Lost Voices II 2012-2014

 This piece, Lost Voices II is the companion piece to Lost Voices I. In this, the words of the women that were written in the first piece as a composite text body are written individually on their own 'pages'. These pages are made of cast paper and fabric that has been washed in the natural pigment used for the text in Lost Voices I. The individual pages are then stitched on to the support cloth which has been dyed and varnished

For the installation at Percy Thomson Gallery this piece was pegged onto an antique folding clothes rack so it could be viewed from both faces.

The writing on the 'pages' was done with  glass-nibbed dip pen using India Ink. The paper component of the 'pages' is created by blending waste material such as chopped silk thread and fabric into a base paper pulp in a vat with the natural pigment in the slurry. This was then couched onto cheese cloth, to create the 'page' unit. 

The words used for these writings are taken from many historic resources including the Alexander Turnbill Library, they were all first hand accounts of direct experiences around washing, drying, ironing, mending and remaking garments in particular but also occasional references to household linens, especially tablecloths. This piece was started as part of my research into Valuing the Mundane completed for my PGDip through AUT