“Unearthed – Stories told through stitch” – Vanessa Rolf
For our October meeting Vanessa Rolf started her talk by telling us about her background explaining how she studied Fashion and Textiles at Birmingham. When she left education Vanessa got a job embroidering for the High Street fashion houses and she remembered stitching lots of butterflies and chrysanthemums.
Vanessa returned to education after working for fashion houses and followed a MA course in Mixed Media Textiles at the Royal College of Art. As a result she changed direction to focus on teaching and textiles.
It was obvious from early on that Vanessa spent a lot of time researching topics for her work and her choice was influenced by her background, her childhood, her surroundings, her interests and her research. Inspired by travel writers and her love of maps, Vanessa showed us a hand stitched piece influenced by the shapes on a map. She prefers to work with subdued colours, mainly black or blue and white, no colour apart from one piece using orange. She found two old shirts in the garage. They were worn out but still being used. Her choice of stitch is also limited and Vanessa said she mainly uses a running stitch and back stitch.
“Keepers” has been a major project for Vanessa and she has produced various works which have been exhibited at the Arc in Winchester. On a visit to the Hampshire Cultural Archive she explored the storerooms. She found notebooks, folders and boxes and these all got her thinking what to keep and what to discard. Everything told a story. In this project Vanessa looked at stored envelopes but was not allowed to open them. Her resulting work left the observer wondering what was inside. Another piece of work was inspired by tools and she used heavy industrial felt to cut out the tool shape and inlay in another colour.
For another work Vanessa looked at the fragments of Roman pottery which had been found and she created a piece showing a background of the graveyard with the complete pot emphasising the found section.
Another work was centred around St Catherine’s Hill Iron Age hill fort and the 1925-28 dig. Metal objects had been found on the hill and again Vanessa used cutouts in industrial felt to show the shape of the items.
I asked about the story behind the ship which was displayed on an indigo background and was told it was HMS Kimberley which her grandfather had sailed on and had taken part in the Battle of Narvik in 1944. Sailors would have their own cloth mattress cover to sleep on and this was then removed for the next person. Another piece showed the names of various ships that had sunken to the bottom of the sea.
It’s always fascinating to hear the stories behind textile artists’ work and Vanessa certainly had some unusual stories to tell.
Write up by Ros
Photos – Vanessa Rolf and Ros