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Lord Deliver Me - The Open College of the Arts

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Lord Deliver Me

8 women were hung at Bodmin Jail between (1868 – 1899).
Several of these women had been living in very difficult circumstances – homeless and single with several children at a very young age, often working and living in workhouses.
One of the women Selina Wadge was hung for the murder of her own child after having met a man who promised her a better life but not with all of her children.
Katie Taylor, a student on Textiles Level 3, created a piece of work in response to a visit to the jail in Cornwall.
Rope was my starting point – it was integral to life within prisons, used to hang those sentenced to the death penalty, unpicking rope was a prison task and the unpicked rope would be used to caulk boats used for transportation to the colonies. Using this rope I have referenced the idea of spiralling out of control by making coiled rope bowls using basketry techniques. 

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Clay pushed into the rope basket creates a bone like remnant, a memory, whilst also referencing the ideas of unravelling and deterioration.
Iron oxide was used to enhance the ropes texture on the outside of the item (Iron locks, prison keys) a tin glaze was used inside (tin bowls and cutlery were issued to each prisoner). The piece is also empty – empty lives. It doesn’t stand up and couldn’t hold anything – pointless and purposeless, lives that were not lived to the full.
The red thread inside the piece references the phrase ‘hanging by a thread’ as well as a significant reminder of the severing of an umbilical connection between a mother and her child.

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Moments before Selina Wadge was hung she was heard to say ‘Lord deliver me from this miserable world’.
Katie has been selected as one of the exhibitors  at the 17th International Mini Textile Exhibition. It is being held in Bratislava and Prague during June and July.
I asked Katie how her work has developed over the course of her degree and what she hopes the future holds for her as an artist.
My degree path with OCA started as a craft based interest that I wanted to develop further, but has now become so much more. The course has enabled me to feely explore ideas and thoughts in a conceptual way that I hadn’t really considered or known how to before. I have developed a fascination with social history which is particularly evident within this piece.
I am really keen to see how far I can take my art, more exhibitions would be great and I am also considering taking my studies further by doing an MA.

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Images: Katie Taylor

 
Students wanting their work featured on WeAreOCA should email blog@oca.ac.uk
All submissions will be acknowledged and reviewed but we cannot promise all work submitted will be featured on the blog.


Posted by author: Joanne

7 thoughts on “Lord Deliver Me

  • Joanne, As a Textile Student I find this piece really quite overwhelming in its emotional appeal.. You have transposed the miserable existence of a woman who murdered her own child to better her own terrible life, into a fascinating work. The way you have researched the theme and used rope, iron and tin glaze to produce a three dimensional but empty object speaks volumes about the human condition.
    Sylvia Fox

  • As someone who’s attempt at textile design is a dropped-stitch jumper, I really love the textile work done through the OCA. This is so affecting. A beautiful item, with a desparate theme. Women are still sentence to prison terms for lesser offences than men. For falling into debt, for instance.

  • Conceptual art has a real appeal to me. Thanks for sharing your blog with us and congratulations of being included in the exhibition.

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