My name is Julia O’Connell and I live in Coventry, England. I am a wife and a mother of two growing and noisy boys and I also run a theatre company called Theatre Absolute (www.theatreabsolute.co.uk). I work as a producer and my job entails developing and producing new plays for the theatre. Somewhere amongst my work and family I completed a degree in Surface Decoration at Coventry University and graduated in 2008 with First Class Honours. My interests are stories connected with found or remembered garments, and everyday objects. I use email to collect and collate stories about a particular topic I’m investigating and I have also begun to use film and sound in my work.
Yours is an absolutely fascinating site and I have loved looking at your reconstructed textiles with their inherent stories. I have a knitting needles bag that was my mother’s and it is made from a remnant of dress material. The material is thick brocadey stuff in a stunning emerald green as it was an evening dress that my Granny made for her. I love the contrast of using a posh dressy fabric for such a housewifely item as a needles bag.
I have set up http://www.bordertart.com for my own handmade stuff if you would like to drop by – although where you would find the time to do that I really don’t know!
Julia – it’s been quite an emotional experience looking at and reading your work, without realising it I’ve been transported into many memories of times, places and people – a despised hand-me-down dress of my older sisters….thin, shapeless, limp cotton, watery biege colour, horrible flowery pattern, felt like a paper bag on me and angered me that I should have to wear such a dull unispiring dress as a 5 year old! A woolen cardigan of my nan’s that I found at the age of 16 when my mum and i were clearing her clothes out after she’d died, I’d never seen her wear it and it was too small for her to have worn in my life time as i had known her as a larger lady all my life. It was blue, a mid sky blue I suppose, quite stiff, it had been washed and put away in a draw for possibly years, it fitted me and I wore it for a long time, it softened over time – I never washed it as it never got dirty and never smelled of anything – that was strange yet comforting. Then suddenly one day I realised it looked like a rag – I’d worn the elbows out of it, I’d dropped some food down it and it smelled – had this happened suddenly or gradually? I wasn’t sure. I t was with great reluctance and some encouraging words from my mum that after 2 years I stopped wearing it and I put it in the bin – it felt like another bereavement.
Sorry if these are too long – it’s been really moving for me to consider these things – thank you for giving me the opportunity to do so.