stitching and listening

slow, quiet note no.57

Have I mentioned the rain?

anti-gloom thread arranging (day 129)

This week’s post is (mostly) a pick and mix list of a few of my favourite podcasts and YouTube channels. The majority, unsurprisingly, are stitch, quilt and textile related and I’ve been listening to many episodes this dreary old week whilst working on samples and outlines for future workshops and submissions for open calls and opportunities.

First up is Haptic and Hue with eight series’ worth of interesting and informative episodes about textiles and textile history with expert guests and comprehensive episode links and referencing.

No. 2 on my regular listening list are the Friday Feature Artist episodes hosted by Take Two Art courses. Again, you will find a long and varied back catalogue of interviews with international textile artists from all disciplines. I have yet to take the plunge and sign up for one of their beautifully produced courses but have learned so much from listening to the featured artists speak about their work and practice. I particularly enjoyed this episode featuring Amanda Nadig:

Nearer to home, is the Creating Textiles series found at Morley College Radio.

Just eight episodes to listen to here but having done a papermaking course at Morley with the brilliant Ellie Burkett a while back, I enjoy hearing about Morley’s textile students, alumni and exhibitions (I also have their ten week contemporary quilt making class on my ‘to learn list’).

Here’s Zoe Edwards’ Check your Thread’s podcast with over 200 episodes to listen to including this one from zero-waste maestro Birgitta Helmersson

For it’s focus on contemporary quilting and quilt artists, you could head over to Not Your Granny’s Quilt Show with nearly 200 episodes and finally, there’s Mr X Stitch aka Jamie Chalmers whose weekly Needlexchange interviews feature many contemporary embroiderers taking stitch and creative textile practices to new and innovative levels.

I haven’t touched on the thousands of tutorials and skillshare channels you could visit and I’m going to save my favourite museum, gallery and art channels for another time but I would like to give a special mention to the International Quilt Museum (IQM) who not only host weekly online textile talks with contemporary quilters, historians and curators but offer comprehensive virtual gallery tours for those of us who can’t quite make it to Nebraska.

For context, like so many others I have been greatly inspired by the traditions and history of Japanese boro textiles and, having heard about but missed a groundbreaking show of Boro at Somerset House over a decade ago, made a point to visit the ‘Japanese Aesthetics of Recycling’ exhibition at the Brunei Gallery in 2023. to see some examples of boro pieces in person.

Detail, late 19CE early 20CE Boro shikifuton used to cover the mattress or as padding for a futon

I remember heading into the gallery space on what was a very hot August afternoon and, in the first instance, appreciating the cool and quiet calm. My strongest memory is the excitement of being able to get close enough to most of the exhibits to see every stitch and then being overwhelmed by the feeling that these fabric pieces and fragments, stitched, re-stitched and stitched again had retained the memory of being steadfastly, almost furiously, protected and cared for. I cried.

Crying in public is definitely not one of my favourite things to do but I often cry at the cinema, frequently whilst watching telly and sometimes I have to switch off songs on the radio if I haven’t got time for a weep. I can’t be alone in having a similar response to exhibitions or works of art? Can I? Maybe it is just me?

As I write, it occurs to me that there have been more tear-provoking exhibitions than I had previously thought. I won’t bore you with the entire list. I might not have to dig about in the bottom of my bag for a tissue on every occasion, a subtle sleeve wipe of the eye might suffice, but it would seem that, on reflection, I am actually quite an emotional gallery visitor (although, thankfully, not quite in the same league as those who have been diagnosed with Stendahl Syndrome).

Should you be interested in some of the shows that have made me cry these include (but are not limited to) Agnes Martin at Tate Modern , Cy Twombly at Museum Brandhorst and The Gees’ Bend Quiltmakers at Alison Jacques (one of the first exhibitions I visited after the pandemic).

Anyway…I was indulging in a spot of sofa scrolling after yesterday’s teaching and came across an announcement of the IQM’s new exhibition: BORO: The Hidden and the Visible in Japanese Mended Textiles on Instagram.

My interest, as you can now imagine, was piqued sufficiently to pop over to my maps app and find out where Nebraska actually is, five minutes later I knew exactly how I might get there and how long it would take. Ten minutes later, I’d worked out a route for an imaginary yet not entirely impossible quilt-themed US tour, taking in other quilt museums and galleries - possibly Quiltcon if the timings fit. As I was checking dates for both, I returned to the IQM website and discovered their virtual gallery tours.

I’ll let you explore by yourself but, needless to say, I spent the second half of yesterday’s England v. Wales Six Nations match (which happened to be on the telly while I was sipping a very tasty cup of tea) joyfully zooming in and around each room, appreciating the beauty of each artefact and reading the useful exhibition texts and labels. I didn’t cry but being able to visit such an amazing exhibition over 4,000 miles away from the comfort of my sofa in gloamy Wiltshire on a Saturday afternoon was a treat. If you, too, are living in a place currently beset by relentlessly dreary winter weather, I can recommend nothing better than having a virtual pootle around whichever gallery or museum that floats your boat for a cheering half an hour.

In news of other scrolling, I leave you this week with a glimpse of my ongoing (read potentially never-ending) stitch sampler piece. I’m going on my first ever week-long stitch retreat at the end of the month and am very much looking forward to working alongside our host and facilitator, artist Anne Griffiths. Our theme for the week is books and it seems appropriate to pack the scroll along with my sketchbook and sewing kit.

We’ve been given a programme and suggested materials list and with at least five full days set aside for potentially uninterrupted creative practice, I’m brewing ideas around my collection of embroidery transfers and instruction manuals as well as thinking about the writings of John Aubrey. Aubrey was a seventeenth century North Wiltshire archaeologist, naturalist and biographer whose work and achievements are being celebrated locally this year. I am taking part in a creative writing project at Chippenham Museum which will run alongside an Aubrey-related exhibition in the summer and I hope to weave some of this into my textile practice over the next few months.

Thank you for taking the time to read this week’s slow, quiet note. Welcome to those of you who have followed or subscribed recently - it’s lovely to meet you.

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Have a great week!

Janice x