Journal
Marie Antoinette Style at the V&A: A Close Look at the Textiles
I went to this exhibition expecting to be mildly interested. Eighteenth-century French court life is not really my territory. Too gilded, too tragic, too far from the making practices I usually spend time with.
I came out genuinely fascinated.
Almost nothing in the exhibition is confirmed to have belonged to Marie Antoinette herself. What the V&A have done instead is gather textiles and dress from other collections that are close enough to what she would have worn, and the effect is remarkable. It stops being a relic show and becomes something full of life and extraordinary craft skill.
What I focused on
I decided to ignore shoes, fans, jewellery, and the execution galleries entirely, and spend my time with the fabrics and dress. There is a lot to look at: state dress with silver-wrapped embroidery so heavy it must have been nearly impossible to walk in; the painted warp silks she favoured for daily wear; a commission sample that makes you understand immediately why her annual dress budget topped the equivalent of £1,500,000
The film goes through the pieces in some detail.
The Gallery of photographs
I took a lot of close-up detail shots while I was there. The embroidery and fabric construction really only make sense at that scale. You can click through and browse at your leisure.
Love Letters to the Land; Gartur Farm
This week I took part in the exhibition "Love Letters to the Land" at Fodder and Farm, Gartur Stitch Farm, Port of Menteith in the middle of Scotland.
I was showing with a couple of other artists whose work is inspired by the land - Eilidh Weir and Celia Ramon.
The exhibition was in an old barn - whitewashed walls with swallows swooping in though the large doors. I give a tour of my pieces in this video and Eilidh can be seen hanging hers in last week's blog post.
Hanging the Love Letters to the Land exhibition at Fodder and Farm
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This week I have been hanging my embroideries in a white washed barn, as part of Forth Vallery Art Beat - an Open Studios trail. The barn is part of Gartur Stitch Farm near Port of Menteith in Scotland - an education led regenerative smallholding which is host to Fodder and Farm, an events company specialising in local food, making and community.
It all brought up a lot about whether I am an artist - self trained, working in textiles and with local materials . . . .
In this video I discuss all that and you can see us making decisions about what art works to put where - and get a close up of the amazing quilt making of Eilidh Weir of All that is Braw.
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