roads are another source of inspiration,
is Box 1 and 2, which was originally particularly those driven on her commute
commissioned by the V&A Museum from London to the University for the
as part of Quilts 1700-2010 (2010). Creative Arts in Farnham, Surrey. That
At Roche Court, Box will be displayed journey, from home to work and back
alongside work by eminent UK artists again, takes her along roads she has
and sculptors; including the big names come to know ‘like the back of my hand’,
of Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore and and which have inspired numerous ‘road
Barbara Hepworth. At the V&A, the same quilts’: artworks in which the colours,
piece sat amid a collection of wonderful markings and texture of the tarmacked
historic quilts. One artwork: two very surface have fed into her making.
different contexts. The affinity with her work is clear to
That juxtaposition says a great deal see in the muted tones, linear markings,
about the influence Diana’s work has curving structure and textured surfaces.
exerted since her graduation from the There they are in Turmoil and Change
RCA in 1973. It is a story traced through (2005), and there, again, in Beginning and
five decades of milestone projects, which Beyond (2005).
have challenged the parameters of art, That journey is significant: a connection
craft and textiles; projects in which Diana between her teaching, the impact of
Harrison has been – and continues to be – which ‘works both ways’, and her home
a quietly strong, individual presence. where she uses ‘every part of the house
Diana is a hugely skilful and visually and garden’ in the dyeing, stitching
creative maker. Her work has drawn and printing of her artworks. The time
attention since art school and is engaged in the journey is itself valued.
represented in public collections It is a personal space, an opportunity to
internationally. From the outset, she has reflect, to ‘look, see and translate’. There
steadfastly pursued her own way forward, is something almost metaphorical about
using only the materials, techniques, that commute that’s revealing of the
processes and references of her choice. artist: the commitment to self contained 2
PHOTOGRAPHY: THE ARTIST
‘The mixture of print

and stitch has always
interested me – I like
the tactile qualities
coming into the flat
surface of print’

Diana Harrison, Handkerchiefs (detail) 2013.
525 x 250cm. Recycled cotton handkerchiefs dyed black,
individually screen discharge printed, stripping back the
black to a variety of ‘colours’ and tones. Handstitched
creating patchwork.
‘This was created for Cloth and Memory {2} as a site-
specific response to the disused floor of Salts Mill in West
Yorkshire. It’s a huge and atmospheric space, with its large
grey flagstone floor being the initial inspiration for this
piece. Handkerchiefs, being evocative of past generations
of working women, was my choice of square unit.’

travel, the detailed knowledge acquired
by experience, the willingness to follow
a process, and the openness to what
that process might bring. There is also
a certain rootedness in that trip, those
fixed points from which each journey
sets out and to which it returns. Home
and work could just as easily read visual
and material, idea and technique, print
and embroidery.
Art and textiles have been part of Diana’s
life since childhood. She admits to being
drawn to practical and sporting activities
rather than academic study. She thrived
in the art room, took her art A Level early
and went straight to Goldsmiths College.
Torn between studying embroidery or
sculpture – ‘I’ve always loved the three
dimensional’ – she chose the former
with print as a subsidiary. Constance
Howard was Head of Department, David
Green her print tutor. ‘I enjoyed being
in the print room surrounded by dyes
and screens. It seemed a natural form
of expression. The mixture of print and of artistic craft practise. Their support Opposite: Box 1, 2010. 202 x 165cm.
stitch has always interested me – I like helped Diana establish a workshop, Silk, interfacing, cotton backed. Individually
the tactile qualities coming into the flat something she combined with part- machine quilted facets of the box discharge
printed and hand stitched together.
surface of print.’ time teaching in further education. ‘With reference to the form and function of a
No surprise then that after Goldsmiths’, ‘I was trying to turn my sprayed cloth box, once flattened out it no longer protects its
she took an MA in print at the RCA into saleable items and found the contents, but recreated to the dimensions of a
where her use of spray and airbrushing added layers of quilting, made for a bed covering it questions the idea of warmth,
protection and a quilt.’
attracted interest. ‘It was fashionable stronger product for interior upholstery,
in graphics at the time but I wanted bedspreads and wall hangings. Combined Above: Packaging, 2018. 24 x 19.5cm.
Recycled cardboard packaging. Stitched into
to experiment on cloth, using dyes to with the teaching it was possible to earn
flattened box with and without thread, dyed
achieve three-dimensional effects and a living’ black, discharge and pigment screen print.
PHOTOGRAPHY: THE ARTIST
creating large scale geometric designs Work flourished. Then, with parenthood,
Below: Traces in Cloth, 2017. A series of nine
and composition pieces.’ came a key decision to move to making each: 31 x 43cm. Cotton, polyester thread,
Straight from the RCA, Diana was offered one-off art pieces in a studio at home, starch. Single layer of cotton cloth, machine
space at 401½, a recently formed studio and with that came a major shift. ‘Up stitched, screen-printed dates, discharge and
that became a key player in the revival until then colour had been significant 2 pigment printed.

but suddenly it vanished and going on inside me – my emotions and Below: Diana Harrison in her studio
monochrome took over. I started what is happening to me. That’s where 1. Two x Sample Strips, 2004.
discharge printing. I made some precision my work comes from.’ 12.5 x 52cm; 8.5 x 52cm.
pieces – geometry and the stitched lines Changes at work influenced the tension of Cotton, metallic pigment.
Dyed coloured cloth, layered and
were very important to me. I am always Turmoil and Change (Quilt of the Year, 2005).
stitched overprinted with pigments.
photographing wherever I am, and Line (Lost in Lace: Transparent Boundaries, PHOTOGRAPH: THE ARTIST
picking up, collecting tactile references. 2011) – a fragile and technically demanding
2. Composition, 2004-2007.
Surrounded by things and images that linear installation – traced six decades of 32.5 x 32.5cm. Silk, cotton wadding
provide a starting point for new work.’ life, moving from the lightness of childhood and backing, polyester thread.
Inclusion in a series of pivotal exhibitions to the darker complexities of adulthood. Continuous machine quilting
followed, each of which impacted her ‘Even if the idea isn’t personal, as a work distorting cloth, discharge and
overprinted
artwork. Approaches to Cloth and Metal takes so long to make it becomes infused PHOTOGRAPH: DAVID WESTWOOD
(1980) introduced the quilt form as she with my life.’ Such is Handkerchiefs (Cloth
began to work large. The International and Memory {2}, 2013) a floor-based 3&4. Beginning and Beyond, 2002.
156 x160cm. Silk, cotton wadding
Exhibition of Miniature Textiles (1978 & ‘patchwork’ of discharge printed cotton and backing. Continuous machine
1980) and Fabric and Form (1982) saw the handkerchiefs collected by Diana’s friends quilting, heavily stitched top and base,
emergence of a minimalist approach and family. ‘I dragged the work around masked out before overprinting with
as she experimented with cloth, starch, with me, stitching hankies together discharge and pigment. Winner of
the Silver Award for Contemporary
layering and folding. By the time of Colour wherever I was – visiting hospital, the
Quilt, The 7th Quilt Nihon Exhibition
into Cloth (1994), she was dyeing material care home. That’s the beauty of it, the 2002. Collected by the International
black, stitching, then discharge printing: memories.’ Quilt Study Center, Nebraska USA.
an approach she has pursued since. In current work, the material – always PHOTOGRAPH: DAVID WESTWOOD
‘I couldn’t really say why ‘black’ but critical to the artist – has itself been 5. Distance, 2000. 128 x 90cm.
it’s a pure starting point to strip away highly personal. Traces in Cloth (2017) Cotton/linen surface, cotton
with the discharge and has always left used pillowcases that were her parents: wadding and backing.
Handstitched, discharge printed
me with ‘colour’ – browns, ochres – domestic textiles that were variously PHOTOGRAPH: DAVID WESTWOOD
rarely returning to white. Although I unfolded, unstitched, dyed and bleached.
have enjoyed colour in the past, it was The idea of folding, first seen in Fabric
the composition, surface quality, and and Form, has continued to absorb and is
distortions that came from the mix of currently the subject of work emerging
stitch, quilt and screen that were more around archived family correspondence.
important. Using a very limited palette ‘It’s the physical quality of the letters and
has meant that these surface marks envelopes and the way they are bundled
dominate. Perhaps like indigo users, it’s together that interests me. I’m becoming
all about the results created through fascinated by whites and collections of
skilful process.’ paper – who knows what’s next?’
It’s also about the idea. In each work Whatever it is, we know from experience
there is some personal connection, a that it will be well worth the wait. e
thought mixed with a technical start June Hill
point; techniques that include not uca.ac.uk staff-pro les iana-harrison
only stitch and print but also dyeing,
overdyeing, layering, shrinking, stretching,
burning and bleaching. Each applied in More here about the making of Box for the V&A
accord. ‘What I know about is what is vimeo.com/10230704
‘Geometry and the

stitched lines were very
important to me. I am
always photographing
wherever I am, and picking
up, collecting tactile
references. Surrounded
by things and images that
provide a starting point
for new work’

1 2
3 4

Books
Weaving
Contemporary Makers on the Loom
Katie Treggiden
Weaving is one of the oldest textile techniques but
is attracting a new generation of makers interested My weaving never starts with images. It's all about
in the possibilities of the medium. feeling, combining, starting with a colour mood.
I never use moodboards. It's about experience and
Katie Treggiden has interviewed over 20 contemporary what comes out of my head and fingers – it’s very
hard to describe. I collect my materials and they
practitioners from around the world in a beautifully start to tell a story.
presented survey that reveals them at work in their

studios, alongside their inspiration and their looms.
Profiles range from Daniel Harris, who spent six
years salvaging and restoring 19th and 20th century
historic looms that now form the backbone of the
London Cloth Company, which makes textiles for
196 197 ILSE ACKE
famous clothing brands, to Brooklyn-based Erin M

Riley whose woven self portraits embody a visceral
quality rarely seen in weave. Then there’s the arresting
candy-coloured wall-hangings of Barcelona-based
Judit Just, which contrast starkly with the experimental
research of commercial weave designer Dienke Dekker
(Maastricht, The Netherlands) and the much quieter
aesthetic of Rachel Scott (UK) or Hiroko Takeda (Japan).
What they share in common is a drive to explore
not just the materiality of the craft but its potential
as emancipator, provocateur, art object and more.
Treggiden intersects her profiles with easily digestible
but thought-provoking essays on gender, migration,
history, definitions and the future, as well as myriad
discussions of Bauhaus leading lights Anni Albers
and Gunta Stölzl.
Weaving is undergoing a vibrant revival and Treggiden
Ludion £30
has crafted a book that reflects the energy, appeal and 978 94 9181 989 6
vitality of this revitalized craft.
ludion.be
Bound by Hand Polychromatic Screen Printing

Erica Ekrem Joy Stocksdale
One of the best things about artists creating their own This small studio guide packs a huge amount of information. Joy Stocksdale
diaries and sketchbooks is the potential to personalise has expanded and revised her classic instruction book on this flexible
these journals so that they become a part of their technique, which allows all the colours of a design to be painted onto a
artistic practice. silkscreen in one session in order to produce a series of up to six prints
Erica Ekrem shares how to make 21 journals by hand on fabric or paper without colour registration or using multiple screens.
using repurposed materials, as well as items found There are detailed step-by-step instructions to learning this technique,
in nature, most with a specific purpose or personal which promises much for textile artists who would like to work with
hobby in mind. The the same fluidity that painting directly onto
instructions are simple fabric provides. Although the book is text-
to follow, with step- heavy, the guide (set out in 19 chapters) is
by-step illustrations straightforward to follow, especially if you
throughout, as well as have tried your hand at screen-printing
a comprehensive basics before. Stocksdale also includes a glossary of
section, which will give terms, a trouble-shooting section and most of
even those new to the supplies can be bought online. This really
bookbinding the tools is a valuable addition to any artist working
to get started. with print or paint on fabric.
Lark £16.99 Oreogn Street Press US$29.95
978 1 4547 1055 4 978 1 718 729698
thegmcgroup.com amazon.co.uk

CATALOGUES
Lasting Impressions
Documenting the
performance project by
Claire Wellesley-Smith
and Hannah Lamb at Salts
Mill roof space in 2017,
in which the public was
invited to create a lasting
impression in clay of part
of their clothing: the book
records the memories and
observations surrounding £12.50
the event. hannahlamb.co.uk
Points of Threads Around

Juncture the World
A beautiful visual From Arabian Weaving
record of Cos to Batik in Zimbabwe
Ahmet’s solo
Deb Brandon
exhibition at Forty
Hall in 2017. The artist ‘I’ve been surrounded by handmade ethnic
and weaver created textiles since my early childhood,’ writes
a range of striking Deb Brandon who, in her new book,
installations, engaging has composed snapshots of 25 diverse
various media world cultures by highlighting their unique
including textiles Free while stocks last expression through textiles, whether artistic
and object making. cos-ahmet.co.uk or practical.
This is not a comprehensive overview
of world textiles (though it does cover
The Value techniques from knit and embroidery to print and weave), instead Brandon
of Making zooms in on a particular textile from 25 cultures, among them hand-knit
Emily Jo Gibbs turns mittens from Estonia, Molas from Panama, Miao shiny cloth from China,
her attention to Kente cloth from Ghana, Vodou flags from Haiti, Shisha embroidery from
portraits of a different India, Kantha embroidery from Bangladesh as well as, more unusually,
kind, those of artisans espadrilles from Spain, kilt stockings from Scotland and Gyotaku (Fish
represented through Printing) from Japan.
exquisite embroidered The result is a highly personal book. Brandon (a weaver, writer and
snapshots of their mathematics professor at Carnegie Mellon University) seizes on facts and
tools. From jeweller insights that weave wonderful stories from these textile traditions, bringing
and glassblower to them alive for a contemporary audience.
potter and shoemaker, Schiffer Publishing £21.99
Gibbs offers an intimate £10 978 0 7643 5650 6
emilyjogibbs.co.uk
portrayal of making. schifferbooks.com
Anni Albers Making & Marketing a

Accompanying Successful Art & Craft Business
the Tate Modern
Fiona Pullen
retrospective, this
book traces Albers’ Not sure how to turn your hobby into a career?
early Bauhaus career Fiona Pullen holds your hand as you navigate every
and her teaching aspect of setting up a small creative business.
years at Black The book is divided into chapters that deal
Mountain College, practically with self-employment, legal matters,
and showcases major branding and marketing, social media, selling online
commissioned works, and in the real world, as well running workshops
wall hangings and and networking. Each chapter is supported by
designs that illuminate practical exercises to help you apply the lessons to
Albers’ skill as a weaver, your business, along with insights and advice from
her material awareness Tate Publishing £25 Search Press £12.99 dozens of successful business professionals, making
and acute understanding 978 1 84976 5688 978 1 78221 529 5 this a must-read guide for anyone thinking of setting
of art and design. shop.tate.org.uk searchpress.com up their own creative business.

Exhibitions
The man of business
may throw (him)self
into the world of action;
but the woman….
what has she but her
needle?….in that torn
bit of white rag with
invisible stitching…lies
all the passion of some
woman’s soul finding
voiceless expression.
Olive Schreiner,
Man to Man, 1895
Ruth Singer, Apron
SUFFRAGE
Llantarnham Grange, Cwmbrân, Wales 6 October—17 November 2018
FIVE OF THE SIX CONTEMPORARY There are echoes of Judy Chicago’s Suffragette banners. Her Pageant,
artists commissioned by Llantarnham Dinner Party, 1979 – an open like Sue Shields’ piece, is a series of
Grange in Cwmbrân to mark the triangular table with 39 place doll-like effigies, screen-printed
Centenary of Women’s Suffrage have settings commemorating women and with the faces of notable women,
wielded the needle as a political goddesses of Western History – in three of which appear to be bursting
instrument. And though sourcing both Caren Garfen’s Media Meddles, out of a large pannier-ed dress adorned
the familiar iconography of the early and Morwenna Catt’s Beware for I am with the slogan DEEDS NOT WORDS.
20th-century Suffragette movement Fearless and Therefore Powerful and A Shields’ Suffragette Dolls series, a row
– its colours of purple, green and Pageant of Great Women. Though all of six rag-doll figures each with leg-
white, ribbons and banners, and the three pieces are an acknowledgement of-mutton sleeves, fixed directly on to
perhaps less familiar aprons, violets of women’s accomplishments through the wall, also have printed faces and
and handkerchiefs – the female the ages, Garfen’s, a long strip of cloth bemusingly huge hands – perhaps a
contributors trawl equally from its screen-printed with 102 empty medal reference to the anti-suffrage depiction
later reincarnations courtesy of the shapes that she has filled with sewn of them as ‘large-handed’? One, a
First-Wave Feminist artists. text, as the punned title implies, has string of cord hanging from its mouth,
Beryl Weaver’s embroidered runners of a wry edge. One hundred female is being force-fed.
the late 70s featuring the stock Quality attainments for each of the last Though a succinct exposition, just
Street-esque, toilet-paper-cosy-style, hundred years – whether as presidents, ten pieces in all, Suffrage abounds
crinolined woman in wide-brimmed prime ministers, an astronaut, a with detail, both conceptual and
bonnet with speech bubbles coming out mountaineer or a police commissioner constructed. The craftsmanship, all
of her mouth expressing edgy defiance – Garfen inscribes each of the medals too often lacking in ideas-led work, is
are undoubtedly the spur for Eleanor with date, name, achievement and potently, and fastidiously, feminine:
Edwardes’ three hand-sewn, running- then marital status followed by some the embroidered violets on the doily
stitch, line-drawn squares. Here too are puncturing, fatuous Daily Mail-like beneath Catt’s pyrographed-inscribed
the same saccharine-d, 19th-century comment. As with the one celebrating hammer, the tiny red-beaded hair
hooped-skirted women but their Aretha Franklin’s first-woman’s of her Elizabeth I doll and Garfen’s
protests have become more physical inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall microscopic lettering.
and radical. In Women’s March, a group of Fame, that ends with: ‘Her weight Suffrage is a testament of empathy,
of them, cordoned-off behind railings, ballooned’. of sewn solidarity, encapsulated in
wave protest signs. In Arrest, another of Catt’s Beware… (its title borrowed from Ruth Singer’s Prison Apron, a found
them, handcuffed, her skirt flying out Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein), a heavily- garment hand-embroidered with
behind her, is being dragged off by a ornate, glitteringly appliquéd apron arrows, a-stitch-a-day for each day
policeman, while in the third, entitled with distinct Freemason undertones, of the Suffragettes’ incarceration.
Hacker, another sits at a computer in is an amalgam of Chicago’s careful, Ellen Bell
her bedroom appearing to break into and apposite, referencing of traditional
the CIA’s secret files. embroidery techniques and the lgac.org.uk

REVIEW
Anni Albers
Tate Modern, London 11 October 2018—27 January 2019
VISITORS TO THE ANNI ALBERS materials can be seen in her diploma and bedspreads she designed for
(1899-1994) retrospective at Tate piece, a wall covering for a windowless the (male) Harvard student rooms
Modern are greeted by a spotlit auditorium, which incorporated are also on show, as are the transparent
handloom, a proud statement of intent transparent cellophane to reflect the draperies run through with metal
as this is an exhibition unequivocally artificial light. Albers continued to play threads that she made for the
about weaving. Through 350-plus objects with light effects, often incorporating Rockefeller Guest House in Manhattan.
it showcases the work of perhaps the metallic threads and foils to add extra As well as her work for architecture and
most famous 20th-century weaver, visual interest. It’s something that is mass production, Albers also produced
spanning her student days in Germany difficult to reproduce in photographs ‘Pictorial Weavings’. Further examples of
to her life as a highly respected artist, and one of the pleasures of this her skill in geometric patternings, these
author and teacher working in the USA. exhibition is being able to see how the smaller pieces often have titles, which
In 1922 Anni Albers enrolled at the metal threads transform her often rather suggest a representational subject matter.
Bauhaus School of Art. In spite of the austere designs into pieces full of light For example, Pasture (1958) is a grass
school’s progressive ethos, weaving and movement. I particularly enjoyed green panel, flecked with oranges and
not painting was considered a suitable seeing how Haiku (1961), a Braille- creams suggestive of a wild flower
discipline for women and Albers was like composition in blacks and greys meadow. These pieces show Albers
reluctantly encouraged to study textiles. positively sparkles in the flesh. boldly claiming weaving as an artform
Perhaps her greatest achievement is The exhibition features an interesting rather than a craft, creating textiles
that we now find this view of textiles section on Albers’ designs for ‘not to be sat on, walked on, only to
as women’s work – by inference architecture and includes room dividers be looked at’. Tate Modern has to be
inferior to the more ‘manly’ fine arts – made for her 1949 exhibition at the thanked for allowing us a chance to
incomprehensible. Museum of Modern Art. These are look at them in such an interesting,
Her powerful weavings have proved almost Japanese in feel and are woven and often revelatory, show.
that textiles can more than hold their in a combination of natural fibres and Diana Woolf
own against any other artform and in Lurex to both reflect and diffuse the
the process have helped break down light. The ‘gentlemanly’ room dividers tate.org.uk
the unhelpful fine art/craft divide, a feat
underlined by the fact that the Tate, and
not the V&A, is hosting this excellent
exhibition.
From the start Anni Albers’ designs
exploited the inherent grid structure
of the woven textile to create strong
geometric patterns built up using just
two or three colours. An early example
is Black White Yellow, a wall hanging dating
from 1926, which, with its muscular
ladder of black stripes interspersed
with glowing yellow vertical bands,
seems extraordinarily modern.
This interest in geometry was to
characterize Albers’ work for the next
60 years, but what stops the patterning
becoming repetitive is her constant
experimentation with different materials
including paper, cotton, jute, nylon,
cellulose, synthetic fibers and horsehair.
Albers’ willingness to engage with new
Anni Albers
Open Letter, 1958
57.8 x 60cm. Cotton
©2018 THE JOSEF AND ANNI ALBERS FOUNDATION
PHOTO: TIM NIGHSWANDER/IMAGING4ART

REVIEW
THE MOST REAL THING

CONTEMPORARY TEXTILES AND SCULPTURE
New Art Centre, Roche Court, Salisbury 15 September—4 November 2018
IN THE REGENCY ORANGERY AT sculpture and textiles’, including work studio weaving including Peter
Roche Court, British-Nigerian artist made using a range of techniques and Collingwood’s deceptively delicate
Yinka Shonibare’s headless Adam & media, from three-dimensional objects, Macrogauze 83 No.20 (woven linen hung
Eve mannequins, dressed in layers of contemporary painting, costume and on steel rods), Diana Harrison’s elegiac
colourful, boldly patterned Dutch wax performance to fabric, craft and design. silk and cotton Boxes, and Ann Sutton’s
print fabrics, pose beneath the fateful Roche Court is a privately owned sinuous monochrome woven pieces.
apple tree. They offer a searing critique sculpture park just outside Salisbury. The mood in the Stables Gallery is
of racism and colonialism. So there’s Over 60 acres of park and garden are more monumental. To reflect ‘the
something rather brilliant about siting the setting for more than 100 works by relationship between post-war art and
them in such very English scenery. contemporary sculptors from Britain industry’, the curators have chosen
Further along the gallery, Mary and abroad. Major works from the 20th artworks by Naum Gabo and Barbara
Redmond’s installation Monastir and 21st century shelter under trees, Hepworth where thread is integral to
Coast (2018) knits together umbrella stride across open fields or emerge the sculpture. But there are playful
spokes with silk yarn and wire. And from behind hedges. contrasts. A magisterial Henry Moore
outside, across the lawn, sculptors More intimate pieces, including tapestry overlooks Barry Flanagan’s
Phyllida Barlow’s frothy Pom Poms paintings and drawings, are displayed vibrant yellow Tablecloth. Flanagan
dangle from real trees. in a small enclosed gallery (inspired also contributes Chess Set, where
All these artists work in textiles, architecturally by Cambridge’s Kettle’s dyed canvas figures sit on an
and use them as one of their main Yard) next to the original stone manor aluminium board.
strategies but may not call themselves house. They’ve also added two new Upstairs, standout pieces include
textile artists.Curated by collector buildings to the estate, the Artists’ Ptolemy Mann’s Chlorophylia series
Sarah Griffin and the New Art Centre’s House, and the Design House. (hand-dyed, woven viscose and cotton)
co-director, Stephen Feeke, The Most And now Roche Court is showcasing inspired by Bauhaus colour theory.
Real Thing brings together diverse textiles. Opening the show, critic Tanya They’ve been described as exercises in
artists and makers ‘to examine Harrod identified a new interest in ‘chromatic minimalism’. The domestic
the ongoing relationship between looking at textiles and weaving as a setting also works well for Ismini
European and American, 20th-century Samanidou’s floor-to-ceiling Dérive
art movement, with recent shows such (handwoven silk and paper); while
as Entangled: Threads and Making at Des Hughes’s bold cross-stitched linen
Turner Contemporary Margate and samplers displayed up the staircase
Tate Modern’s Anni Albers show. (Same Shit Different Day, Live Fast, Die
Indeed the title of the New Art Gallery Fast) make you laugh out loud.
exhibition is taken from Anni Albers’ The Design House houses Teplin’s
1938 essay Work with Material in which Salome prints made in homage to
©THE ARTIST IMAGE COURTESY: NEW ART CENTRE, ROCHE COURT SCULPTURE PARK, WILTSHIRE
she claimed: ‘…we must come down Aubrey Beardsley, and Ballet-Russes-
to earth from the clouds where we live style costumes. You do a double take
in vagueness and experience the most when confronted by Alvarez’s thread-
real thing there is: material.’ wrapped stool sculptures – can one
The exhibition is separated into actually sit on them?
distinct but related areas. In the This show is an honourable attempt to
gallery that links the main Georgian explore the art-historical importance
house and the Orangery, the focus of thread and to reduce perceived
is on textiles used in contemporary hierarchies in the arts. At times the
sculpture. Shonibare’s Adam & Eve, Eva ‘connections’ can feel random, even
Rothschild’s sculptural rugs (one, Felix, a little forced but it’s lovely to see the
encased in shiny resin, resembles a work in a domestic setting. And a visit
fringed oil slick), and Alexis Teplin’s to Roche Court is a wonderful day out.
Bloomsbury-esque paintings and After looking at the show, you can
costumes, while Anton Alvarez redefines stride out into the landscape, and take
the craft of ‘thread wrapping’, using in major pieces by Anthony Caro, Barry
Alexis Teplin his wrapping machine to create Flanagan, Michael Craig-Martin and
Lino, 2014 architectural shapes, joined only by Christopher Le Brun.
Oil on metis linen
glue-coated thread. Liz Hoggard
and cotton, wood.
163 x 76 x 34cm Across the courtyard, the Artists’
House is dedicated to non-functional sculpture.uk.com

Abigail Booth,
The Wash, 2018. REVIEW
220 x 440cm.
Ground red
chalk, iron and
wood tannin
on cotton
WALKING THE LINE

Forest+Found
Ruthin Craft Centre, Wales 29 September—18 November 2018
IN 1967 THE ARTIST RICHARD LONG their production. All four feature similar Booth’s adroitness is in her restraint,
made A Line Made by Walking, to all motifs – a jagged kind of cross-hatching her control. For all the wildness of her
intents and purposes a trodden path framework of in-laid brown stripes set source material, the dyes don’t bleed
across a piece of grass. It is a profoundly into an off-white ground. and the wood tannin, used to soften
simple piece of conceptual art – Man These could be fences or chicken-wire the starkness of the cotton, is even
leaving behind a linear mark by the action that has been janked or wind-blown out and perfectly blended.
of his feet moving across the landscape. of alignment, or an aerial interpretation A graduate in Fine Art from Chelsea
Abigail Booth’s four textile hangings in of the land enclosures of the eighteenth College of Art in 2013 and three-time
Walking the Line, on show at Ruthin century. It doesn’t matter. As with Long’s exhibitor in the Jerwood Drawing
Craft Centre’s Gallery 2, not only work, their very abstraction is merely an Prize, Booth makes no apology for her
echo Long’s simplicity of conception invitation to pay them, and their essence, chosen oeuvre, resolutely eschewing
but also his singular interaction with a deeper attention. Follow the small, the stereotypically domestic homespun
the natural world. hand-rendered white stitches that cross labelling it usually engenders.
Booth and Max Bainbridge, aka Forest and wander along the dark dashes and it Quietly, iconoclastically, and with a
+ Found, are partners, producing and is Long’s walk yet again – a meditation, a confidence and maturity far beyond
exhibiting their work – Booth with her meandering of hand, thought and body her years, Booth eradicates those hoary
textiles and Bainbridge with his sculpted encapsulated. boundaries between art and craft by
wooden forms – together, side-by-side, And the brown is not merely brown. appropriating the language, treatment
their differing practices entwined by a Author of The Wild Dyer (2017), Booth and philosophy hitherto reserved for
shared ethos of superlative craftsmanship, is clearly a doyenne of the process with the so-called Higher Arts.
sentient materiality and a rooted her deftly succinct accompanying material A line is a line, whether drawn, etched,
relationship to the land. explanations reading like the labels from painted, sewn or walked, Booth seems
Booth’s textiles, which are ostensibly an Old Masters’ paint box. Booth’s brown to say, with the self-assured, egalitarian
quilts, are remarkable, not just for their is ‘oxidised mulberry and iron’ or ‘ground sanguinity of an artist who is, at this
size – The Wash (2018) virtually spans red chalk and iron’ – exquisite distillations moment, keenly aware of her mastery.
the whole of the gallery’s back wall – but of nature, that up close, reveal tenderly Ellen Bell
for the skilful, yet understated, beauty of subtle gradations of hue. ruthincraftcentre.org.uk

What’s on
ON SHOW NOW LIVERPOOL Monochrome, various,
includes Richard McVetis until 12
NEWTOWN Creu/Make until
30 January. Oriel Davies Gallery,
OPENS FEBRUARY
AYLESBURY The Beautiful January. Bluecoat Display Centre, The Park, Powys, Wales SY16 2NZ. COLCHESTER Wild, Art Textiles
Stitch: Embroidery from the College Lane L1 3BZ.T 0151 709 T 01686 625 041. orieldavies.org Made in Britain 9 February-2 March.
Embroiderers’ Guild Collection 4014. bluecoatdisplaycentre.com RUTHIN Indian Threads until 27 The Minories Galleries, 74 High St
until 31 January. EEG 100 Hearts January. Ruthin Craft Centre, Park CO1 1UE. T 01206 712 437.
War Stories until 12 January. Bucks LONDON Anni Albers until 27 colchester.ac.uk
January. Tate Modern SE1 9TG. Rd, Wales LL15 1BB. T 01824 704
County Museum, Church Street 774.ruthincraftcentre.org.uk LEEDS Gail Kelly 2 February-22
HP20 2QP. T 01296 331 441. T 020 7887 8888. tate.orguk
ST ANDREWS Explorations 2108, June. City Art Gallery,The Headrow
buckscountymuseum.org LONDON Athi-Patra Ruga: Of EG Dundee & East of Scotland LS1 3AB. T 0113 378 7241.
Gods, Rainbows and Omissions Branch until 23 February 2019. St craftcentreleeds.co.uk
BATH Dress of the Year 2017 until until 6 January. Somerset House,
1 January and Royal Women: Public Andrews Museum & Art Gallery,
WC2R 1LA.T 020 7845 4600. Kinburn Park, Doubledykes Road LONDON Christian Dior
Life, Personal Style until 28 April. somersethouse.org.uk Designer of Dreams 2 February
Fashion Museum Bath, Bennett St, KY16 9DP. T 01334 659 380.
LONDON Battle of Britain Lace onfife.com -14 July. Victoria & Albert Museum,
BA1 2QH. T 01225 477 789. Cromwell Rd SW7 2RL.
fashionmuseum.co.uk Panel:Then and Now: Carol SAFFRON WALDEN Collections
Quarini until 30 March. Bentley Re-Crafted, Eastern Region Textile T 020 7942 2000. vam.ac.uk
BELFAST Fashion & Feminism Priory Museum, Mansion House Forum until 3 February. Saffron LONDON Dorothea Tanning
until 2 June. Ulster Museum, Botanic Drive, Stanmore HA7 3FB. Walden Museum, Museum St A Retrospective 27 February-
Gardens BT9 5AB.T 028 9044 0000. T 020 8950 5526. CB10 1JL. T 01799 510 333. 9 June. Tate Modern SE1 9TG.
nmni.com bentleypriorymuseum.org.uk saffronwaldenmuseum.org T 020 7887 8888. tate.orguk
BRAINTREE Warner’s in Colour: LONDON Diana: Her SEDBURGH Colour Notes, Studio LONDON Swinging London:
A Tool for Design until 27 March. Fashion Story until 17 February. 21 until 6 January. Farfield Mill, A Lifestyle Revolution / Terence
Warner Textile Archive, Silks Ways Kensington Palace, Kensington Garsdale Rd, Cumbria LA10 5LW. Conran–Mary Quant 8 February-2
CM7 3GB.T 01376 316 780. Gardens W8 4PX. T 015396 21958. farfieldmill.org June. The Fashion & Textile Museum,
warnertextilearchive.co.uk T 020 3166 6000. hrp.org.uk 83 Bermondsey St SE1 3XF.
BRISTOL Fabric Africa: Stories Told LONDON Edward Burne-Jones
OPENS JANUARY T 020 7407 8664. ftmlondon.org
Through Textiles until 19 May. Bristol until 24 February. Zarina Bhimji: HAMPTON COURT The SLEAFORD The 62 Group: Ctrl/
Museum & Art Gallery, Queens Rd Lead White (display) until 2 June. Embroidered Home January-August. Shift 2 February-22 April. National
BS8 1RL. T 0117 922 3571. Tate Britain, Millbank SW1P 4RG. Royal School of Needlework, Apt Centre for Craft & Design,
bristolmuseums.org.uk T 020 7887 8888. tate.orguk 12a Hampton Court, KT8 9AU.
Navigation Wharf, Carre Street,
Tour by appt only. T 020 3166 6932.
CAMBRIDGE Sampled Lives: LONDON Evolution of the Artist royal-needlework.org.uk Lincolnshire NG34 7TW. T 01529
Samplers from The Fitzwilliam and the Exhibited Works, Shauna 308 710. nccd.org.uk
Richardson until 17 March. The LONDON Finding Form: Marian
Museum until 13 January. Fitzwilliam Bijlenga & Chinoko Sakamoto 17 WARRINGTON Ten Plus @
Museum,Trumpington St CB2 1RB. Horniman, 100 London Road, Forest Warrington: Beneath the Layers
Hill SE23 3PQ.T 020 8699 1872. January-16 March. Flow Gallery 1-5
T 0 1223 332 900. Needham Rd W11 2RP. T 020 7243 2 February-23 March. Warrington
fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk horniman.ac.uk Museum & Art Gallery, Museum
0782. flowgallery.co.uk
CHERTSEY A Stitch in Time: LONDON Fashioned from Nature Street, Cheshire WA1 1JB.
until 27 January. Victoria & Albert LONDON Hanna Moon & Joyce T 01925 442 399.
Embroidery from The Olive NG English as a Second Language
Museum, Cromwell Rd SW7 2RL. wmag.culturewarrington.org
Matthews Collection until 26 24 January-28 April. Somerset House
January and Embroiderers’ Guild: T 020 7942 2000. vam.ac.uk WC2R 1LA. T 020 7845 4600.
100 Hearts War Stories until 2
February. Chertsey Museum,The
LONDON Night and Day 1930s
Fashion & Photographs and Cecil
somersethouse.org.uk UK EVENTS
NANTWICH Intastitch: Inspired 22-27 JANUARY Winter
Cedars, 33 Windsor Street, Surrey Beaton until 20 January. The Fashion by 9 January-16 March. Nantwich
KT16 8AT. T01932 565 764. & Textile Museum, 83 Bermondsey Decorative Antiques & Textiles
Museum, Pillory Street, Cheshire Fair, and LARTA. Battersea Park.
chertseymuseum.org St 0SE1 3XF. T 020 7407 8664. CW5 5BQ.T 01270 627 104.
ftmlondon.org decorativefair.com & larta.net
CHESTER Woman’s Hour Craft nantwichmuseum.org.uk
Prize Exhibition until 16 March. The LONDON Of A Lifetime Olga 22-23 FEBRUARY Textiles
SEDBURGH International Textile
Old Library, Northgate St, Surrey Frantskevich until 27 January. The East Fair. Swavesey Village College,
Exhibition 11 January-27 February.
CH1 2EF. chestervisualarts.org.uk Museum of Everything, 4 Chiltern St Gibraltar Lane CB24 4RS.
Farfield Mill, Garsdale Rd, Cumbria
W1.T 0 207 486 8908. gallevery.com textileseastfair.wordpress.com
EDINBURGH Embroidered LA10 5LW. T 015396 21958.
Stories: Scottish Samplers until 21 MANCHESTER ReFrame: Caroline farfieldmill.org 28 FEBRUARY-3 MARCH
April. National Museum of Scotland, and Maisie Broadhead until 24
SLEAFORD Jilly Edwards: Glimpses COLLECT. Saatchi Gallery, London.
Chambers Street, EH1 1JF. February. Manchester Art Gallery and Memories NCCD, Navigation craftscouncil.org.uk
T 0300 123 6789. nms.ac.uk Mosley Street M2 3JL.T 0161 235 Wharf, Carre Street, Lincolnshire
8888. manchesterartgallery.org NG34 7TW. T 01529 308 710.
EDINBURGH Liberty Art Fabrics nccd.org.uk
MANCHESTER Thread Bearing Venues may charge admission.
& Fashion until 12 January. Dovecot
Witness: Alice Kettle until 24 Dates and opening times may be
Studios, 10 Infirmary St EH1 1LT. STAFFORD Nearly Neon
February. Whitworth Art Gallery 17 January-27 April. Unit Twelve,Tixall subject to change at short notice.
T 0131 550 3660.
Oxford Rd M15 6ER. T 0161 275 Heath Farm ST18 0XX. We recommend contacting the venue
dovecotstudios.com
7450. whitworth.manchester.ac.uk T 07811 460 494. unittwelve.co.uk before making your journey.
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Week 7: Embroidery Project and Exhibition
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THE LAST WORD
A personal account
CONSTANCE HOWARD
Our new series delves into the Embroidery archive
and begins with an extract from a conversation with
Constance Howard published in 1973
A conversation with Constance How do you feel about embroidery

Howard, ARCA., one of the most education at the present time?
CH: ‘One of the most important things
widely known embroiderers
is that embroidery should have an art
in Britain. She is in charge of basis if it is to have a lasting impact.
Embroidery at the Goldsmiths’ All students should draw. If they have
nothing to express in their work, it lacks
College School of Art and author content and can become a fashionable
of Design for Embroidery gimmick. Stitches and textures without
(Batsford 1956) and Inspiration for purpose become boring, as I found
when I merely drew shapes and filled
Embroidery (Batsford 1966). Her them in. Many ideas may be expressed
work as an examiner, lecturer at in embroidery using threads and
short courses and her commissions fabrics as media and sometimes dyes,
too. One of my students has a great
have influenced many people in social awareness and this is shown
Britain and overseas 1 in the approach to her work. A work
maybe pure colour or pure texture but
You were not an embroiderer without an idea behind this, it becomes
originally were you? uninteresting.
‘Fabric collage is very useful as a means
CH ‘No I thought embroidery was a of design and is a medium in its own
complete waste of time and I hated it. right but it should be recognised that
I did some embroidery at Northampton embroidery is something different.
School of Art where I trained because Collage does not become embroidery
it was one of the few crafts available. if a few stitches are added. I often
I gained the scholarship at the Royal say to a student: ‘Why have you put
College of Art in wood engraving and those stitches there? Are they really
there I continued with this craft and necessary? Wouldn’t the work be better
book-illustration but on Thursday without them?’ Stitches should not be
evenings I went to Mrs Kathleen Harris2 dragged in for their own sake.
for embroidery. There I did a large ‘Embroidery is a hard craft and a skilled
hanging Adam and Eve, which I later craft. Many people have excellent
cut up. I still have the pieces.’ technique but they cannot use stitches
expressively. Fabrics and threads should
You have exhibited a lot. not be pushed beyond their limits…
CH ‘I began to exhibit in 1947, before ‘Embroidery has more to it than is Top: Constance Howard in 1973
I start teaching again and in 1950 was realised by those who have not done Above: A machine embroidered panel with
commissioned by NK Henrion3 who it but it is fascinating and often a white linen figures by Constance Howard,
saw my work with The Arts and Crafts challenge. The standard of children’s 1955. 40.5 x 37cm
Society and asked me to make an work today is getting higher as much
embroidery for the Festival of Britain. of the work is
My students helped on this, among them linked with the art
Mary Quant, who did excellent work. departments in the
The Country Wife4 was an enjoyable schools and this
commission and craftswomen of note means we can look
in the Women’s Institute were asked to forward to more
produce specified articles 5/8 full-size, exciting work in the
which were incorporated in hanging art schools in future.’
now in Denman College.’ COMPILED BY JO HALL
1. Embroidery Volume 24 No 2 (summer) 1973 pp40-43 ©The Embroiderers’ Guild.

2. Kathleen M Harris taught at Manchester School of Art and the RCA, and edited Embroidery 1951-1960.
3. The German graphic designer FHK Henrion (1914-1990) designed two of the pavilions at the 1951
Festival of Britain:The Country and The Natural Scene.
4. The Country Wife textile mural was designed by Constance Howard for the Country Pavilion at the
Festival of Britain.The WI housed it at Denman College until Feb 2009 when it was transferred to the
WI Collection at The National Needlework Archive.

Objects of Desire (detail) by Sam Hussain, Guild Graduate 2016/17 Roxanne (detail ) by Captain Geoffrey Edwards, Guild Collection
Landscape Mask (detail) by Laura Marriott, Guild Scholar 2017/18 Chirk Castle (detail) by Joanne Frankel, Guild Member
We support, educate, promote & inspire

new generations in the art of stitch and textile design and we
welcome you whether you are starting out, developing your own
skills or wanting to push the boundaries of stitch and textile art.
We are the Embroiderers’ Guild

JOIN US TODAY
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2018 12 01 Embroidery Magazine

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January February 2018

THE TEXTILE ART MAGAZINE £6.50

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OUR COVER this month shows a detail of Fast Landscape

EDITOR SUBSCRIPTIONS DEADLINES

4 EMBROIDERY November December 2018

to ask questions about love and life THE LAST WORD

January February 2019 EMBROIDERY 5

With additional support from the Anni Albers

Zarina Bhimji: Lead White at Tate Britain until 2 June 2019

January February 2019 EMBROIDERY 7

‘My linen collages are inspired by

8 EMBROIDERY January February 2019

Detail of an embroidered ﬁre screen

November September July August 2018

THE TEXTILE ART MAGAZINE

JULY AUGUST 2018

SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2018

MARCH APRIL 2018

Rhiannon Plus Caroline

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10 EMBROIDERY January February 2019

about Our readers are a talented

you bunch and we love to share

BONNIE PETERSON turned to embroidery as a means of

Cecilia Ajayi (front), A Galaxy Far Away,

From a young age CECILIA AJAYI fell in love with

Rosie Ellen Hickman, Trace (detail)

You can’t help but be drawn in by ROSIE ELLEN

January February 2019 EMBROIDERY 11

1 Profile Embroidery Jan/Feb 2017. 2 Celia Pym, Stop Looking Like a

12 EMBROIDERY January February 2019

January February 2019 EMBROIDERY 13

14 EMBROIDERY January February 2019

LIBERTY HISTORY OF A BRAND

Silk and satin kaftan (1960) with

January February 2019 EMBROIDERY 15

LIFE IN THE FAST LANE

16 EMBROIDERY January February 2019

Pauline, Nijenhuis, Fast Landscape

January February 2019 EMBROIDERY 17

18 EMBROIDERY January February 2019

20 EMBROIDERY January February 2019

22 EMBROIDERY January February 2019

January February 2019 EMBROIDERY 23

Right: We Should Smile

January February 2019 EMBROIDERY 25

26 EMBROIDERY January February 2019

Above: Sara Impey, Deﬁnition (detail) 2010.

Right: Watching Paint Dry, 2007.

28 EMBROIDERY January February 2019

30 EMBROIDERY January February 2019

January February 2019 EMBROIDERY 31

32 EMBROIDERY January February 2019

art & Jordan Nassar was born and raised in New