These pieces were ostensibly a response to domestic artefacts from Knole House, in this case a small hand-held brazier, once used to warm the cold corners of rooms in the house, the other a pair of Goffering tongs, used hot to create corrugations in the fabric of ruffes. The project came about via an invitation from Franny Swann, Ros Barker, and Sue Evans, who made the initial proposal to work from objects, originally from Knole, now in Sevenoaks Museum, – I think that’s the gist of it – something out of my usual comfort zone. Initially I floundered. I’m not a researcher, or narrative artist. Maybe I sought a way out. But the formal qualities of these objects, that which could be seen and felt, nudged away at me to produce a relatively simple response, of corrugated forms. The physicality of making the forms, the blue one of stretched cotton duck over routered formers, the brown piece of plywood structure with cotton duck glued to it was a real pleasure. Each is about 60in x 40in, little tactile thoughts from small objects, magnified, projected and returned through a material process, the domestic narratives of the original objects jettisoned, communication with the past simply implicit. There remains nevertheless an insistent link through engagement with form to the original makers and users of the objects. The theme of the show, ‘Echo’ resonates too in the stripes of colour. In the brown piece, colours reminiscent of burnt coals progress in tone and placement across each other, crossing unknowingly at the centre, in much the same way that in coming across these objects, my path crosses those of others unknown, connected and separated through time and space. Lines on the blue object are complementaries placed on opposite ridges.
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