Images and artists statements of a selection of the work currently at Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton...
Linda Babb
Linda's work in the centre of this cabinet.
‘The
mending of clothing, underwear and household linens, though wearisome is
nevertheless very necessary and no woman should be ignorant of the best methods
of doing it. There is much merit in knowing how to repair the damage caused by
wear and tear or by accident, as in the perfect making of new articles’
Carolyn
Sibbald
Originally a graphic artist, later
studying textiles, forming an eclectic approach to surface design.
Carolyn uses natural fabrics and mixed media, recycling in unusual ways, sizing
the discarded and looking at it afresh.
Exploring different medium, she embellishes hard and soft surfaces which retain
that graphic sensibility.
Carla
Mines
I have spent many
years looking at the detrimental practices of modern man on Earth, especially
in the increased production and disposal of plastic. ‘Mending my Ways’ meant
that I had to look at the other side of me, the optimistic side that recognises
the enduring power of nature. The quotation in Braille says,
‘What the caterpillar
calls the end of the world, God calls a butterfly.’
Lizzie Weir
I repair my husbands clothes,
we repair our children's wounds,
you repair my heart,
they repair their relationship,
he repairs the car,
she repairs...
I repair, we repair,
you repair, he repairs, she repairs, they repair
The intention was
that this work had the delicacy and transparency of lace, but an integral
strength, a history, a memory. All of the fabric used has undergone a journey,
much has been stitched, torn, re-worked, repaired, mended, by many hands before
it came into mine. It is important to me that this shows within the work, that
every stitch, join and repair is visible. I wanted the piece to be a whisper,
barely there, but to have the strength of a bandage, to have repaired, to have
mended.
Alison
Harper
Leave only footsteps
For this exhibition I am re-working a textile piece made many years ago, re-assessing and re-evaluating it. This I see as a kind of ‘mending’, of making better, of making it useful again.
On examining the piece I discovered I had interlined it with a winceyette sheet that had belonged to my mother, this brought immediate memories of stockpiled linen cupboards and suitable uses for old, worn sheets.
Loads of balls
These tennis balls have in a way been ‘mended’, re-invented as decorative objects, rescued from what fate I am not sure. The outer layer of wool, still made at a mill in Stroud has been ‘darned ‘, and by using embroidery, applique, beads and gold-work these balls have assumed individual identities belying their industrial manufacture.
Liz
Harding
Colour and the ways
it can be mixed has always fascinated Liz, whether it be with paint and a brush
or thread and a needle.
She was taught to
darn at school, to make do and mend; and she still enjoys its repetitive build
up of surface.
The simple crossing
of lines of thread has become a way to explore the effect of colour whether as
a drawing medium as in ‘Five Figure Studies’ or simply to delight in the
dynamic way colours work with each other as in ‘Five by Four Colour Animation’
