This week has very much been a thinking week, with very little productive making. My thoughts have once again turned to pillowcases, thanks to a talk at the Freud Museum.
How the Textile Works : Transformational Matter and Tactile Space An illustrated talk by Claire Pajaczkowska This talk focused on ideas of textiles as skin, a boundary or membrane, its associations with touch and holding and the concept of holding, as container.
The idea of textiles as a container interests me. In being a container a textile holds the body, contains it, but also acts as a membrane, a barrier or protection. The bodily encounter we have with textiles is multi sensory; through touch, gaze and smell Textiles have the power to evoke emotion through memory and familiarity
In association with pillowcases this leads me to the following; A pillowcase is made to contain a pillow, to create a barrier that protects the pillow from becoming soiled Our bodily encounter with the pillowcase is primarily through our face, hands and upper body. We connect with the pillowcase through smell and touch The touch of the pillowcase has the ability to evoke feelings of safety, security and comfort Our presence on the pillowcase is captured by the textile and in the textile becoming a container of evidence of a presence. A witness
The embellishment of a pillowcase, who is that for? What purpose does it serve?
Identification and identity Aesthetics Personalisation As an act of making/building something Colour Ownership Comfort Familiarity
I keep coming back to the thought ‘the pillowcase changes but the pillow remains’
The empty pillowcase as a symbol of change, loss, emptiness, death. A container of DNA, a witness to a life, a presence.
Sleep well. Vintage hand embroidered pillowcase
He was only a shabbily dressed recruit
He was his only mother’s son
He was new to the uniform he wore
He was new to the sword and gun
He enquired of the Sergeant, who was having a smoke
Where shall I sleep tonight?
The Sergeant looked at him and cried
You can sleep where the hell you like
—
He was only a soldier hurriedly drilled
Every nerve in his body was more than thrilled
He was there in the trench, taking aim at the Hun
For it was neck or nothing and the hour had come
Where shall I sleep if I am killed?
The Sergeant turned and sharply said
You can sleep where the hell you like
T.W Sterrett
1916
Poem taken from the autograph book belonging to Miriam Verena Spratling (my grandmother) . Miriam worked as a VAD Nurse at The Colony, Ewell, Nr Epsom during WW1. It is believed this poem was written by one of the soldiers she nursed.
Miriam Verena Spratling c1917