PROFILE

Darning a

DARNINg, AND ARE CENTRAL TO THE PRACTICE Of CELIA PYM. IN HER HANDS MENDINg, ONCE A HIDDEN ACT, BECOMES A PORTABLE AND vISCERAL fORM Of PuBLIC ART

Celia Pym is Passionate about darning and especially the evidence of darning, which not only gives her a sense of ‘seeing the making’, but also bestows a weightiness and heft on a garment. She manifests this passion in many different often taken out of the studio and into the arenas – on the internet, in public spaces, public domain, and she does point out in practical handiwork groups, even in the how eminently portable and Dissecting Room of King’s College London, knitting needles are. and is currently one of five artists in ‘What ‘The Catalogue of Holes’ is a truly socially Need I Do to Make it OK’, a touring directed project in which Pym restores the exhibition curated by Liz Cooper 1, clothes of strangers. In such transactions, which commenced in 2015 and continues trust between the owners and Pym is until early 2018. paramount, for these are people who are Almost immediately after leaving university handing over garments rich in memories Pym received a grant to support a year of and many emotions. creative work in a country that she had There is the poignant tale of a mother’s never visited. Her appreciation of jumper inherited, but disliked, by her and also the novels of Haruki daughter. damaged it and, racked Murakami and Yoshimoto by guilt, she looked to Pym for help. persuaded her to choose Japan. Each ‘The Catalogue’ had its provenance in day Pym was committed to adding to a sweater belonging to her great uncle, the enormous scarf, which she was knitting where the profuse darning completely while travelling around the country, staying concealed the original garment; all these in one place until the acquired there covered holes set Pym to contemplating had been used, then moving on. In fact, the ‘real’, unrepaired hole. many of Pym’s projects have a nomadic It was in a temporarily vacant premises, quality feel to them, for her practice is the walls lined with empty, expectant coat- rails that Pym ran a mending activity and she found that visitors eagerly brought her damaged garments. There was a certain sense of formality when Pym noted details of the garment on slips of paper, but also 2

Celia Pym, first one’s the best , 2015. 60 sports socks, wool and acrylic yarn. 182 x 220cm

46 EMBROIDERY January / February 2017 PHOTOGRAPH: MICHELE PANZERI January / February 2017 EMBROIDERY 47 an intense intimacy when she has to put her hands into the stockings of unknown wearers. Some owners become devoted to certain battered articles and treasure the patched version above any replacements, which might well cost comparatively little. 2 ‘respect’ with which Pym fulfilled her task As the hangers started filling up, Pym – qualities so relevant to these future observed the visitors’ intense interest in medical practitioners. the holes in others’ clothes. She feels that Colours that do not match are what people find it oddly compelling to watch excite Pym. ‘It’s a mistake to think that an everyday activity such as mending you can find a perfect colour to match being carried out with conscious care whatever you are repairing.’ She is an and consideration and, happily, Pym ‘loves’ ardent proponent of visible mending, wielding her darning needles in the which brings its own contribution to public domain. enriching the ’s appearance, as in The intriguingly varied training that Pym, the yellow stitching on the pocket of 1 a qualified nurse, has undertaken includes a pair of blue jeans. studying sculpture as an undergraduate, The Nouveau Musée National de Monaco reading visual and Environmental Studies allowed Pym to work with their collection at Harvard and constructed at the of ballet and opera costumes, which bore Royal College of Art. This diversity seems full evidence of quite rough repair, perhaps to grant her a variety of approaches to done hurriedly in the wings in the course expressing the relationships between of a performance. She was attracted to herself, her work and her experience and ‘the most broken’ of these 59 costumes, interpretation of the universe around us. whose exit papers were yellow tags In another mending project she had, at her marked ‘S’ for ‘sortie’, but were too loved short-term disposal, a disused shop prior by staff to be discarded. Because of the to its demolition for the Olympic games fragility of the fabric, Pym had to use a building development. She thought how tiny needle and a running , which interesting it would be to have, a team, travelled in different directions but, even not of sports players, but of darners to be so, these were major interventions, which at hand for repairs to athletes’ clothes, and 1-2: Portraits from ‘Mending and Anatomy: Parallel Practices’, might well irk traditionalists. Pym and 4 Dr Richard Wingate and Celia Pym. Owner’s own damaged item this workshop was an example of what companions drove around Monaco and hand darning with various . Dissecting Room, Kings that might be. She bought many sports College London, 2014. Sponsored by Crafts Council, UK and and the south of france, wearing these socks – with their unthreatening allusions Kings Cultural Institute costumes and dancing in venues such as to the utilitarian and to athleticism – and 3: Celia Pym at Darning Desk, ‘Mending and Anatomy: Parallel homes for the elderly whilst a golden against their machine-made perfection the Practices’. Dissecting Room, Kings College London, 2014 Cape from the collection was used by darns looked ‘lumpy’. She into the 4: Hope’s Sweater, 1951 (and detail above), 2011. -eaten Pym in a workshop in Iceland. sweater and wool darning. 30 x 40 x 3cm footwear so participants could practise It is not only the useful lives of socks and 5: Hole from carrying wallet in pocket, number 1. darning, and as the socks were sweaters and NHS sheets that Celia Pym darning on jeans, 2008 elasticised – which disturbs the tension is extending. Her creative darning betters of the fabric – it meant that repairing them the fabric of our lives, alerts our thoughts 2 5 was much more difficult. D

to the importance of mending and caring, L E Socks also feature in ‘DR’, a project in I 3 F T

and to the erosion wrought by time – A

which Pym set up her mending table in S A

as in the favourite jumper with elbows L G

the Dissecting Room of King’s College U

worn thin. e O D London, where staff and anatomy students Y

Ian Wilson H P brought their clothes for her to work on. A R G

Here, too, she installed first one’s the best O T

celiapym.com O H

– which consisted of 60 much-darned P

5

E

sports socks, which injected contrastive G A M I

splashes of colour into the room, and, . I

REfERENCES R E wholly unexpectedly, also a humorous 1. Embroidery, July/August 2016, pp48-51. Z N A P element. However, it was important that Interview with Liz Cooper. E L

2. While writing this essay I encountered the E the students witness the devotion and H C

following anecdote and Pym was intrigued by the I M

:

rejoinder made by an 18th century actor who, Y H

when admonished by a friend for wearing stockings P A R

with many holes and advised to get them mended, G O airily replied: ‘I am above it; better have 20 holes T O

H What do I Need to Do to Make it OK?

than one darn …a hole is the accident of the day, P

4 -

but a darn is premeditated poverty .’ 2 is on show at The National Centre for S

Derek Parker, ‘Caught in the Act’, Slightly Foxed , E G Autumn 2016, no 51. London: Slightly foxed Ltd, p92 A Craft & Design, Sleaford, Lincolnshire M I from 8 March-14 May 2017. www.nationalcraftanddesign.org.uk

48 EMBROIDERY January / February 2017 January / February 2017 EMBROIDERY 49