Bridging Arts

Monday 29 November 2010

STITCH embroidery classes in Harrow in the New Year

We have dates for an eight-week embroidery course in Harrow in the spring in partnership with the Asian Women's Resource Centre. Once again, we'll be studying embroidery packs, developed with the Royal School of Needlework (RSN), looking at Islamic and western traditions of patterns and techniques. Please do email me if you would like to know more, volunteer or book a place. Sessions on embroidery techniques will be led by the RSN. Here are the details:
Thursdays, 11am to 1pm starting 20 January 2011. A lunch club will follow for a nominal charge.
The classes will then run weekly, with the exception of 12 March (International Women's Day) for eight weeks.These classes will be free, thanks to our funding from Faiths in Action, through Community and Local Government.
Venue: Marlborough Hill Centre, 76 Malborough Hill, Harrow HA1 1TY

Thursday 25 November 2010

Protesting at London Councils meeting


Morning protest outside London Councils offices, Southwark, ahead of a Grants' Committee meeting. Very cold. On the agenda: funding cuts that will cripple many small organisations supporting vulnerable groups across London. Our partners, the AsianWomen's Resource Centre, are out in force. A bitterly cold morning and disappointing news. Looks likely that the axe will fall from the end of June next year.

Sunday 21 November 2010

Dinner at the Morden Mosque

For the second year running am lucky enough to be invited to dinner at the Amadiyya Muslim mosque in Morden. This time, Amtul Kafi invited me. Amtul was a keen and wonderful participant in our embroidery classes in Tooting in the summer. Amtul is now studying at the Royal Holloway: she would like to be a doctor. This having arrived in the UK less than ten years ago from the Punjab, speaking no English.
She shows me the library where there are many books and pictures of Abdus Salam, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1979. Abdus Salam has inspired her with words from the Koran that drove him, she says: 'Look again'. ([Al-Mulk 67:5] Aye, look again, and yet again...) Amtul keeps looking.
Amtul Kafi holding Zubaidah Shah's embroidery
(Abdus Salam was an Amadiyya Muslim. He is buried in Rabwah, Pakistan. The inscription on his grave originally read ' First Muslim Nobel Laureate'. However, due to protests by Muslims who do not recognise Amadiyya
 Muslims, the word 'Muslim' has been removed. So the inscription now apparently - absurdly  - reads ' first Nobel Laureate'.)
Was very pleased to see some embroidery by Zubaidah Shah. Amtul holds it here. Zubaidah is 83. This embroidery certainly puts anything I can produce to shame.
Embroidery by Zubaidah Shah, 83, who has been a keen participant in this project from the start
The reverse of Zubaidah's embroidery. The reverse is always revealing. In this case, as neat as the front....

Friday 19 November 2010

A protest at possible funding cuts

Just heard - the Asian Women's Resource Centre (AWRC) is taking a busload of women to London Council offices near Waterloo next Thursday when proposed massive funding cuts will be discussed. These cuts - which threaten many small organisations working with marginalised communities across London - could be make or break for the AWRC.
This is part of the government's spending review. Councils, which fund much pan-London work as well as activities within particular Boroughs, are talking about 'repatriating' current funding and delivering the same services only in Borough. This means organisations that work across Borough boundaries - e.g. the AWRC - would be left without funds.
A small knock-on effect for our classes: next Thursday's (25/11) will be postponed as many women will be down at Waterloo.

Scenes from recent classes

Scenes from the most recent classes at the Asian Women's Resource Centre, Harlesden...
Detail from embroidery brought in by Khalima

Everyone hard at work
And the full picture.


Crochet brought in by Daxa

Tuesday 16 November 2010

Sewing, tea and cake.

For a long time, we have hoped to work locally - ie. close to our office - in Hammersmith and Fulham - and in residential homes. At last this is possible, thanks to a small grant from Hammersmith and Fulham Council and a partnership with Notting Hill Housing association. We are planning three sessions in Trillington House, Uxbridge Road, Shepherds Bush, London on
1 December 2010
8 December 2010
15 December 2010
We will have embroidery demonstrations, embroidery surgeries and a chance to sew and chat. From 10am to 12 noon on each day.
Not to be missed. Email info@bridging-arts.com for more information. To download a flyer, please click here

Sunday 14 November 2010

View from the window

And very finally - what could be more final than a graveyard? - the jumble of graves in the Jewish graveyard, seen from the window. Bodies buried12 deep because of lack of space in the ghetto. Brings thoughts of 20th century atrocities to mind, but this graveyard closed some centuries ago.
As often happens, the view from a museum window proves unsettling.
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

A (nearly) contemporary tapestry

And finally something far more recent. A tapestry from the 1920s of a potter at work. Have been thinking recently that I would like to make a huge tapestry wall hanging. But how long would it take? A cushion cover takes months ...
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

A very different ceremonial gown

And upstairs ecclesiastical goldwork. Here detail of a statue for Our Lady from the Prague Loretto. 1700 to 1720
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

A machine stitched collar on a 70s wedding dress

Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

Worn by the bride

Prague, 1976
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

More wedding clothes

Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

A ghostly wedding parade

And all given a real presence by a parade of ghostly wedding garments. Small photos of the brides wearing the dresses on display next to them.
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

Embroidered shoes for a Pope

Leather with silver, 1760
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

A daffodils tapestry

Bohemia, 1900. Had to take this photo to mirror Chhaya Biswas' daffodils embroidery currently on display at the Women's Library (as part of our Stitch project)
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

Painted walls

Trompe d'oeil wall covering...
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

Textiles and life

And all this before getting to the exhibition, which took me by surprise. A really enchanting look at textiles and life. From medieval wall hangings, like the tapestry here... To the textiles and embroidery that clothe brides, priests and tables. Showing the way that fabric and embroidery can clothe moments as well as objects.
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

Floor tiles

Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

Vaulted ceiling above the stairs

Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

Kaleidoscope of patterns

The neo Renaissance museum, built at the turn of the 19th century, is a kaleidoscope of patterns and decorative detail. Eastern European grandeur... Noticed the same kind of splendour in September in Budapest, another capital that sprang to life in the late 1800s.
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

Stairs down

Lots of steps in Prague. Down into bars and up to the river and churches. And many steps down into deep metro stations.
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

En route to see embroidery in Prague

But lured off track by the cafe in the Museum of Decorative Arts. Semi subterranean with gin and tonic on offer....
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

Tuesday 2 November 2010

Sharen Kaur's winning sari patterns

A quick photogallery of the winning design in this year's British Sari Story competition. Manchester-born Sharen Kaur, a graduate of the London College of Fashion, based her stunning new sari on a traditional English garment (the corset) and the trousers traditionally worn under dresses in coal mines in the 19th century.

Tear sheets (corset images)

Research on floral motifs for devore fabric


Research into western trouser trends
And Asian trends
Final designs


Ideas for a devore pattern