V&A Day 1 - Part 3

Moving on from spot samplers to band samplers, tracing the evolution of sampler making. Here's Clare talking about two 17th Century band samplers in the V&A's collection. Band samplers we created using a loom-width of linen for the length with the selvedges making up the top and bottom of the piece. The width was much narrower, which allowed the embroiderer to trial repeating bands of pattern, text and other techniques such as cut-work. These samplers started to introduce an element of design, whereas with spot samplers I think of them as collages, stitched areas randomly placed on the fabric, with the embroiderer utilising every last piece of the cloth.

For me, band samplers are like musical scores. Indeed, when Jason first saw them he commented that the rows of patterns were like the visual representations of sound recordings you find in digital music software - rows of hi-hats, snare drums, basslines and vocals, when combined making up the complete composition.

The first of the two samplers is unnamed, and the second was created by Hannah Pittman. Both are fine examples of band samplers of that period and are not only fascinating in terms of the techniques used to create them, combining stitched bands of coloured threads, white-work, repeating patterns, text and cut-work, but also for the mystery of their makers' fates. Both pieces are unfinished, one with a piece of thread left hanging and Hannah Pittman's stitched text stops mid flow.

" the lamentation of a sinner
O lord turn not away thy face from him
that lies prostret lementing sor his sinfyl life
be for th...."

Did they get bored, or as Clare aludes to, did they die?

Elizabeth Longhurst - Sampler

Well I opened the post a few days ago and was delighted to have received this beautifully embroidered and designed "sampler" from Elizabeth Longhurst who is one of the members of the New Embroidery Group. I particularly like the mirrored DJ faces linking into the idea of repetition. At first they aren't instantly recognisable, but the closer you study the piece their forms start to appear. Also, Liz's choice of stitches and colour on the open weave linen. I'll have to get Liz to tell me/you which stitches she's used, as my knowledge still isn't that great.

At the start of the project I invited the embroiderers to design and embroider a logo symbolising the connection between the two worlds of dj-ing and embroidery cultures. Sadly, due to work commitments Liz hasn't been able to take part in any of the workshops so far, so it means a huge amount to me that she has been working away on this piece in her spare time. I continue to be amazed at the kindness and generosity of everyone involved in the project.

I'm looking forward to exhibiting Liz's sampled contribution as the project develops.

You can see more of Liz's work on the New Embroidery Group link in the collaborators section of my blog.

birthday books

Well it was my birthday last week and I received two fantastic books as presents.



The first was Old Rare New - The Independent Record Shop published by black dog publishing, ISBN: 978 1 906155 32 2
which features a whole host of interviews and articles by the likes of Bob Stanley, James Lavelle, Devendra Banhart and Gerald Jazzman about diggin' and the culture of the, sadly disappearing, independent record shop. My favourite independent of all time is still King Bee records in Chorlton, Manchester. I've picked up some fantastic tunes there and not for silly money.



The second was from my partner Gill, "Quaker School Samplers from Ackworth" by Carol Humphrey, published by Needleprint. ISBN: 0-9552086-1-0
I must try to meet up with Carol one day, as she is a font of knowledge about all things samplers. I've seen and read about a couple of the Ackworth school samplers, so it'll be great to study them some more, and see whether thy might link into the sampler project.

A huge thank you to Gill, and both Faye and Sian at LPT for the very generous presents - perfect :) I'll post any gems that I pick out of the books.

Home is...

Happy New Year. Hope everyone has had much festive festiveness of the festive variety over the festive period. I have to say despite the loom and gloom of the recession, I'm looking forward to 2009. There's much to explore with the sampler project - the Open Source Embroidery touring exhibition, talking at the Embroiderers' Guild's annual conference in April, developing further research with the V&A and hopefully developing the project with sampler collections across the UK and internationally working with the British Council in south east europe.

I hope you all have successful 2009's too!

P.S> A huge thanks to Gill for the badge above..perfect xxxx

V&A Day 1 - Part 2

Here's another clip from the first day of the workshop we ran back in May. Clare shows us two early samplers from the 16th century, now part of the V&A's collection. Well I don't need to explain much about them otherwise there's not much point showing the clip. Enjoy.

Patterns

Last week I met up with the wonderful embroiderers for our regular catch up and for another day of creative play. This time exploring pattern making using grid paper and black marker pens. We built on the idea we used for the sampler-culture clash event in Sept, where we invited members of the audience to create patterns which we would use to turn into sound. We've started to do that by the way, so I'll post some of the results soon.

Continuing with our philospophy of collaborative creation, we worked in pairs on four 2 metre sized grid papers, spending twenty minutes on each, then moving round to the next one so that everyone had worked on each design twice. We didn't use any reference material, just what ever happened to be in our heads at that particular moment.

We came up wth some quite amazing and varied designs given the timescale and the process. The idea is to use these as our musical scores and translate them into sound compositions, so we have a complete piece and then sample sections and re-work the pieces. I've no idea what they're going to sound like. We'll also be using the patterns to create embroidery pieces, again both whole designs and sampled sections woven together to create new compositions.

Here's a selection of photos from the day and a couple of the final pieces.

DATS

I've just got back from Birmingham, after very kindly being invited to talk about Sampler-Culture Clash at the Dress and Textile Specialist's annual conference. It was a nerve racking gig talking about the project in front of such expertise, but it seemed to go down well and the participants were very supportive.

I really enjoyed the day, having the opportunity to meet curators from museums across the UK and Ireland and to talk to them about samplers in their collections. I particularly enjoyed the talk by Linda Fairlie and Bruce Morgan from East Ayshire Council about their collections, including the ayrshire wool blankets, with their distinctive stripes. I have a few which I still use, courtesy of my mother (who was born in Glasgow, with her extended family all living in Ayshire and mostly working as miners). I got home and checked the label of one - The "C.B.4" Loudoun Cheviot Bath Blanket, which is great and says "Made under the shadow of Loudoun's Bonnie Woods and Braes".

Also, the story of the UK's last Jacquard loom punch card machine - tragically no longer in service. It would be so fantastic to get that up and running again, and to work with the operators to create new punch cards based on some of the (binary) patterns we've been creating recently. Apparently, the man who last operated the machine is also a pianist - it would be great to meet him. Wherever you go the connection between textiles and music raises its head.

I'm looking forward to following up by visiting several of the museums to find out more about their sampler collections. One idea with Sampler is to tour the project across the UK, producing new work specific to each location, so today was perfect to start to make those connections.

Thanks to everyone at DATS for inviting me, and in particular Zelina Garland (DAT's Chair and Curatorial Services Manager at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery) for all her help.