Midcentury Modern happened a couple of Sundays ago. Sally and I showed the chairs we've worked together, alongside her knits and my new, modular, woodblock prints (upcoming post). This one is our favourite. Needs a better photo but you get the idea. Each chair carries a narrative, out of its source or use or time and place of making. This one was fed by our Summer in County Down, so named the Tyrella chair. I make the drawing, Sally stitches and re-upholsters. We enjoyed this one because it flowed quickly out of a set of sketchbook ideas and was then drawn directly onto the fabric.
We are looking intently at stitch and line interrelationships. Better knowledge of stitch informs the drawing. More options for stitch better translates the nuance of drawing. Studying books such as Thames & Hudson's very useful Textiles: A World Tour and looking forward to Elsie Svennas' A Handbook of Lettering for Stitchers (1973) to arrive, if Royal Mail allows.
Some more shots of the Calligraphic Chairs as a complete set.
And our first collaboration, the Standing There Chair, from a poem by our daughter Sadie. We are now working on a commission for a couple who really 'got' the language and narrative aspects of this process.
Next stop is Kids.Modern in February, also at Dulwich College. We are sourcing and working with small wooden children's chairs; key again is that each chair provokes its own little language.
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