Stitching Remembrance: The War Widows' Quilt

Moving online talk from the British Academy looking at a project to study the experiences of war widows which resulted in the making of a quilt.

This event took the form of a discussion between various people involved in the project chaired by Sue Pritchard from Royal Museums Greenwich who were the first to show the quilt at the Queen’s House. I live nearby and am so sorry I missed that back in 2019.

Nadine Muller from Liverpool John Moores University had initiated the project via an exercise to record the experiences of war widows in oral history interviews as she had found when she came to research the subject that very little had been written about them. During her interviews she realised that some of the women found it difficult to talk and she wondered if some sort of workshop might help them.

Lois Blackburn, an artist and co-founder of Arthur-Martha which had worked on similar projects, met Nadine in the village they both lived in and suggested workshops around handcraft and ultimately creating a quilt. She talked about how the action of sewing helped the women to talk and to raise awareness of the issues.

Mary Moreland a war widow and former chair of the War Widows’ Association talked about the support the association gave the project and their work but also about creating a piece for the quilt.

I now so want to see this work and I am fascinated by the social role of quilting over the years. I liked the variety of work in it but particularly liked the pieces made from breast pockets which many of the women filled with personal items and chose to leave them open or closed.

Project website:http://www.warwidowsstories.org.uk/

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thomas Becket: Murder and Making of a Saint

Image
Stunning exhibition at the British Museum on the life and afterlife of Thomas Becket. I studied Becket both at A Level and at university so I was really looking forward to this show and it did not disappoint. From walking in to see an old friend, the early Limoges casket showing the murder from the Victoria and Albert Museum, I was gripped. The show told the story well using fantastic objects and led you through his life, the murder, the political aftermath, his sainthood and miracles, and how Canterbury became a major pilgrimage site. It is hard to pick out the best objects as so many were wonderful. I loved that they had early copies of some of the five eyewitness accounts of the murder which made you fell you were almost touching the event. I liked the manuscript on his time in exile which was almost like a comic strip. How wonderful to get a 13th century font from Sweden which shows how far and how quickly the news that Henry II had integrated the murder spread. I think my...
Read more

Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year Exhibition 2019

Image
Delightful exhibition at Clarendon Fine Art showing pictures from the Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year TV series. I had loved the series which had set nine artists, both professional and amateur, to paint one of three celebrities. It then had a semi-final and final with them all looking at one sitter and in the final they also took on a commission. I loved the way you watched a picture build and how some were then made or spoiled by one stroke of paint.   Finding these pictures I knew so well in the flesh was therefore fascinating. None of them disappointed. My favourite artist from the final, Tom Mead, works looked just as good in real life if not better as you could see the detail. The show included his impressive self-portrait which he submitted to enter the competition, a wonderful fragmented picture of his reflection in a mirror giving a sense of movement. I loved that it included a large version of him and a miniature. His commission for the final of Jazzie B...
Read more

The Renaissance Nude

Image
Beautiful exhibition at the Royal Academy looking at the nude in Renaissance art. The show was gently themed but mainly let the pictures speak for themselves. It began by looking at the subjects, both religious and secular, which include nude figures then examined techniques and models used in these works, finishing by looking at more personal pictures. This is a period I’ve studied a lot so there were a lot of old friends and it was quite fun predicting what might appear. There were a few surprises too such as the rather surprising drawing of the Ecstatic Christ. I liked the fact the show included lots of different art forms not just paintings including sculpture, etchings, drawings and illuminated manuscripts. There were some fascinating hangs to draw comparisons particularly two sets of pictures by Giovanni Bellini and Hand Memling from almost exactly the same date. These were shown back to back in a display cabinet down the middle of one room. My favourite work was ...
Read more