House Guests – David Parr House
Pink Field: 50 x 50cm Digital and hand dye-sublimation collage on reclaimed cloth plus hand stitching.
Pink Field was created as one of the final artworks of the practice-based research project ‘Locus of the Dress’ which looked at psychological transition, referencing J. Rotter’s psychological theory Locus of the Dress; it was a collaboration with Clinical Psychotherapist Dr Hermina Hernaiz. The image depicts a solo swimmer in Margate’s Walpole Bay tidal pool.
House Guests: Textile Artists in David Parr House, curated by Annabelle Campbell, the first in a series of creative interventions inviting contemporary artists, designers and makers to respond to David Parr House. The inaugural guests all work in textile materials and processes to acknowledge the story of Mary Jane Parr, wife of David. Bringing textile works into the historic domestic interiors of David Parr House shines a light on Mary’s presence in the house. Before she was married, Mary lived in Cheshire where she was a doubler – a textile worker who, from home, spun cotton threads to create new yarns. Through the work of eight artists, House Guests: Textile Artists explores making, domesticity, and the stories of the house.
Each House Guests intervention presents works by artists that offer new ways to consider the house, its interiors and its history. Through visiting works, new narratives are discovered, highlighting how the themes and values of David Parr House are as relevant today as they were to those who inhabited the space from the 1880s.
The domestic and ordinary nature of the David Parr House exterior is compelling, it is anything but this once you enter the interior. The exterior masks an intriguing and multi-layered inner life; investigating the relationship between inside and outside is an enduring concept within my practice.
Like Mary Jane Parr I also work from home, weaving tapestry, sewing and un-picking has dominated my creative practice and the discovery of Mrs Parr’s sewing kit in the dining room and the perceived narrative around this was an exciting moment for me.
My husband a surface pattern maker and applied artist also works from home. Like the Parr’s we surround our domestic interior with the products and patterns of our working life. Although living decades apart I have been struck by the similarities and shared sympathies with the Parr house and the people who lived in it. Shelly Goldsmith 2023
