Stories in Cloth

Posted in Art Textiles, creativity, History, Inspiration, My work, Textile History by Ruth Singer

Commissioned artworks in response to a family textile collection

This project has been one of my slowest ever, but it’s finally coming together. Months ago I was commissioned to make a new piece of work inspired by a family collection of textiles and clothing. It’s been tricky all along because the client wanted the textiles back intact so I couldn’t cut and stitch the cloth into something new so that limited my options. Intriguingly, the client also doesn’t want an artwork back so I suggested creating works which could be scanned / photographed so she can have a digital version. In many ways an open brief is harder to work with than a very tight brief. Too many options can be quite overwhelming so I struggled for a while to work out what to make. But it’s up and running now and nearing completion and I’m very happy with what I’ve done.

I decided to make a series of small pieces presented like museum prints or drawings in an acid-free box. The client has worked in archives for many years so the connection made immediate sense. I’ve used print, drawing and photography techniques to create an archive of the collection without using any of the textiles in an irreversible way. As time has passed, the client is actually happy for me to use the textiles as I wish but I’ve gone down the route of preserving them so although I’ve done a little stitch work with some smaller textile pieces, no scissors have been involved and everything I have done is reversible, like in textile conservation – a regular source of inspiration to me.

Until I decided to stitch a few of the textiles, this project was more like a museum project – creating work inspired by but not using this collection and that’s been enjoyable and challenging for me. I’ve never done anything like this before, using a personal / family collection of treasures and stories which have huge importance as a group. I think find it particularly fascinating as I don’t actually have a family textile collection of my own. The museum / archive / stories aspect of this project has given me a lot to think about and a lot of reflection on my own future work in collaboration with museums, and maybe with other family collections.

This project forms part of my research and development for my new long-term creative work around evidence and absence, looking at histories and objects, movement and loss. I’m hoping to show the finished work in an exhibition next year. All along, I’ve been sharing the development of this work with my Maker Membership group over the last year or so, as an example of how I go from idea to finished work. This project has been particularly relevant to our earlier theme of Objects where I shared my experience of working in museums early in my career and now working with museums (and old things) as my inspiration. These resources are still accessible for all members of the group too. Find out more about membership here.

What family archives / textiles collections do you have? Do they inspire your creative work? Or don’t know where to start? I’m open to similar commissions with other family collections of textiles and clothing, it’s been so much fun to explore new ideas.

20Sep2014

What’s in Your Shed? Exhibition at Snibston

Posted in Exhibitions, My work by Ruth Singer

This week I finally got to see my work Tool Shed on exhibition at Snibston, a museum a few miles away from me. Apparently this work inspired the whole exhibition project, which is really nice to know. My work is exhibited in a purpose-built shed, inside the giant museum shed-style building. It’s great that my dad was able to come and see the work too and remember his dad, and those amazing sheds!

These pieces are based on the household and garden tools from my Grandad’s shed. He was a professional gardener from the age of 14 and carried on growing his own vegetables until his death in 2012 at the age of 96. His numerous sheds contained years of carefully-maintained and well-used tools and the essence of him. This collection uses outlines of his gardening and DIY tools stitched into his handkerchiefs, found neatly ironed and folded in the airing cupboard after his death. You can find out more here.

Tool Shed stitched artworks by Ruth Singer. Displayed in Snibston as part of What’s in Your Shed? exhibition

My dad alongside his dad’s tools. Tool Shed stitched artworks by Ruth Singer. Displayed in Snibston as part of What’s in Your Shed? exhibition

The show also includes two other artist sheds, rather different in character! Flights of fancy is a pigeon fancier’s fantasy shed by the wonderfully surreal team Mrs Smith who have a thing for both sheds and pigeons! The same artists created Tales of the Unfinishable which has been touring around the UK in the last year or two.

Flights of Fancy at Snibston

Core Shed is pretty hard to get your head round. I have read a little about it, so I was able to make some sense of it, but it has no text explanation at all, which is a huge mistake in a family-oriented, mostly science/engineering museum environment. In a fine art gallery visitors might engage with it more easily, but in this space it is adrift and pretty impenetrable. However, despite my misgivings about the appropriateness and interpretation, it is full of interesting bits and pieces which make nice photos.

Core Shed at Snibston

The exhibition continues until 26th September.

9Jul2014

Travelling Tool Shed

Posted in Art Textiles, Exhibitions, My work by Ruth Singer

Today would have been my Grandad’s 98th birthday. My work, Tool Shed, inspired by his collection of tools, is heading off for a new exhibition later this month.

What’s in Your Shed opens at Snibston, Coalville, Leicestershire 26th July – 26th September 2014 curated and conceived by Transform, an arts project working to create artistic interventions in this industrial museum. This work inspired the whole exhibition, apparently, which is fantastic.

My Grandad

Quilted tool jumble

Quilted tool jumble (detail)

Tools jumble

Flower Trowel

Fork: Tool Shed series

Quilted Secateurs

Twin secateurs

Fork & Trowel

27Mar2014

Family Stories

Posted in History, My work by Ruth Singer

After my Grandad died (aged 96) in late 2012, I cleared out a huge amount of textiles from his house, along with masses of curios and generations of junk that he had kept. His second wife’s family ran a small laundry business, and it was the ex-laundry buildings where Grandad kept all sorts of interesting stuff. They had masses of top quality cotton sheets and table linen; some abandoned at the laundry, some donated, some simply rescued from far finer houses. Grandad has been a gardener all his adult life and worked for some very wealthy people. When they upgraded their homes, he was asked to take unwanted things away, and it seems he simply took them away to his shed! He wasn’t really a hoarder, the house was very sparse , but he couldn’t bear to see good things thrown away. He wasn’t much interested in the things he kept. Maybe, subconsciously, he knew he’d have a granddaughter one day who would covet the old but fine quality linens, china cups, standard lamps and carved ebony screens that he piled up in his extensive outbuildings before I was even born.

I’d known for a long time that I wanted to do something creative using the family linens. I also wanted to make some work that reflected my modest Grandad and the incredible collections he accidentally created. Over the last 10 years or so, I realised that his house and sheds where almost like a museum to me; full of fascinating stories and interesting objects. The sheds, particularly, were a kind of representation of the man himself. Practical, unfussy, organised, down-to-earth and full of charm. I want to preserve that memory, that sense of the man, by creating work that honours and remembers him. In 2013 I created two collections of work inspired by my Grandad; the Tool Shed series and Metamorphosis. I have plans for more work too, for my forthcoming solo show at NCCD in late 2015.

Detail of Metamorphosis

Fork: Tool Shed series

Part of Tool Shed series

Detail of Metamorphosis

Whiting family laundry

My Grandad

Detail of Metamorphosis

For several years, I have created work inspired by historic buildings, places, objects and themes, as well as using personal experiences and emotions in my work. By creating work using my own family history, I feel the work has added depth and humanity. People connect with the work in a different way. Every viewer has their own interpretation of my work and each makes their own connections to their own family.

In my Family Stories workshop on 26th April, I aim to share some of the creative processes behind my work and explore how you can use your family history to create unique, personal textiles to commemorate your family. We will look at how to create a sense of the family by selecting colours and fabrics that have significance. I will show you how to create printed textiles using documents and photos such as letters, maps, certificates and official documents and turn these into stitched and appliqué details for your piece. You can also bring along small objects to use as silhouettes or motifs in the work, or actually incorporate them into the work itself. Personal textiles, buttons, trimmings and off-cuts are also great for personalising your work.

This workshop is also available for groups and guilds.

14Nov2013

On My Mother’s Knee

Posted in Exhibitions by Ruth Singer

I’m exhibiting at Llantarnam Grange Arts Centre, in a show called On My Mother’s Knee, opening later this month. I’ve created a new series especially for this show called Tool Shed. I’ll also be showing these two aprons.

The exhibition catalogue is available online.

When I was approached for this show in February this year, I had to confess that I didn’t learn sewing at my mother’s knee. I learned at my stepmother’s elbow as a teenager, after spending my formative pre-school years doing carpentry with my dad as well as plenty of other crafts with other members of my family.

Tools jumble

Quilted tool jumble (detail)

Nor are the works I’m showing traditionally domestic – or at least not traditionally feminine. My new work is inspired by my late grandad’s tool shed and uses his well-worn handkerchiefs as the main cloth. I had an idea to use the family hoard of well-used domestic linens in some way and this exhibition fitted in perfectly.

I’m also taking part in an artists In Conversation event on Saturday 23rd November at Llantarnam, alongside the awesome stitch talent Caren Garfen. The exhibition also includes my friend Louise Frances Evans who has been a great inspiration for me, the fabulously fun crochet of Kate Jenkins, the amazing Julie Arkell, Kirsty Anderson, Lynn Setterington and Jessie Chorley. What amazing company!

14Oct2013

2014 textiles workshops

Posted in Fabric Manipulation, natural dye, Work With Me by Ruth Singer

Just a brief outline of the new workshops to come in 2014, full details soon!

Workshops 2014
All workshops are 10am-4pm on Saturdays at Ruth Singer Studio, Leicester. £55 each or book 3 for £150

Miniature Art Quilts. 25th January

Shadow Embroidery. 23rd February

Cut-surface quilting. 22nd March

‘Squares’ hanging, 2013. More details here

Family Stories. 26th April

Handmade fabrics. 31st May

Smocking, Shirring & Gathering. ~~28th June~~ Rescheduled for 21st June

Found objects and amulets . 19th July

Photos on Fabric. 30th August

Monumental Folly pincushion 25x15cm More
details here

Wild Dyes. ~~28th September~~ Rescheduled for 20th September

Trapunto Quilting. 1st November

Transparency. ~~6th December.~~ Rescheduled for 13th December

25Sep2013

The Making of Metamorphosis

Posted in Exhibitions by Ruth Singer

More images of the whole piece here

A few months ago I saw an opportunity advertised locally for artists to make work using the idea of metamorphosis and using an object in the collections of New Walk Museum as inspiration, as part of a conference in the School of Museum Studies at Leicester University. I decided to visit the World Art gallery at New Walk, which is full of wonderful things (although they don’t seem to have a page about it in their website!). I took photos of lots of intriguing and beautiful objects but couldn’t find something that really worked with the metamorphosis idea. I photographed this Nigerian ‘charm gown’ because I thought the decoration was fascinating. It wasn’t until later that I realised it would work with the metamorphosis concept.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA The idea of the gown is that the words, drawings and amulets added to it, make the garment protective. I was intrigued by the idea that by marking marks onto cloth, it can be changed from mere fabric to something spiritual and powerful. I found the following text on the British Museum website, about a similar object:

Curator’s comments

Register 1940: ‘Jibbeh’ W. Sudan (?)

Register 1940 later addition:
[N.Nigeria? (W.B.F.)](LaGamma and C. Giuntini, 2008)
‘Every inch of this simple cotton tunic was inscribed and invested with prayers by an itinerant Hausa artist who sought to transform it into a mantle of invulnerability. The extraordinary measures taken suggest that the garment was made for an important warrior to wear into battle. The Islamic belief in the power of the Koran’s written word is manifested here in a creation configured so its Koranic texts encase the body, affording a line of mystical defence superior to armour’

I wanted to explore how the role of the artist can transform a plain piece of cloth into something powerful. In the same way that the artist made the charm gown, I wanted to make a modern, personal charm gown, using humble textile and the hand of the artist to transform its meaning.

Since my grandad died in December 2012, I’ve been wanting to use some of the textiles from his home in my work. When we cleared the house (and extensive sheds) I gathered up all kinds of cloth from old sacking to neatly starched and pressed handkerchiefs, knowing that I would find a use for them. This project seemed like the ideal opportunity.

Initially, I intended to make a small garment, maybe a shawl or scarf, to represent the charm gown, but when I visited the School of Museum Studies, they offered me a HUGE glass case and I couldn’t resist taking it on. Despite all the perfect tablecloths and pristine white sheets from the hoard, what I kept coming back to was a large, old dust sheet. It must have been a high quality cotton sheet, once upon a time, but had been used for painting jobs for many years. My step-grandmother’s family ran a small laundry and no doubt this is where the sheet originally came from – things were not always collected, hence the huge collection my step-granny acquired. The sheet has laundry marks and even an address in Ealing marked on the edge.

Almost everything else I have used in the piece comes from Grandad’s. The pegs used for display must have been from the laundry too.

Rust dye using tools and scraps from the sheds, encouraged with tea to create a soft, brown stain.

Outline of tools in stitch and appliqué.

Floral embroidery transfer, found in my late Grandmother’s sewing basket. She was a professional seamstress and died before I was born. I had no idea that her embroidery things were still in the house, waiting for me, 40 years after her death. I’m so pleased I could use them too in this piece.

Scans of letters, local maps and war time documents printed onto textile to make amulets and appliqué.

Hapazome or flower-pounding, using flowers transplanted from Grandad’s garden to mine.

Found objects, all but one came from Grandad’s things.

Patterns, embroidered text and details taken from the original charm gown and given a twist.

Details of the original dust sheet with collar stud found in the things.

The work is now installed in the School of Museum Studies and is open to the public 10-4 Monday to Friday. Part of the appeal of this commission was the link to Museum Studies, where I did my MA 17 years ago. There is something very pleasing about now creating art works inspired by museums when my whole adult life has revolved around museums in so many ways.

This is only the start of a body of work using textiles and themes from my family history. I am working on a series related to Grandad’s tool shed for Llantarnam Grange Art Centre for later this year and there will be plenty more, I hope!

Ruth Singer

Ruth Singer textile artist

Tag Archives: family

Stories in Cloth

Commissioned artworks in response to a family textile collection

What’s in Your Shed? Exhibition at Snibston

Travelling Tool Shed

Family Stories

On My Mother’s Knee

2014 textiles workshops

The Making of Metamorphosis

Curator’s comments

Register 1940: ‘Jibbeh’ W. Sudan (?)