Thanks to Viv from the church for her words about this project.
The way I went about it was to suggest that each interested person should take away a small square of cloth that I prepared, read the book of Proverbs, and express something about it which struck them in visual form on this piece of cloth. Thus, some chose one proverb to illustrate, some chose a theme - e.g. lady Wisdom of Proverbs ch 8, who has a counterpart of lady Folly. (Another aspect of the book of interest to feminist scholars). I have made a chart to show who has done which square and why.
When I put it together, I didn't want it to be symmetrical, as then it would look like a bed quilt (some joked that it did anyway!) and wanted it to have a bit of movement about it, hence it is sort of off to one side. The idea is that the strips in between are like weaving, and an the left hand end it is 'unfinished' - as though waiting for us to weave ourselves into the text, which the people have done who have studied in and produced designs, and the idea is that we continue to do so - every time we read a text, it is different because of the new person we have become.
'This project was started in about 2006, and has taken me a long time to get put together! The idea came to me when I saw that the one complete stained glass window in the church is in memory of Ann Tinn in the 19th C I think, wife of a local doctor. It quotes words from Proverbs ch 31, which is a very famous passage about 'A good wife, who can find?' Feminists either love it or hate it! There's a lot of feminist study of women in the Old Testament, and of course this passage is one to look at from that point of view. Since I am an OT professional of a kind, then it seemed to me a good idea that we should make a piece of embroidery to extend the idea of the book of Proverbs into the church itself, brighten up a dull corner of church and so on.
The way I went about it was to suggest that each interested person should take away a small square of cloth that I prepared, read the book of Proverbs, and express something about it which struck them in visual form on this piece of cloth. Thus, some chose one proverb to illustrate, some chose a theme - e.g. lady Wisdom of Proverbs ch 8, who has a counterpart of lady Folly. (Another aspect of the book of interest to feminist scholars). I have made a chart to show who has done which square and why.
When I put it together, I didn't want it to be symmetrical, as then it would look like a bed quilt (some joked that it did anyway!) and wanted it to have a bit of movement about it, hence it is sort of off to one side. The idea is that the strips in between are like weaving, and an the left hand end it is 'unfinished' - as though waiting for us to weave ourselves into the text, which the people have done who have studied in and produced designs, and the idea is that we continue to do so - every time we read a text, it is different because of the new person we have become.
Do you have a story about your project in Barton? Please let me know. Email me at daretoknow@mac.com.
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