ATV Exercise 1.1 the archive:

I visited the William Morris gallery in Walthamstow where I live. Here I looked very carefully at all the textiles on display and choose three that spoke to me most. I spoke to the curator but it wasn’t possible to touch any of the textiles due to their age so I could only go by what I could observe with the textiles being in a glass case.

I chose May Morris, one of William’s daughters, as the theme for my three archive pieces.

May was one of William Morris’ daughters, an accomplished embroiderer and designer, a socialist and a feminist. Aged just 23 she took over the embroidery department at Morris & Co. She was always political and aware of the lack of rights of women. She was annoyed that the Art Workers Guild did not admit women so in 1907 she founded the Women’s Guild of Arts with Mary Elizabeth Turner.