So where to go with my subject damage and repair? Comments are coming in from my small piece of research about feelings associated with breakages. This question was posted on Facebook and placed in the foyer at uni:
For my third year textile module I am investigating what happens when we brake something. How do we fell? Can we simply throw away what is now lost? Or do we need to repair the pieces and find something new?
I will leave this running for a few more weeks and then look at what I have and decide how to respond to everyones comments. I expect that the things we remember and talk about will have a sentimental or emotional attachment as opposed to concerns about cost or practicalities.
Mending is a process to repair damage when the object that is broken is still desired: this may be approached in several ways. It may be for practical reasons such as The Beatsters who mended to exist. Women were paid to repair fishing nets that could be 50 metres long and no matter how big the hole they were only paid per net. If the holes were big, the family would have to starve until the repair was made. The pay per net was about 12p
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| http://www.ourgreatyarmouth.org.uk |
But mending is also about making sure that things we cherish / love can continue for just a little longer. Repairing a favourite item of clothing may not just be a cost implication, it might be more about the sense of safety we feel when wearing the item, the story it tells, the places we went and people we met.
This might also be a reflection on life. The mending can create a map: Sherri Lynn Wood suggests that this charts an unpredictable, scarred and transformed geography on the surface of her jeans.
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| http://daintytime.net |
Another attribution of mending is the creation of something new - something new from something old and this can become a work of art or thing of beauty. Last year I talked about the Japanese art of kintsugi where broken pieces of ceramics are fixed with gold making the imperfect beautiful. This can be seen in these images from Pinterest. The repair has turned the object into a work of art. The marks and threads give a new strength. The first image has a simple beauty and starts the next part of it's journey as we admire the needlework. The second is from Anca Grey, an artist who makes from found objects and has an interest in things being broken. This is quite like some pieces I have been working on - making anew piece of art from something that has been damaged. The final is rather ornate and completely overwhelms the original garment. It is a complete distraction.
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| French Mending |
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| Surgery, Anca Grey |
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| Rainy Today, Junko Oki |
Mending can also be an experience, a point of communication as the work is repaired. Michael Swaine has turned it into performance art on the streets of San Francisco. Once a month he would sit in the street with his old treadle sewing machine to repair peoples clothes free of charge. People would bring him items that were worn or damaged and have a conversation about anything whilst the repair was made. I love this idea, a social artist at work repairing a hole in a cherished item of clothing - he says it is a place for "fixing the holes in our lives...to borrow thread and sewing machines and talk about life".
And also The Mending Project: this turned the repair of our clothes into performance art at the 18th Biennale of Sydney, 2012. Spools of thread were attached to the wall and an item of damaged clothing would be joined to the end of the thread. The item would be repaired whilst conversation between the owner and artist would continue for approximately 15 minutes. The piece then remained on show until the end of the Biennale after which it was collected: the damage had been repaired and was now a work of art in its own right as can be seen in these pictures:
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| Lee Mingwei |
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| Lee Mingwei |
Our attachments to objects is obvious; how we feel when they are damaged will depend on the memories they provide - the places we visited or the people who they once belonged to. But also, it may just be their beauty or function, but what is interesting is how we feel when the break happens. But then, what we do with the pieces that are left.
