Category: research
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Criminal Herstories
Criminal Herstories is a local history display for Staffordshire libraries related to Criminal Quilts. The display contains a large book based on a prison photo album, of images and information about the prison photo albums and our research about the women appearing in them. It also includes a patchwork made by project volunteers and a…
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Textiles and Dress from Below – Criminal Clothing Research
In June I will be presenting my research on the clothing worn by women in the Stafford Prison photo albums 1877-1916 (from my Criminal Quilts project) at an academic workshop at Wolverhampton University on Thursday 7th June. The event Textiles and Dress from Below: Ordinary and Everyday Textiles and Dress in Museums and Historic Houses looks at…
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Emotional Repair Exhibition
I am currently working on a new exhibition at Gawthorpe Hall Textile Collection which is in an amazing National Trust building in Lancashire. The textiles there are a private collection assembled by Rachel Kay Shuttleworth (1886- 1967) who lived in the house and opened it up to share her collections and her knowledge. I…
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Criminal Quilts : Sketchbooks
In between archive visits I have begun working on a sketchbook to gather my thoughts and ideas for the new work I intended to make for the Criminal Quilts exhibitions starting in summer 2018 – which is suddenly really quite soon! I’ve created a sketchbook for sharing with people when I do talks about the…
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Criminal Quilts: Cataloguing the photo albums
During November I went through all eight photograph albums from Stafford Prison to record all the women featured in the photographs. The photographs begin in 1877 and continue until early 1916. The style of photography changes dramatically during this period as does the clothing worn by the women. The first set of images 1877-81 are…
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Criminal Quilts research blog : photo albums.
The photographs which have formed the source material for Criminal Quilts are held in bound albums in Staffordshire Record Office. The albums are part of a large collection of archives from Stafford Prison and I’ve been working my way through each one in the last couple of weeks. The images I am working with date…
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Criminal Quilts project launch
You are invited to join me at Staffordshire Record Office for the launch of a new phase of my project Criminal Quilts on Friday 8th September. Find out more, see artwork from 2012-2015 and explore the original archive photos. SaveSave
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Rethink your Mind
I’m pleased to have a new piece of work selected for the ReThinkYourMind Yellow Book project. My piece Ash Map will be included in the new book for 2017 which will be launched this week after an awards reception at the House of Lords last week, although I was at the Contemporary Craft Festival so…
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Exploring quilt history
As I develop new work for my Fragments exhibition in the summer, I am investigating and exploring a lot of old quilts. I am continuing to explore my photographs and notes from the research visit to the Quilt Association’s collections in February and creating new technique ideas based on the structures, designs and history of…
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Antique Textile Inspiration course
In June I will be running an exciting new 4-day course for West Dean College. In this course I will be sharing my own way of working taking inspiration from antique textiles and creating sketchbooks and samplers to develop into new textile pieces. Find out more about West Dean from my previous blog posts. My…