Thread and Tread - A Shoddy Silence almost at its end. What a journey? Each day I have worked in Room 700 I have had the pleasure to meet engaging people who have in turn added to my experience and broadened my depth of understanding of mainly the Textile industry and what it is for individuals to live with their personal 'Silent Witness'.
Khaki Uniforms
Left hand side British Army Tunic made from rough mixed-yarn
Right hand side German Trousers made from a more generous woollen cloth!
My objective for todays creative work was to consolidate my years long journey of questioning:
"How do the two fronts;that of war and that of the textile industry differ or compare"?
Through the questioning I set out to pay homage to all those who experienced both fronts separately or concurrently. I wish to be one such advocate to honour all who gave their working lives and even their own lives through ill health or poor health and safety. The textile industry is synonymous with the Industrial Revolution. You may think of Blake's 'Dark Satanic Mills.' You may be right? As I have discovered there is many a dark narrative to be told.
I have now even more questions? I set out to find the evidence of there needing to be a serge of WW1 Uniforms to be produced. The process of Shoddy was in needed and in great demand. Bluntly, uniforms came back from the front to the be recycled the return to the front in multitudes of hundreds and hundreds. People were part of this machinery. My creative response I produced today was an assimilation of my years long journey, my thoughts were of the 'Machine of War' relentless, ruthless, recyclable. Through my creative process I found myself self feeling quite emotive and angry, which you may detect within some of the mark making. I feel I have come to a fitting ending of this body of work, and now ready to move forward looking more closely at hidden danger of textile production of World War One and how the veterans fitted back into the Textile Industry.
Photograph courtesy of LEODIS Mabgate Mills Leeds
My drawing depicting Batley Railway station and storage sheds of Rag Sacks and a homage to all the suffering at Hill 60 the underground annihilation.
Photograph courtesy of LEODIS Kitchener's Recruitment Tram
My drawing pays homage to the women in the mass sewing rooms of endless noise and the shell holed western front merged with the textile landscape of West Yorkshire.
Photograph courtesy of LEODIS Soldiers ready to go to the front
My drawing depicts a soldier ready with his weapon, the industry of war weighing heavily on his shoulders.
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