Language/gender and an exhibition of fibre art
I am always surprised by the metaphoric purchase substances that are connected with fabric (cloth, yarn, thread, string) and its processes of making (knitting, weaving, twisting, knotting, looping) have on language. Why do the particular fabric making processes so overlie our processes of thinking and organising? Why do we speak of inventing stories and developing threads at once? (Spinning a yarn). Why do we speak of remembering or retracing, as a knitting or weaving process? (Unravelling). When we talk of completing a complex task why do we talk of it as if it were needlework? (Sewing it up). The signifying play of these materials and processes is well demonstrated in. the title of the recent fibre exhibition held at Ipswich Regional Gallery, Threaded Paradox, as in its catalogue essays "Seams of Orthodox" and "Uneasy Threads", and of course in the title of that notable book, The Subversive Stitch,1 which politicised needlework and deciphered its gendered subjectivity.
In a recent article, Dorothy Jones looks back to both history and myth to trace the significance of weaving-and it's a particularly feminine lineage she uncovers.2 She makes note of classical references to women and to the loom, giving particular attention to Penelope in The Odyssey. Penelope's ceaseless weaving during the day and unravelling at night assumes a mythic potency, making a link, Jones suggests, between Penelope and the Moirae, the three Fates who spun the thread of human destiny. Jones also cites the Egyptian goddess Neith and the Greek goddess Eilitheiya who were once believed to have spun and woven the whole of creation. Spinning was ritualised as a female occupation and responsibility in classical Rome. As part of the marriage ceremony brides... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline