I love of stains on cloth and often use found marks (such as tea stains on old linen) in my own work. The Beauty of Stains : patchwork, Vintage cotton sheet, natural dye, machine pieced, 2017. As an artist I choose to look from one very specific angle and to explore that rich seam of narrative in as much detail as I can. My training in museum work taught me to look at objects from every angle, exploring every possible story to understand the thing as a whole, not purely as a visual object. I am interested in what it says about those who made it, bought it, sold it, used it, abused it, preserved it and mended it. To quilt lovers, my preference for the discoloured reverse, the wrecked by laundering, the paint-spattered and the pieced army blankets may be puzzling but I love the stories held in damaged or ordinary cloth. Tracery has been made and unmade to create a quilt purely of seams holding the remaining threads together, just like the quilting stitches holding together quilts which would otherwise fall to pieces. When I came to view the quilts I was entranced by the damaged ones and chose to make work which reflected this.

Tracery is a direct response to the quilts in this collection and on display alongside my work. New pieces appear first with older pieces at the end of the page. Read the background to my research for this work on my blog here and here.Ĭlick through the images below for details of each piece and additional close up photos. I am fascinated by the stories behind the quilts and of their survival and damage and takes these ideas into new work where quilts are deconstructed, remade, reimagined into new ideas of quilts.

Domestic fragments meaning