Hope

Gill Clark

Interview by C. VanWinkle
October 18, 2024

What was the prompt that you responded to? Can you describe it for me?

I thought it was very strange. It’s a photograph and obviously it had been manipulated. It was a lady who was kneeling on the floor, and she had a beige-colored fabric which sort of enveloped her, if you like. She had no head and her torso was missing from sort of chest-height as well. It was just emptiness. But there was hair down her back. I thought it was very strange. I thought, “What on earth am I going to do with this?”

What was your reaction to the imagery itself?

It seemed to me that it was intended to be a woman who is struggling against whatever odds a woman faces. It could have been domestic abuse, infertility struggles, any [air quotes] “woman's problem.” Whoever this is, she comes across to me as having no hope at all. And I thought, “No. Whatever situation you're in, there is hope. There's always hope.” I'm a Christian and I’ve got faith, which means that I've got a hope for my future. That's a bit more out-there than some of the things that this was trying to put across, but no, you've always got to hope. The future is good. My future is good. So I wanted to convey that in my response.

I love that. A lot of our contributors get a prompt and they sort of further the ideas that they see in it. Sometimes, someone sees something and goes in the opposite direction. So how did you actually get started?

I’d made some quilted wall hangings of faces in the past, and I knew I wanted to signify hope. I’d make another face, but a face that was full of color and, to me, full of hope. So I sat down and drew very roughly a face in pencil and then brainstormed, with the help of Mr. Google, synonyms for hope. Then I translated hope into a few different languages to see if I could incorporate those into my quilt as well. I did take it along to a quilt group with me and asked some friends, “What do you think of when you think of hope?” We had a few more words to add.

Is this a portrait of any particular face?

No. No, this is completely abstract. But I was trying to use bright, cheerful colors because the original prompt was very colorless. It was clearly the artist’s intention, but to me it was drab. Beige, browns and blacks. I wanted to go to the other extreme and have something that was bright and colorful.

I think the text helps it look cheerful too. Have you put text in quilts much before?

I haven’t, to be honest. Not really at all. I was doing a bit of experimenting. I quite like hand-stitching, so some of the text is hand-stitched. I’d just done a workshop in one of my little groups and we used some Posca pens on fabric, so I thought this was a good chance to use the Posca pens as the basis to stitch. So there’s a bit of experimentation in there, which didn't work! I couldn't get the needle to go through the layers of ink and the fabric in order to stitch into it by hand. Other people would be able to do it with the machine and just sort of write with it. I'm not very good at that. So I left that for another day.

I can’t imagine being able to write with a sewing machine. That sounds completely impossible.

Oh yes, some people can do it brilliantly, but I can't. It’s not one of my skills.

Are there other ways this piece is related to the rest of your work?

I’ve used quite a bit of Bondaweb, and raw edge appliqué. I do that in quite a lot of my work. I've got a whole series of faces now, all with the same sort of methodology to making them. Drawing my face, using that as a pattern to create the pieces, and using Bondaweb to layer elements which go onto the face, stitching them on around the outside of each piece.

Do your faces ever represent a specific person?

It’s always an abstract. I might offend somebody if I tried to do a real face. [Cody laughs.] There's usually a reason for doing the face that I've done, like when it’s a response to some sort of challenge that a group has put out. I did one a little while back, and you had to make a piece of textile art that needed to incorporate a thin red line. So I did a man's face and the nose was a thin red line. For another prompt, you had to incorporate a piece of lace. So, I've put some lace into a face. I think for that one I made somebody who had a hat on, and the lace was around the hat and on some lacy earrings.

I see you’re no stranger to working with prompts. Is that a regular part of your practice?

Yeah, I'm part of a guild. It’s slightly different in the States because you have quilters’ guilds in towns. We have The Quilters Guild of the British Isles, which covers the whole country. Within that, there's a modern group, a contemporary group, traditional groups... I'm part of the miniature group and the contemporary group, though we sometimes do what we call journal quilts. We have a theme and we’ll do one quilt per month over the period of a year. I did twelve of those in 2022. You had to incorporate a curved line, so mine were all called “Curve-facious.”

Curve-facious? [laughs] Cute!

Yeah, a bit corny, but it worked.

Your work is so colorful! It makes sense. You said you are part of a miniature group. How big is this piece?

This one is just slightly larger than 16 x 12 inches. I wouldn’t classify this one as miniature. I have some miniatures in the bottom of a box somewhere, and they're around 5 x 8 inches.

Oh I see.

Yes, miniatures are very small. This one's a bit bigger.

Now that you are on the side of the process, what would your advice be to a new person getting their prompt today?

Look at your prompt, and then go away and stew on it for a while. Give it a good 24-48 hours to stew before you really start to think, “Well, what am I going to do with this?” Obviously, whatever your medium is will make a difference, won’t it? And then just go for it. I'm quite impulsive in my work. I am not one to sit and deliberate for a long time over whether a piece is “right.” I'm more improvisational and impulsive and just put things in. My husband says that I'm very instinctive in the way that I do things. I just do it.

Call Number: Y126VA | Y127VA.claHo

Gill Clark: Following a career as a Primary School Teacher I discovered patchwork and quilting. Learning the rules through a local class I very quickly learned to stretch them and began experimenting with various processes. Whilst I still make some traditional quilts my preference is making textile art pieces. I also enjoy passing on my tips and techniques to others through in person workshops.