Two pages from the 'Who Am I?" summer project I was set before the course started last week. I looked at schoolgirl samplers, mainly from Ackworth School, which seemed suitable as I was returning to "school". I was interested in the lack of identity displayed in the samplers. Often they only give a name and birthday and feature initials and motifs of birds, flowers and houses. I chose some of these to give clues about myself without giving much away.
Here I liked the play between the stitching looking like lipstick and sealing the mouths shut. I was referring to womens' historical lack of voice (politically and socially) and aphonia (loss of speech) due to hysteria, as described in Freud's case of 'Dora'. I was also reading about the psychological states of mind of women conforming to social demands (here illustrated by wearing lipstick) and how the apparent conformist act of embroidery helped them find ways to rebel.
This becomes a reference to Freudian repression, but also to 'women's work' -unseen and forgotten. It's an instruction, something to carry about on a handkerchief, but it doesn't say what it is you shouldn't forget. It also reminds you of tying a knot in a handkerchief corner in order to remember and it is reminiscent of 19th Century entreaties not to forget someone after their death.
This was inspired by the Yeats poem of the same name. I read that his mother suffered from depression and he thought he'd inherited a similar condition from her. I also wanted to remember the original function of a handkerchief being to wipe away tears.
This piece is based on ideas of instruction through 19th Century samplers. I was thinking about children (young girls mainly) being prepared for adulthood with sewing skills, for employment or marriage.
