Out of the Fold exhibition

Out of the Fold always sets a challenge or theme for each exhibition and the one for the recent exhibition held in Bury St Edmunds was 'Finer Focus'. Three related pieces were all to made from recycled calico coffin covers. 'Finer Focvs' being an anagram of 'Coffin Covers'

I must say that I have loved working with the soft unbleached calico of the covers which were stamped as above with the Ecoffins logo and also with the legend 'FRAGILE DO NOT STACK'

The calico dyed wonderfully and resulted in a soft warm tone.

'Someone's father, someone's son' - my Finer Focus piece

 I worked with the full length of each coffin cover - which vary according to the size of the contents - and wanted to make a sombre piece in keeping with the source of the fabric. Each length was dyed, the wording then stamped very simply with acrylic paint, then stitched by machine. The Finer Focus theme came from highlighting that in the long list of names on my 'roll' of cloth that each one of those names was an individual and someone's father, husband, brother or son.

Finer Focus - British panel(detail)

The first panel I made was one showing a long list of British first names. This was dyed using a grey Procion dye to suggest stone.

Finer Focus - German panel(detail)

It was listening to radio 4 whilst stitching the English panel above when I heard a programme talking about a memorial being planned to commemorate the centenary of the first world war where the fallen of all nations are to be honoured. This led to me thinking about the Finer Focus piece in a wider way and led to the making of the second panel using German names and highlighting 'Sohn (son)' 'Ehemann (husband)' 'Vater' and 'Bruder'  within the text in red. This panel was tea-dyed.

Finer Focus - the Western Front(detail)

 The last panel was done in haste with the exhibition deadline fast approaching and was stamped more sparsely with the names of battles fought on the Western front between 1914 and 1918. The fabric was washed and dyed after stamping and stitching to give the weathered appearance of stone.

This series could go on - panels featuring the names of Italians, Russians, Australians......9 million men died in WW1 alone. Or the theme could come forward or back in time. History has never been short of battles or lives lost.