I’ve always had a thing for the decorative potential of arrangements of holes, and today in my morning Instagram browse, I looked at the website of a French freeform bobbin lacemaker, Madeline Thoman I fully relate to her artist statement, and her images are beautiful – do look her up and keep an eye on her work. I’ve watched a few bobbin lacemakers at work and it looks far more difficult than any needlework technique I’ve ever done, and it’s quite humbling to think she taught herself how to do all that.
A few years ago, I wrote here that holes were the defining characteristic of lace, not the material around the holes themselves. Last week I listened to a fascinating episode of the Haptic and Hue podcast on the story of lace, “The Long and Wiinding Road of Lace” – Series 4, “Threads of Survival”, episode #31. I didn’t realise the story of lace only began in the 1400s, though I did know some of the stories of this expensive luxury textile, how it was a social marker, and so valuable that people risked their lives to smuggle it. If you’re a textile or fibre artist of any kind, or interested in the history of textiles, I fully recommend you look up Jo Andrews’ wonderful podcast in which every episode is packed with the interesting and colourful history of textiles within the history of Mankind.
Which brings me to the light bulb moment with this piece, mounted on what is technically a minimlist freeform ‘lace’ construction made to present this small 3D work, and it’s only just struck me that there is great potential here to present some other 3D forms in this way.
