Laura McCafferty: Drawing with Fabric
Laura McCafferty: Drawing with Fabric
January 09
17 January 2009 to 19 April 2009
A new display which holds a mirror up to the fashions we wear in
our everyday lives opens at Bath & North East Somerset
Council’s Fashion Museum at the Assembly Rooms Bath on 17 January
2009.
The collection of 15 framed embroideries by textile artist Laura
McCafferty gives a glimpse at what the young and the old wear
during their spare time or on a day out, whether that’s playing
bingo, sitting in a café reading the paper, going to a music
festival, out for a stroll on a Sunday afternoon with friends, or
just simply walking down the street.
This is the first time that the Council-run Fashion Museum has
presented the work of a contemporary textile artist in the
galleries.
Rosemary Harden, Fashion Museum Manager, Bath & North East
Somerset Council, commented “ Laura’s work is vibrant and colourful
and you can immediately recognize different styles of the type of
dress that we all wear on a day to day basis in her work. I know
that hoodies have a bad press, but so many people today wear them,
and Laura’s embroidery Man with Cat in New York is a wonderful way
of recording that and presenting it as fashion history to visitors
to the Fashion Museum”.
“Fashion is not just about big name designers, or even only
about high street stores. Fashion is about style and putting a look
together on a day to day basis. It’s difficult, however, to record
this for posterity and to present these do-it-yourself looks in the
context of fashion history in a museum setting. It is for this
reason that at the Fashion Museum, Bath & North East Somerset
Council has hit upon a series of linked displays presenting
‘ordinary dress’ to its visitors in a variety of different artistic
forms”.
Laura begins each piece with a preparatory pen drawing, and then
works through the different textile art work processes of appliqué,
screen print, and hand embroidery. The fabrics used are a mixture
of new pieces and re-cycled fabrics sourced from vintage clothing
stores and sales. Each art work is unique.
“What I’m doing is taking the ordinary and trying to make it
beautiful” commented Laura McCafferty. “An early preoccupation with
the elderly while I was still at college was my first attempt to
grasp and to capture something before it vanished. There is an
ongoing fixation with humans and how we react within a particular
environment, the effect a place has on our attitude, behaviour and
the impact of those around us. This idea manifests itself in
documentary reportage textile artwork”.
“Including the people around me has opened up a clear direction
in my work- rather than act upon a chance sighting or a fleeting
moment I have begun to take control of the scene as in The Crufts
Misfits, a 3 metre long art work which came about as the result as
a staged gathering of friends”.
The display follows on from the successful 1977 display showcasing
20 beautiful photographs of punk and new wave bands in 1977.
In this display Bath & North East Somerset Council are
presenting day to day dress in modern Britain today through this
series of changing displays.
The display continues at the Fashion Museum until 19 April, just
after Easter 2009.
For more information log on to the website www.fashionmuseum.co.uk
ENDS
Notes to editors:
Attached image: Man and Cat in New York
Laura McCafferty will be available at the Fashion Museum on
Friday 16 and Saturday 17 January by arrangement on 01225 477736
for any press photography.
For other images contact Maggie Bone, Museums Publicity Officer
on 01225 477736, email: maggie_bone@bathnes.gov.uk
For further information, contact Rosemary Harden, Fashion Museum
Manager on 01225 477282 or email: rosemary_harden@bathnes.gov.uk