CAKE (contemporary arts in Kimblesworth and exhibition)

CAKE (contemporary arts in Kimblesworth and exhibition)

Further development of the WEAVE (women’s engaging arts vision for everyone). Working with artists Caroline Coode, Rhonda Fenwick, Diana Raw and Marion Thompson in collaboration with participants from Kimblesworth Art Group and Whittingham Vale Art Group. Creating work inspired by Weaving, Durham Carpets and a more in depth meaning of weaving.

The status of “female practices” in the Western Art Canon.

In the Homeric Times, weaving was the work of elite women, such as Helen, Andromache orPenelope, as well as goddesses (Edmunds 2012). In the Bronze Age, textiles were among the most valuable trade goods; in the Middle Ages and Renaissance tapestries were highly prized and decorated the walls of palaces and the noble’s residencies. However, the history of art has conspicuously ignored weaving, embroidery, needlework, quilting and other domestic handicrafts as women’s work that did not deserve the status of “high” or fine art.

Lucy Lippard in her article “Household Images in Art” (1973) argued that women artists had avoided ‘“Female techniques” like sewing, weaving, knitting, ceramics, even the use of pastel colors and delicate lines—all natural elements of artmaking’, for fear of being labelled “feminine artists”.