Untitled

Untitled was commissioned for Living at Belsay Hall: A Contemporary Approach to Furnishing an Historic House, Belsay Hall, Northumberland, May–October 1996. The exhibition was a partnership between English Heritage, Northern Arts and Northumberland County Council, with support from the Crafts Council.

Created specifically for the Dining Room, the work comprised four large window screens made from dyed drake feathers pierced into layers of silk crepe, mousseline organza and crepe georgette, held within American ash frames. The screens responded directly to the architecture and particular atmosphere of Belsay Hall.

I was struck on my first visit by the clarity of the building, its wide, largely empty spaces and the sense of mystery they created. Equally important was the extraordinary expanse of sky visible through the tall windows. I had been on a fortnight's working holiday picking fruit when I was invited to contribute to the project. The repetitive physical work seemed to clear my mind, and my first encounter with Belsay remained unusually vivid. I approached the commission with a very clear sense of what I wanted to make.

Central to the work was the changing natural light entering through the Dining Room windows. More than a kilogram of drake feathers were dyed in subtly varying shades of grey and individually pierced through the silk. As daylight shifted, the translucency of the fabrics and the colour and definition of the feathers continually altered, so that the work was never perceived in quite the same way.

In the accompanying 1996 catalogue, I described the effect:

“When the sun shines, the silk appears almost glass-like and translucent and the feathers pierced into either side of the silk look like strokes of watercolour, which mix and overlap to give a shimmering surface. As the light fades, the silk becomes more opaque, whilst the feathers are more subdued and shadow-like. The whole piece is one of calm, serenity and lightness.”

The work depended upon this relationship between material, architecture and changing light. Rather than simply furnishing the historic interior, the screens responded to the conditions already present within it, allowing daylight, translucency and the delicacy of the feathers to continually remake their surface.