MA Week 18 - Artist Research :”Cloth & Memory” exhibition

Based on : Millar, L. (ed), (2013). Cloth & Memory {2}[exhibition catalogue}. Saltaire, Salts Estates Ltd.

I have finally made some time to look at this exhibition catalogue which my tutor kindly lent me. It accompanied a 2013 exhibition in the empty spinning room of Salts Mill, Saltaire, with all the connotations of past and present, memory and experience, that such an exhibition might bring. I’m pleased that I waited until after reading some of Harrison’s book on heritage as a critical perspective, as this catalogue seems to make sense in that context. I’ve just chosen a few artists whose words and work spoke to me, and I comment on these below. 

Lesley Millar (introduction, pp15-18)

Millar argues that history is a linear construct with day following day. However, memory is much more malleable. She contrasts “learned memories”, e.g. multiplication tables, with memories of experience that come to mind unbidden, re-constructed, dissolving into other memories. The self of the present puts its own view on each memory; the memory becomes layered and ambiguous. We destruct and destroy, as well as re-construct and re-purpose, our memories. She goes on to discuss the idea of our memories being quite literally wrapped in cloth due to our relationship with textiles as clothing and quotes Reiko Sudo ; “ ‘I am interested in the life of fibres and textiles, how they are reborn and recycled”. As with cloth, so with memory”. 

Caroline Bartlett (p30)

“Stilled”

Bartlett had produced embroidery hoops into which are stretched pieces of woollen cloth, and a small porcelain roundel is placed into each one. A web of stitching spreads from the roundel, forming a drawing. The fabric is allowed to soak up spillages, absorbing memory and experience. This is a response to the presence of the bygone era and the absence of the bygone industry. The embroidery suggests hints and cracks, and the ugliness of the stains contrasts with the beauty of the stitching.  

Maxine Bristow (p39)

“Mutable Frame of Reference”

Bristow had installed some steel frames draped with various cloths. This was a play on the structure of our memories vs their fragility and frequent re-working. The use of cloth,as a familiar material, allows the viewer a way into relating to the work. The steel and cloth together form hard and soft edges, inviting the viewer to think about their own relationship with cloth and also with nostalgia, memory and heritage. The following quote is quite long but really seemed to sum up some of my recent understanding of identity and heritage:

“On the one hand memory and heritage (as a materialisation of collective memory) provide a sense of continuity and stability. As a way in which we make sense of ourselves in the present through reference to the past, they are important in the construction and representation of identity providing a sense of individual and social coherence in an ever-changing world. However… both heritage and memory make selective use of the past for contemporary purposes”.

Caren Garfen (p50)

“Reel Lives, 1891”.

Garfen undertook a detailed analysis of the 1891 Saltaire census. She then produced cotton reels with hand stitched roundels as “memory plaques”, each giving details of a married woman’s name and details. She also hand-embroidered two apron strings, one with occupations open to women and one with occupations open to and men; unequal opportunities giving unequal length apron strings.  

Philippa Lawrence (p74).

“The Fabric of making”

Lawrence researched the language used at mill, in both technical and everyday terms, and produced a list which she called a poem (e.g. “cording”, “winding”, “laughing”). She then had this woven into selvedge edge of a bale of cloth, thereby depicting the making of fabric and the fabric of living. Usually the selvedge is disposed of, and she draws a parallel between this and the forgotten lives of the millworkers.

Karina Thompson(p102)

“1 Hour’s production = 1 ½ miles = 15 lengths”

Thompson ran up and down the massive empty spinning room and collected imprints of her running shoes. At the same time, she wore monitors and collected images of her ECG and ultrasound triangles of her heart. She then created these three sets of images into a 100m long embroidery.  

Discussion 

I am not a textile artist by any stretch of the imagination, but within these works and words there are some ideas and perspectives that are interesting or familiar (or both) to me. 

Bartlett’s embroidered mark-making, black and red stitches into the white cloth, is of interest thanks to my own interest in the marked line, particularly the black line. I would never render it in thread, but that is the beauty of art; the same idea can be depicted in so many different ways. Her stained cloth brings to life the idea of industry, of the grime and dirt of that time, and offers a hint to stop us looking back with a completely nostalgic perspective as per Millar’s introductory comments. 

Bristow’s words of tension around memory and heritage as important, beautiful and stabilising, yet at the same time deceptive and selective, are deeply meaningful to me. Our life is a linear passage of time, as Millar says, yet our experience is not; our memories dip in and out of our past, always with the view of the present. There is a continuity because we are alive one day to the next, but stability is something different. What made sense of our past on this day 10 years ago is quite different to what makes sense of our past today, because there is both another 10 years of lived experience to unpick and add to the past and another 10 years of lived experience through which to view it today. 

Garfen and Lawrence have both used qualitative and quantitative analysis to arrive at subject matter, i.e. words. I keep trying to resist the appearance of text in my own work, but these pieces are inviting me to think again. They are both very neat pieces of work in every sense of the word. 

Thompson’s work is very much based on her own experience of the space, in contrast to the other four artists mentioned here. It also uses modern technology to produce subject matter, which has been sewn by a programmed sewing machine into the cloth. Her approach is very much about herself and about the now; the only nod to Salts Mill seems to be the use of textiles to produce an outcome. There is no nostalgia or memory, apart from a snapshot of the day she did the run. I found it quite divorced from the feel of the exhibition as I’d picked it up from the other artists’ entries. 

The artists’ approaches were something of interest generally. I thought that Garfen and Lawrence had worked very meticulously and that their outcomes were quite literal in their interpretation. Bristow and Bartlett seemed to have taken a more “open” approach, with the viewer required to do more work to understand their installations. The different approaches provide some food for thought for my own approaches to future briefs and also how to respond to a space; archive analysis (Garfen and Lawrence), psychological approach (Bairstow), current perspective (Thompson), heritage perspective (Bartlett). I suppose the overall message is to stand back from the situation in hand and try to see what it tells you before diving in with any particular approach.