Friday 20 June 2014

Fabric of the Nation

I was at Heelis this week for a meeting with a group of people in the National Trust who are embarking on a project to renovate and restore the huge collection of tapestries, textiles and clothing that the Trust has - over 100,000 items in fact. There's a lot of conservation work to be done, and the project would be a five-year one. It sounds like the sort of thing which could get a lot of attention, and of course it sits nicely with our tapestry project. Although, of course, we intend to have new tapestries made.

If there's so much work to be done conserving textiles, it does beg the question whether we should be making something new, but it's the best way to draw attention to the craft of tapestry-making. In terms of the story of textiles within the Trust's collection, it arguably gives a contemporary relevancy to all the pieces already in existence.

There are a number of large tapestry panels at Heelis and although I didn't remember to take a photo of them, I did pass a shop in the shopping place next door which was selling creme eggs in bags of ten for £2.