The Scottish Gallery, 20 February, 6.30pm
Soon to be Radio 4 Book of the Week Threads of Life, described as The Hare with Amber Eyes meets The History of the World in 100 Objects, is a chronicle told through the stories of the men and women who have used the language of sewing to make their voices heard. To celebrate the launch of this new book please join author Clare Hunter in conversation with Jenny Brown, Scotland’s leading literary agent and founding director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Copies of Clare’s book will be available to purchase.
Please join us at The Gallery, 20 February, 6.30pm. Tickets for the event are £15 with all proceeds going to The Art Fund. Please purchase tickets here
In Threads of Life Clare Hunter takes us from Mary, Queen of Scots in captivity to the mentally and physically damaged soldiers returning home after World War One, from the grieving mothers of the disappeared in 1970s Argentina to nineteenth century tailors whose pictorial quilts campaigned for reform and feminists in 1980s America, in an evocative and moving book about the need we all have to tell our story.
Sewing is a way to mark our existence on cloth: patterning our place in the world, voicing our identity, sharing something of ourselves with others and leaving the indelible evidence of our presence in stitches held fast by our touch.
Clare Hunter has been a banner-maker, community textile artist and textile curator for over twenty years and established the community enterprise NeedleWorks in Glasgow. She was a finalist for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award with a story published in its 2017 Annual. She was also a recipient of a Creative Scotland Award in 2016. She lives near Stirling, and Threads of Life is her first book. www.sewingmatters.co.uk Twitter @sewingmatters
It seemed to me that we had lost sight of the potency of needlework, the tactile residue of its makers’ touch; the meaning of its symbolic patterns and motifs, its ability to conserve community traditions. I wanted to restore that knowledge, to remind readers of needlework’s emotional, social and textural qualities and by doing so, to revive an appreciation of its value.
Please join us at The Gallery, 20 February, 6.30pm. Tickets for the event are £15 with all proceeds going to The Art Fund. Please purchase tickets here
