Connected By Threads
Gill Crawshaw has created an illustrated essay that tells a story of disabled women and textiles. She makes connections between textile art created by contemporary disabled women artists and needlework produced by women incarcerated in institutions of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Like those people who turned to genealogy during lockdown to research their family history, Gill aims to show connectivity between one generation and the next, highlighting kinship, shared practices and traditions, driven by her curiosity about disabled needleworkers and textile artists.
Gill Crawshaw has created an illustrated essay that tells a story of disabled women and textiles. She makes connections between textile art created by contemporary disabled women artists and needlework produced by women incarcerated in institutions of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Like those people who turned to genealogy during lockdown to research their family history, Gill aims to show connectivity between one generation and the next, highlighting kinship, shared practices and traditions, driven by her curiosity about disabled needleworkers and textile artists.
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Embroidery in the asylum
Mary Frances Heaton (1801-1878) and Lorina Bulwer (1838-1912) both took up needlework while
detained in asylums. They used traditional embroidery methods to make remarkable, original objects. The
samplers and scrolls made by these two women have not only retained, but increased, their power and
fascination for modern audiences. Their voices come through so clearly and authentically in their work that
people are drawn in and want to find out more.
“I wish the vicar would submit to arbitration my claim against him for music lessons given to his daughter,
regularly, twice a week.”
Mary Heaton was committed to West Yorkshire Pauper Lunatic Asylum, Wakefield in 1837. She had
caused a disturbance during a church service, demanding to be paid for music lessons she had delivered
to the local vicar’s daughter. For this she spent decades in the asylum, where she later took to embroidery
to share her feelings and vent her anger. Her embroidered samplers include an account of the events
leading up to her committal. Several of them are now in the collection of the Mental Health Museum in
Wakefield.
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