High Tide Magazine

Exhibitions

Life's rich tapestry

Tuesday, 02 December 2008

Filey is recording its history and culture in a time-honoured way, Roger Osborne reports.

Do you know your tent from your brick stitching, or your French knots from your stump work? If you do, you’re probably already a tapestry fan; if not, then you just might become one.

About four years ago, Kath Wilkie saw a community tapestry in Jersey, and decided it was a perfect way for Filey to celebrate its distinctive culture. She got some funding and the project was up and running. Dorrance Firth took on the task of research and design. She wanted a twelve foot long tapestry but soon found this was impractical: ‘Working on the cloth, then stretching it becomes impossible at that length, so we decided to have four panels instead.’

Dorrance searched the archives, contacted every organisation she could think of and took tons of photographs. The images were then laid out on paper to make a coherent design. The next stage was to call in
artist Olive Sharpe to paint the complete design, in full colour, on to the tapestry base. Dorrance explains: ‘The base acts as a guide for the stitchers, but they can be creative in their choice of colour and stitching.

There are ten stitchers still hard at work on the tapestry, and altogether more than 300 people have been involved, giving thousands of hours of their time. Each panel illustrates an element of Filey culture; the first two, on fishing and religion, have taken three years to complete (they will be finished in February); another two, on industry and leisure and history, are being planned, with Oriel Wing and Margaret Taylor taking over from Dorrance.

The results bear the mark of a community seeking and marking its own culture; for Filey fishing and religion are deeply significant, and worthy of this communal commemoration.

The tapestries go on display in the Evron Centre Open Day on 16 December. After completion they will be permanently on display.

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