Jacy Wall
Tapestry maker
Chard, United Kingdom
The honesty behind re-making and mending
- Jacy creates tapestries through an experimental approach to loom weaving
- Her practice involves cutting up, then mending her woven works into something new
- She uses natural materials and creates her own dyes
Jacy Wall's practice centres on the possibilities of re-making. In the process of her works finding shape, she leaves the door open to simply taking a piece apart and reconstructing it by mending pieces together. Jacy is a Gobelin loom weaver. "I find working upwards from scratch constraining and frustrating. I much enjoy the challenge of trying to subvert the loom’s basic structure by doing different and unexpected things on it," she shares. In Jacy's hands, a finished piece, is not always finished. It may end up cut with scissors and mended into something new. Her interest in mending was inspired by her work in ceramics and printmaking, and from inheriting her grandmother's mending samplers. “I have embraced the idea of improvised mending as it is very practical as well as actually being incredibly aesthetic,” says Jacy.
INTERVIEW
My background is in loom-based weaving, which I really value because my knowledge of looms and my understanding of fabric have infused all of my tapestry weaving work.
The emergence and value of women artists has contributed to change in my craft. In the 1980s, more politically based embroidery work surfaced, and the acknowledgment of women's history textiles was appropriate for this. My mending work started on a personal basis and became a way to explore this idea of real mending and reuse.
I have only ever had an affinity with natural materials, such as wool, silk, cotton and linen. I always dye my own colours. Tonal qualities are very important to me, even when working, as I do now, with undyed yarn. I also use up yarn left over from past projects.
Formal training in art colleges is disappearing, and I am really concerned for the necessity of the core skills in textiles. Many private and community initiatives are being set up to help keep those skills alive, which is a positive fall-out of this.
Jacy Wall
Tapestry maker
Chard, United Kingdom
ADDRESS
Address upon request, Chard, United Kingdom
AVAILABILITY
By appointment only
LANGUAGES
English
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