Make a white rabbit by Lucy May Schofield
I gave a short paper at the two day conference Text and Textiles held at the Centre for Material Texts, Jesus College, Cambridge in September 2012 just after organising In the loop 3. My paper entitled From rags to riches focused on some examples of textile texts from our Artists’ Books Collection which I think have a relationship with the Knitting Reference Library too. My selected earlier precedents were textile sample books, children’s rag books and the textile books of the artist Louise Bourgeois.
An altered book with knitted cover by Cally Barker
The material selected from the Artists’ Books Collection I broadly defined as the “stuff of textiles”. Some of the items we have collected may be regarded as outside the canon set in place by the conceptual works of the 1960s which are sometimes viewed as the true artists books. However textiles have a long and distinctive history in relation to books which is being continued through the work of some contemporary artists. It is their works which have made the link possible with the Knitting Reference Library. Amongst others I mentioned Cally Barker, Angie Butler, Judith Hammond, Joanna Long, Imi Maufe, Treena Markham, Tamar MacLellan, Andrew Norris, Lucy May Schofield, Anna Vicente, Heather Weston, Philippa Wood. All have utilised either materially, as part of the concept or in the narrative, textiles for a bookwork/s. Sometimes they are not strictly books but belong as part of the artists approach to making.
All the artists and works mentioned are catalogued and indexed and part of our collection comprising over 1500 items.
Journal of a dream by Ana Vicente
In the loop 