We were treated to a superb talk by Chrissie Freeth at our first meeting back at the Rugby Club. Chrissie is a traditional handloom weaver and tapestry artist based in Saltaire in West Yorkshire. Chrissie explained that as an archaeologist she was interested in historical textiles and first learned to weave on a warp-weighted loom as an undergraduate. She gradually left academia to weave full time. Thanks to the Churchill Fellowship she was able to travel across Europe and to the US to study collections of medieval tapestries to better understand the techniques used by weavers at the zenith of tapestry production.
The fellowship resulted in an archive of over 14,000 images of 170 tapestries which she uses as an invaluable resource in her present work. Chrissie's work explores the female experience and in particular those universal themes that connect us across cultures and centuries - exile, grief, fractured families, failed motherhood, rejection, and survival, defiance, rebirth. Her tapestries are inspired by real women, usually ancestors, or by folk tales. She plays with symbolism and religious iconography and whilst pre-renaissance tapestries are a foundational inspiration and academic interest, her work re-imagines them for contemporary relevance.
Thank you Chrissie for an inspirational start to our new GTAG (Grassington Textile Arts Group) year and congratulations on having your work "Memento Mori" selected for the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition, which is being held from the 22nd Sept - 2nd Jan.
Here is a completed 3D floral textile work from our afternoon mini workshop.
