Museum That Greatly Inspired My Needlework Creations
London's Victoria and Albert Museum, affectionately known as the V&A, exists to increase the understanding and enjoyment of arts, crafts and design through its collections. It was founded following the Great Exhibition of 1851, and from the start it served as a model for decorative arts and crafts museums around the world, collecting examples of contemporary excellence a well as objects of historical importance.
It is a living design museum that stages fascinating exhibitions and beautifully researched showings of international collections and antiquities. Its six miles of galleries contain over five million works of art, including the National Collections of sculpture, water colors, photography and portrait miniatures.
You can get lost in rooms of European ceramics, German silverware, contemporary jewelry, or the famous costume gallery. The display galleries gather together furniture, textiles, ceramics and all varieties of objects d'art — categorized by country or period — whereas the study galleries specialize in particular materials, allowing the visitor to explore and discover within narrower fields.
The textile study gallery, for example, consists of hundreds of pull-out files of glass-mounted fabrics, laces and embroideries through which you can browse at your leisure. These ever-growing collections have inspired the visually aware since the museum was founded, and every type of artist and designer looks at those objects and archives with eyes that translate them into uses for their own particular needs.
Laura Ashley began printing textiles in 1953 and went on to market all over the world her own style and concept of English country life furnishings. Much of her design inspiration was derived from the museum's collections, and yet how differently American knitting and needlepoint designer, Kaffe Fassett, observed and drew upon the same source material.
Prince Albert's intention when he conceived the idea of the museum was that it should lead the way, through example, toward better design in industry. In these retrospective times we sometimes forget to move forward and are happier copying things from the past than creating designs of our own times.
However, recreating beautiful patterns has its place, particularly where the period charm is strong, so I have included re-workings of old pieces that are very close to the original, along with some adaptations of textile designs to make, them suitable for needlepoint, and a number of unashamedly new designs that have been inspired by objects and collections at the V&A, The difficulty for me was where to begin.
There was no shortage of ideas but to choose one century, country or discipline would have failed to represent the enormous scope that the museum offers to design enthusiasts. How could I make a cohesive website featuring a number of needlepoint pieces based on such varied genres as Coptic weaving, stained glass, Victorian wallpapers, and eighteenth-century silk designs?
The answer I came up with was to choose individual items that are stunning from all centuries, regardless of geography, and to put them in a loose chronological order, taking us from fourth-century Egypt to nineteenth-century Germany, via Japan, India, and England. What these items have in common is their suitability for adaptation into designs that will enhance almost any modern home.
We start with one of my favorites, Coptic Bird, which is virtually a copy (scaled up) of a piece of ancient weaving. Those rich, bright Egyptians loved them back in the fourth century. The amazing thing is that the vibrancy of this particular piece has survived the centuries. It is on display at the museum and well worth going to see and marvel at.
The next designs are taken from the famous Oxburgh hangings, stitched by Mary Queen of Scots and Bess of Hardwick, and familiar to many from the museum's postcards. One of the most exciting discoveries for me was the Bradford Table Carpet which, as its name suggests, is a canvas work carpet designed to cover a huge table.
Its enormous illustrated border is full of animals, buildings, people, trees, and happenings. There was only room for two snippets from this carpet but I would love to have done more. In 1990 the V&A held an exhibition of eighteenth-century silk-weaving designs.
Those of Anna Maria Garthwaite and James Leman excited me particularly, and the archives produced some fantastic patterns that inspired five of the designs presented on site. The long stitch chair seat cover, in contrast, is a translation into needlepoint of the blocks of almost pure color that hit the eye in the stained glass gallery.
Here, beautiful stained glass windows are set in darkened walls and back-lit-, as in a church, making you see each color both in-isolation and as part of a larger scheme. From Japanese stencils came the patterns for the two blue-and-white cushions, and a wallpaper border is the basis for a design named Double Damask.
Other designs are derived from collections rather than individual items. Endpaper catalogs, patterns for printed and woven textiles, and Moghul architectural drawings provided just some of the starting points from-which I have set out to create new designs.
I cannot remember a time when I did not have some piece of needlework on the go, but did not discover needlepoint until I was about thirty, when a friend started me off on a stitch sampler with a piece of blank canvas and some wool. I have hardly stopped stitching since. I soon found that I could produce designs for needlepoint, though I cannot draw well and have never tried to paint.
Somehow I can get results with my needle that elude me in other media. Photocopying has helped enormously, as it enables one to scale patterns up or down so that they can be traced onto the canvas. After this, I sometimes paint the canvas, but usually I just get going and see what happens. I have no training in art, design, or needlework techniques and have learned most of what I know through trying things out and observing closely the work of others.
You can get lost in rooms of European ceramics, German silverware, contemporary jewelry, or the famous costume gallery. The display galleries gather together furniture, textiles, ceramics and all varieties of objects d'art — categorized by country or period — whereas the study galleries specialize in particular materials, allowing the visitor to explore and discover within narrower fields.
The textile study gallery, for example, consists of hundreds of pull-out files of glass-mounted fabrics, laces and embroideries through which you can browse at your leisure. These ever-growing collections have inspired the visually aware since the museum was founded, and every type of artist and designer looks at those objects and archives with eyes that translate them into uses for their own particular needs.
Laura Ashley began printing textiles in 1953 and went on to market all over the world her own style and concept of English country life furnishings. Much of her design inspiration was derived from the museum's collections, and yet how differently American knitting and needlepoint designer, Kaffe Fassett, observed and drew upon the same source material.
Prince Albert's intention when he conceived the idea of the museum was that it should lead the way, through example, toward better design in industry. In these retrospective times we sometimes forget to move forward and are happier copying things from the past than creating designs of our own times.
However, recreating beautiful patterns has its place, particularly where the period charm is strong, so I have included re-workings of old pieces that are very close to the original, along with some adaptations of textile designs to make, them suitable for needlepoint, and a number of unashamedly new designs that have been inspired by objects and collections at the V&A, The difficulty for me was where to begin.
There was no shortage of ideas but to choose one century, country or discipline would have failed to represent the enormous scope that the museum offers to design enthusiasts. How could I make a cohesive website featuring a number of needlepoint pieces based on such varied genres as Coptic weaving, stained glass, Victorian wallpapers, and eighteenth-century silk designs?
The answer I came up with was to choose individual items that are stunning from all centuries, regardless of geography, and to put them in a loose chronological order, taking us from fourth-century Egypt to nineteenth-century Germany, via Japan, India, and England. What these items have in common is their suitability for adaptation into designs that will enhance almost any modern home.
We start with one of my favorites, Coptic Bird, which is virtually a copy (scaled up) of a piece of ancient weaving. Those rich, bright Egyptians loved them back in the fourth century. The amazing thing is that the vibrancy of this particular piece has survived the centuries. It is on display at the museum and well worth going to see and marvel at.
The next designs are taken from the famous Oxburgh hangings, stitched by Mary Queen of Scots and Bess of Hardwick, and familiar to many from the museum's postcards. One of the most exciting discoveries for me was the Bradford Table Carpet which, as its name suggests, is a canvas work carpet designed to cover a huge table.
Its enormous illustrated border is full of animals, buildings, people, trees, and happenings. There was only room for two snippets from this carpet but I would love to have done more. In 1990 the V&A held an exhibition of eighteenth-century silk-weaving designs.
Those of Anna Maria Garthwaite and James Leman excited me particularly, and the archives produced some fantastic patterns that inspired five of the designs presented on site. The long stitch chair seat cover, in contrast, is a translation into needlepoint of the blocks of almost pure color that hit the eye in the stained glass gallery.
Here, beautiful stained glass windows are set in darkened walls and back-lit-, as in a church, making you see each color both in-isolation and as part of a larger scheme. From Japanese stencils came the patterns for the two blue-and-white cushions, and a wallpaper border is the basis for a design named Double Damask.
Other designs are derived from collections rather than individual items. Endpaper catalogs, patterns for printed and woven textiles, and Moghul architectural drawings provided just some of the starting points from-which I have set out to create new designs.
I cannot remember a time when I did not have some piece of needlework on the go, but did not discover needlepoint until I was about thirty, when a friend started me off on a stitch sampler with a piece of blank canvas and some wool. I have hardly stopped stitching since. I soon found that I could produce designs for needlepoint, though I cannot draw well and have never tried to paint.
Somehow I can get results with my needle that elude me in other media. Photocopying has helped enormously, as it enables one to scale patterns up or down so that they can be traced onto the canvas. After this, I sometimes paint the canvas, but usually I just get going and see what happens. I have no training in art, design, or needlework techniques and have learned most of what I know through trying things out and observing closely the work of others.