2. Uncomfortable Quilt

Rebecca, Ellie and I were grouped togetether to complete our firstcollaborative project as we had all used textiles/stitching in our summer projects and had expressed our interest in developing this further in our practice. After visiting the art exhibition held inside what used to be Reading Gaol (until 2013), we began to discuss what had struck us most about the exhibition as a whole. We soon realised that, as a group, we were most affected by the prison itself and how, to many of the prisoners, forced to live there, it would become known as their only home, in a sense at least. For some of them, it would be the only home they would ever live in again e.g. those serving life sentences.

Architecturally speaking, the prison itself was beautiful.  But as a place to live? It seemed to inhabit every single one of the qualities that one would never associate with a home; coldness, formality, rigidity and lack of emotion. Working from this, we decided to look into making a kind of patchwork quilt, the ultimate representation of homely-ness, comfort and family and often made with so much love and care, but subvert this idea by making a ‘prison version’.

We wanted to make a ‘quilt’ made entirely out of materials that one would never associate with a quilt- completely the opposite in fact- uncomfortable or disregarded ones, potentially even some materials relevant to the prison and it’s inhabitants themselves. We wanted to demonstrate that while the prison may technically be a home to said people, it’s a home that nobody really wants.

We began the project by making a base for the quilt out of chicken wire. We chose this material as it is both uncomfortable and would never in a million years be associated with a patchwork quilt of any kind. We cut it into roughly the same size as would be a quilt for a single bed and then mounted it on the wall- our decided way of displaying the work. We had considered laying it on the floor and potentially moulding it to appear as though there was actually a bed underneath it.. but decided against this and thought that hanging it on the wall would work best.

We then took a trip into town and gathered materials to be used within the quilt. Most of said materials came from a variety of charity shops which we thought was quite fitting as it puts emphasis on the idea that the materials gathered had been disregarded, just as those inhabitants of the prison had been disregarded from society/the outside world.

We acquired some socks which we proceeded to then wear over our shoes around town and then on our way home also in order to make them dirty (a reference to those very ‘used’ socks that could often be found by prisoners’ beds when the prison was still open….). We were looking for materials that were either uncomfortable and scratchy or ones which subverted the ‘proper’ usage of a blanket/quilt. Our shopping list was as follows:

• Scratchy wool

• Hessian

• Chicken wire

• Dirtied socks

• Bin liners

• Welcome home mat

• Materials from a charity shop including old skirts and old handkerchiefs/tea towels

• Brillo pads/steel wool

• Toothpaste (prisoners used this to fasten things to the walls)

From these materials we began to cut to size and assemble the patches in roughly the layout we wanted- we had no kind of pre-decided plan or pattern but decided to randomly position the patches as we saw fit.

We also wanted to include a quote that we found graffiti-ed inside the prison which was “I’m still here you bastards“. We thought that it resonated well with the general idea behind our project and so I embroidered this phrase across a series of patches which would be scattered across the quilt.

We also found a welcome mat while out acquiring materials and included this, gaffer-taped to the floor, as an ironic gesture.

We attached some of the patches with toothpaste as this was the material that the prisoners tended to use to stick posters etc onto their cell walls as they weren’t permitted to use blu-tack as it’s a choking hazard.

Below is an example of an area within the piece that we applied the theory behind the book The Subversive Stitch to (“I’m still here you bastards” and the floral embroidered areas); the embroidery creating a juxtaposition of the contrasting elements included within the piece.