Sue Westergaard: Threads

29 January – 04 February – Threads.

The things that run through us ; thoughts, ideas, emotions, loves, hates, pain, pleasure, sights, sounds, smells, tastes, textures, landscapes, people, places . . . The strands that knit our lives together – that make us who we are. Woven, stitched, knitted and felted threads are the very substance of life’s rites of passage – layette shawls, wedding lace, city suits, shrouds . . . They are essential for mopping up spillages, or keeping us warm whilst we sleep.

My mum worked with thread. She was a costume maker, my grandmother sold fabric in a smart Copenhagen antique shop, and I’ve spent my adult life designing for and printing fabric. I even wrote a ‘how-to’ book about it. The work in this show has grown out of all of this. It plays with the conventions of fabric design, the tactile qualities of cloth and how it behaves, what textiles can mean to us, both in society and personally. But it isn’t practical. It isn’t about earning a living. It’s about my ‘soul’ – whatever that is. Whatever that means It’s about me. My personal threads. It is me.

@suewestergaard