Arrange Whatever Pieces Come Your Way - Sheelagh Boyce and Annabelle Harty, by Kirsty Lorenz

Glasgow Print Studio 11th June – 31st July 2021

‘Arrange Whatever Pieces Come Your Way’ is an ongoing creative collaboration, beginning in 2016, between Sheelagh Boyce and Annabelle Harty, based respectively in Glasgow and London.  Their artworks take the form of large-scale hand-sewn quilts with an abstract modernist aesthetic. Initially I found myself reading them like soft edged, two sided, minimalist paintings with subtle shades of white or colour blocks, sometimes washed out like sublime watercolours, occasional patterns, drawn lines of stitching. There is repetition and variation in the forms revealed, negative and positive shapes played with. 

Of course, these are not paintings, their medium is fabric, mainly sourced from family and friends. Beloved objects, each with its personal history, many very precious and stylish. The thin patterned cotton of Annabelle’s father’s kimono, ancient Plantation shirts by Issey Miyake, worn by mother then daughter, a favourite Margaret Howell shirt, the cloth napkin from The American Bar in Vienna designed by Adolf Loos. 

Quilt 11, front

Quilt 11, back

The garments are meticulously unpicked, the shapes of the deconstructed clothes often inform the overall patterns; the sleeves and collars, the cuff, the leg, the unfaded patch of an unpicked pocket. Presented anew they reveal the poetics of a spiralling life cycle. Unpicked garments returned to their pre-sewn template state, this time carrying the history of its wearing, and its washing, then given a new life, a new context. Quilt 15 is made entirely of old blue overalls and boiler suits, along with a collection of white aprons. The abstracted shapes are formed by the pattern shapes within these garments. The other side reflects the interior of the old, now demolished, Manchester Magistrates Courts designed by Brian Henderson for YRM. Here the white is made up of the architect’s own shirts.

Quilt 15, front

Quilt 15, back

The quilts are very beautifully and skilfully crafted by both artists. They work closely together on all aspects, selecting materials, points of inspiration, designing and then sewing them. Whilst taking inspiration from traditional American and Japanese quilt making techniques, the artists bring many influences and contradictions to their construction, often ‘going against the grain’. Their shared aesthetic and collaborative way of working is built on a longstanding friendship. They discovered a shared love of modernist architecture when visiting Le Corbusier buildings and Pierre Chareau’s Maison du Verre (The Glass House) on a school art trip to Paris in the mid-eighties. While there are several themes threading through the work, modernist architecture is referenced in many of the quilts included in this exhibition, specifically including Mies Van der Rohe, Carlo Scarpa, Chamberlin Powell and Bon (The Barbican) and Gillespie Kidd & Coia (a Scottish architectural firm famous for their application of modernism in churches and universities). 

Quilt 19, front

Quilt 19, back

This aesthetic creates an interesting dynamic when combined with the emotive personal nature of the fabrics’ histories, which I think is as key to the poignancy of these objects. Any clinical nature to the minimalist aesthetic is softened by the worn nature of the fabrics, the rounded edges and the clear presence of the hands in their making. Any sentimentality to the domestic and personal nature of the quilts is uplifted by the minimalism of the design. There is a warm nostalgia for this modernist aesthetic and a pathos inherent in the fabrics’ personal history. A sense of trying to catch time, of holding memories, in blanket form.  Quilt 19 is a perfect example of this chemistry. A commission for a close friend, Nadim. In terms of personal history, the garments used included Nadim’s ancient Margaret Howell shirts, the Issey Miyake dress worn by Annabelle’s mother to Nadim’s wedding and the Danish kitchen towels which lined the drawers of Nadim’s mother’s kitchen in Beirut. The modernist architectural inspiration takes the shape of the iconic ‘Egg’ building in Beirut, an incomplete cultural centre never realised due to civil war.

Quilt 21, front

Quilt 21, back

        

In Quilt 21 the ‘front’ design is led by the abstract shapes and patterns that make up the deconstructed tunics, the panels, pockets, sleeves, collars and cuffs in new configurations. Architecture influences the reverse, with outlines of the skylights that bring natural light down onto the alter of St Bride’s Church, designed by Scottish architects Gillespie Kidd and Coia. 


The earliest known quilts were decorative bed covers and some of the ‘Arrange Whatever Pieces Come Your Way’ quilts do have that function; some are too large.  They tap into a rich history of quilt making, domestic and professional, traced back at least to medieval times. David Batchelor describes them as ‘… contemporary versions of a tradition that transcends the academic distinction between the decorative and the arts…’.  I agree. There are many levels, or layers, to these engaging and generous works that the debate relating to the ‘high art’ v.s ‘craft’ is happily irrelevant. 

Quilt 31, Interior of Villas at Krefeld designed by Meis Van Der Rohe