Creating memories in textiles.

This year marks 30 years since my father passed away, as the years have passed I never know how to feel about this. Once the raw grief passes there is longing and memories tinged with both warmth and sadness, I was 18 at the time of his passing and didn’t really know anyone else that had experienced this. At the time I just got on with life. I have spent many years not expressing the grief and lately as I know other friends that have lost parents and spouses too, I feel that I do not want to mention it as the initial loss is far more painful.

However, my husband lost both of his parents a couple of years before the pandemic started and with both of us being the children of older parents there is a rich unspoken history, on all sides of our family. My side of the family does not have lots of photos but I have always been facinated by costume and my husband’s side has lots of photos that go back to Edwardian times and probably a bit further. We were luckily enough to find them in this incredible leather bound photo album.

I have thought about what I would like to do with these photos to bring them alive a bit more and have thought about experimenting with image transfer, natural dyes and printing on cotton and canvas. Here is a small selection of images and my ideas of how this project is going to progress.

This is an idea for a mini moodboard, including a photo of my dad sitting at a writing desk in 1952. He was born in Poland of German and Polish descent, his Polish father was killed and he was conscripted up to the German Navy during the very last throes of war and some how he ended up over here.

I have heard various talk about being in a POW camp but also being part of barracks that were a Bomb disposal camp. According to google the german is translated as, ‘I will be leaving here soon’ but my main interest is his beautiful handwriting which I used to try and copy as a child.

Everything I learned about the countryside and nature was on walks with my dad. I would like to include these aspects on a textile piece based around the image above.

Celebrations and Tragedies

(Digging up a hidden history)

This photo is an historical mix of my husbands parents, his father is the baby pictured on the bottom row and with his parents on either side of the photo. On the top row is an RAF Padgate photo album we think my husbands father is pictured in, while on national service.

The postcard and photo on the left side of the top row, helped me to Identify that the nurse in the middle was a Military Matron in the first world war, and apparantly is decorated with an OBE, the Croix de Guerre and several other medals.

This untalked about family tragedy happened on my Mother-in-law’s side. Two little boys drowned in the River Severn in 1886, the sons of Ralph Mackay who painted Victorian Christmas card designs and other styles too, including the one pictured. One of the boys is on the right, identified by the writing on the back but I have yet to identify the other one. I believe all of the children are pictured but I try not to handle the photos too much.

These images are the mini moodboards for my project and I have been looking at several different textile art books and a book on fabric journals called Day Dreams Journals by Tilly Rose. I currently have it on loan from the library but I think I will have to make it part of my permanent collection, it is such a dreamy read!

Has anyone else used textiles as a way to bring their family history to life?