The word for crisis in Chinese means opportunity, so maybe this is our opportunity to rebalance our ways, for us all to survive and grow on this beautiful planet. The young are leading the way in refusing to buy new clothes and many spend weekends thrifting.
Textiles are the second most polluting industry. Some of what is manufactured goes into land fill within 6 weeks of it being purchased.
It is important to buy better quality and less often. Pleasure should be part of making, selling and owning.
I have recently found a tunic by Raymond Duncan below is a quote
“Make yourselves in working today most people destroy themselves in working. “
A quote from Raymond Duncan’s interview with Orson Welles in in 1955 This is wonderful do watch:
Later in the year we had a craft fair of things we had made or recycled.
Exhibitions began to open again and it was a total joy to see Louise Bourgeois exhibition “The woven child”
Textiles are so much part of our emotional memory . As a daughter of a tapestry dealer and a tapestry restorer she had more experience of this resonance than most. Weaving was part of her DNA. Spiders were weavers too, she called her spiders Maman.
Inspired by this exhibition we have been re-inventing some rare fragments. We may put these in a separate section.
In April the William Morris Gallery hosted an exhibition of Althea Macnish.
We lent one piece to the exhibition which was Van Gogh, commissioned by Hull Traders in 1960 .
This was curated by Rose Sinclair from Goldsmiths University and introduced new material and research.
In May this year we exhibited at The Decorative Fair in Battersea – unfortunately I got Covid just before the set up. My wonderful friends rallied around and helped me and by opening day I registered negative.
The flavour of the year has been African textiles- particularly Ewe Cloths from Ghana .
Many new ones have been added to the African section.
We have a new tunic by the above mentioned Raymond Duncan (brother of the dancer Isadora Duncan) which seems very relevant to today . In modernist section along with a design by Donald Hamilton Fraser.
In the Islamic section we have the best Suzani I have ever had the good fortune to handle which once belonged to William Burrell.
On the downside I have been Scammed out of my .com domain web address which also includes email sent via
.com email address
Please in future use estherfitzgerald.co.uk and email – esther@estherfitzgerald.co.uk
The next few months will be a challenge, let’s rise to it. The secret, I believe, is community all problems are better shared.
Very Best Esther