Stitched together

 

This exhibition at Jane Austen’s house, Chawton, includes the work of 11 artists - including mine – the veil shown above. The brief was to make work inspired by Jane Austen’s novels and her needlework to coincide with the loan of some pages of her unfinished manuscript, The Watsons, from the Bodleian Library. Several of the artists linked the idea of lace and text including Charis Bailey’s embroidered text, Jo Lovelock’s dream catcher (see below), Poppy Szaybo’s printed lace collars, and my veil – more of which in a future blog.

Others focused on layers and fragments including Charlotte Small’s overlapping layers, Laura Brainwood’s work inspired by layers of paper, Clare Rose’s fragment of patchwork incorporating text and Beverly Ayling Smith’s fragments of patchwork scraps hidden throughout the house (see below).

The remaining artists concentrated on the idea of text, including Denise Jones who linked text with music, Hannah White’s iPad case enclosing original correspondence, and Charlotte Martin’s quotes from Austen’s novels woven into cloth. The artists are all linked to either the University for the Creative Arts or the Royal School of Needlework as staff or students. Caren Garfen mentored all the artists during the project. The exhibition isn’t on for long, it closes on 16 December, so do go and see it before then.