Shoddy: an exhibition by disabled artists

Shoddy Disability rights, textiles, recycling, history and fightback

Shoddy Disability rights, textiles, recycling, history and fightback An exhibition by disabled artists in Leeds, April 2016 The following artists were part of the Shoddy exhibition at Live Arts Bistro in Leeds 7th – 16th April 2016: Andrew Towse & Anne-Marie Atkinson Aoife O’Rourke Becky Fawcett Bradford Textiles Group Carrie Scott Huby Faye Waple Gemma Nash & Jennifer Bryant Katy White Katya Robin Kirsty Hall Lesley Illingworth Mow Natalia Sauvignon Pyramid of Arts Sandy Holden Specialist Autism Services Wednesday Textile Group Vickie Orton.

Gill Crawshaw conceived and curated the exhibition and published this booklet. All text by Gill Crawshaw, apart from italicised excerpts from artists’ statements.

Photos: copyright Mat Dale, apart from page 8 Faye Waple, page 16 Katy White, page 17 Katya Robin, page 24 Gemma Nash.

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Introduction Shoddy is the name for new cloth created from woollen waste and recycled fabric. This original meaning is now largely unknown and rarely used and the word has come to mean of inferior quality, shabby, broken-down.

This was the starting point for a project led by and featuring disabled artists working with textiles, including recycled and reused materials. The project centred on creating an exhibition of the artists’ work shown in Leeds in April 2016.

Shoddy aimed to challenge any assumptions that disabled artists’ and disabled people’s work, our lives and ourselves, are inferior, broken-down, second-rate or badly made.

And this is, of course, against the current background of cuts to welfare benefits, a raft of massive reductions in public services, including social care services, that are disproportionately affecting disabled people, and a climate of demonising those who receive benefits or other support. “Shoddy” should perhaps be used to describe the government’s treatment of disabled people.

It was these different definitions and uses of the word that inspired and shaped the Shoddy disability arts project.

Shoddy aims to link the historical and contemporary meanings, using them to focus attention on disabled people’s creativity, lives and concerns.

Seventeen individual artists, pairs or groups were selected for Shoddy’s initial exhibition in Leeds, showing 21 artworks. Subsequent exhibitions in Batley and Leeds showed selections of the work.

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The artists responded to one or more of Shoddy’s themes: • Shoddy and shoddy manufacturing – the material, the shoddy industry in Leeds / West Yorkshire, the woollen industry, mills and mill work, local history • Recycling / re-using / re-purposing • The shoddy treatment of disabled people by the current government – public funding cuts including cuts to social care, access to work funding, welfare benefits, bedroom tax – deserving / undeserving poor – comparison of disabled people’s lives now – and in the past.

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The original meaning of shoddy is new cloth made from fibres reclaimed from woollen waste fabric. This early version of recycling was invented in West Yorkshire, on the very border between Batley and Morley, at Howley Lower Mill, around 1813. Benjamin Law is usually given credit for inventing shoddy, but sometimes his brother-in-law, Benjamin Parr, and/or his son, also Benjamin Parr, are credited.

Morley now lies within Leeds metropolitan borough but retains a strong independent identity.

It can lay claim to being the birthplace of the shoddy industry that became an important part of Morley’s industrial past. This honour, however, usually goes to Batley, as most of the trading in the early days took place there.

Low and Parr kept their process a secret for as long as possible but soon other mills began to copy and the shoddy industry grew. Production spread quickly to neighbouring textile towns of West Yorkshire, including Dewsbury and Ossett. There was high demand for the cheaper cloth that was produced and a great deal was exported, often for use in military uniforms. By 1871 there were 36 mills in Morley producing shoddy cloth, with many more across the region.

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“Not a single thing belonging the Shoddy system is valueless or useless” – Samuel Jubb, The History of the Shoddy-Trade, 1860.

To make a link with the shoddy industry as well as the wider textile industries of the region, past and present, artists exhibiting in Shoddy were required to use textiles in their work. Many of the artists recycled fabric and other materials that might otherwise have been discarded, linking back to the origins of shoddy by finding a use for what others have cast aside.

At the same time, Shoddy made the point that disabled people are too often undervalued and cast aside. The exhibition countered this by creating a platform for high quality, contemporary art by disabled artists which challenged, provoked, inspired and entertained. A core aim of the project is to ensure that the work of disabled artists is recognised and that the brilliant art produced is not overlooked.

“We are not shoddy, or waste – we make so much from the material of our rich lives!” – Comments book.

To most people today, the word shoddy means shabby, broken-down or of inferior quality.

Rejecting this description is a strong statement for an exhibition by disabled artists. Instead, the project promotes inclusion, visibility, empowerment and respect.

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The piece by the Wednesday Textile Group at Leeds’ Specialist Autism Services reflects the group’s creativity, resilience and experience of the world.

Untitled Specialist Autism Services Wednesday Textile Group We live in a world where people make negative assumptions and horrible judgements about us often based on how we look and behave.

When you look at our tailor’s dummy you cannot make any judgements about what is inside.

But when you open the “shoddy” bag you will find a kaleidoscope of beautiful labels that reflects our creativity, ideas, knowledge, feelings and each individual truth.

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The wallhanging created by another textile group, of Bradford students, challenges stereotypes and the belief that disabled people are undeserving of respect, with a Group Portrait showing their personalities, skills and aspirations.

Group Portrait

Using recycled and reclaimed materials, students produced biographical “portraits� drawing on their individual experiences. These were turned into textile art using a range of techniques including printing, stitching, using recycled fabrics, embellishments and digital images. The final product demonstrates the complexity, confidence and vibrancy of the group presented against and eclipsing a shoddy blanket.

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Shoddy is framed against the government’s austerity measures and welfare reform. The exhibition opened shortly after the 2016 Budget brought in further benefit cuts, estimated to leave 200,000 disabled people £3,000 a year worse off.

The ensuing outcry and anger over this latest episode in the sustained attack on disabled people’s rights focused attention on the project’s assertion that “shoddy” is an appropriate description for government policy.

Furthermore, a June 2016 report by the United Nations committee on economic, social and cultural rights said it was “seriously concerned” about the “disproportionate adverse impact” of the austerity measures introduced in the UK since 2010.

Disabled people are currently experiencing a relentless and multi-pronged attack as the government dismantles systems, facilities and services that enable people to live independently, with dignity and in safety.

The drive to save money on welfare and support, to supposedly incentivise disabled people to get a job, despite a lack of suitable work and the prejudices of employers, is a clear echo of the 19th century workhouse principle of “less eligibility”. Conditions in the workhouse were designed to deter people from seeking help.

Today’s hated and often criticised Work Capability Assessment fulfils the role of the relieving officers, set up under the 1834 Poor Law, determining how much – or little – support people are / were entitled to, consigning many to stringent work-related activity or destitution.

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Vickie Orton compares the complexities of negotiating the minefield of welfare and support systems to a frustrating maze. Her work is a timely reminder of the contribution that disabled people make, and the fact that everyone gives and receives support throughout life.

The Maze of Life Vickie Orton

The first maze represents how shoddily disabled people are treated under the current system, the monochrome colour scheme reflecting the decision-making process.

It’s impossible to work your way through this maze, so often you’re faced with dead ends or turnings that look promising but lead nowhere.

The second maze represents the positive contributions that disabled people make to society. The lines on this maze join up, suggesting the links and support that disabled people give and receive within the community.

The bright colours, some with sparkle running through, illustrate the vitality and richness of an inclusive society.

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Lesley Illingworth’s Story Telling Coat tells of powerful medical and political systems which seek to deny the very existence of disabled people through the demand for punishing work.

Story Telling Coat Lesley Illingworth The outer coat of purple extols the strengths of disabled people, such as tolerance, patience, intuition.

The lining, however, tells a different story.

MPs’ names are partnered with the name of a disabled person from Calum’s List – a memorial to deceased benefit claimants, where welfare reform is alleged to have had some culpability for their deaths.

I have become acutely aware of the storytelling spin and lies political organisations use to further their own causes.

Attempting to rewrite a story with no illness, disability, powerlessness or vulnerability, rewriting the story believing they can cure and change illness and disability with hard toil. But of course they cannot effect this change.

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Mow takes a satirical look at the inefficient systems for claiming support while refusing to lose her sense of identity and individuality. There is certainly an air of a Dickensian tale in her dealings with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

Not Lost Mow The piece is inspired by my personal experience of collecting and sending requested financial information to the benefits centre, which was subsequently “lost” in the system.

The time and energy it has taken to make the bag mirrors the time it took to prepare and re-send financial documents requested by the DWP. I have used the words “Not Lost” as a statement regarding my personal identity. I refuse to become lost in the system, to be identified by codes and numbers.

This piece looks like a laundry bag - a reference to airing dirty laundry in public - highlighting the embarrassment and shame that receiving benefits can invoke.

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The harsh times of the Victorian era, the workhouse and the industrial revolution can easily be brought to mind when we remember the origins of the shoddy trade – or even when we consider the difficulties of many disabled people’s lives today. Times may have changed, but for disabled people a sense of security, support or of having a valued role in society can be elusive.

Other artists are inspired by more recent history. Carrie Scott Huby’s carefully crafted nests reference the 1940s utility aesthetic, when rationing led to making full use of all available materials while maintaining good design.

Shoddy Utility Nests Carrie Scott Huby

Shoddy Utility Nests represent locally sourced, reclaimed and recycled materials inspired by 1940s utility. This work starts with a wool base combined with discarded objects, using traditional techniques and processes.

Shoddy Utility Nests are made with local flock fleece hand felted with reclaimed Batley hessian, plus other discarded materials. The concept of nesting can be applied to taking care of our world, reducing waste and utilising what we have, showing beauty within the imperfect and discarded.

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Katy White draws on her family history over a number of generations in work that brings together issues of mill work, industrial injury, ill health, women’s roles, disability and care.

Kicking Up a Dust Katy White

In the conversation my mum and I follow the thread of chronic ill-health in the women in her family, beginning with my great-grandma Bess, who was born in the 1890s and had mill fever. We draw parallels between Bess’s and my own ill-health, uniting them as environmental and connected to work. We discuss the mutual neglect by the state and question how much attitudes to illness and disability have moved forward since Bess’s lifetime.

Simultaneously, the piece explores the contrast between the healing I find in textile craft and the working conditions of textile industries as a cause of illness.

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Katya Robin takes our memories of familiar fabrics so that we appreciate them and look at them afresh. By doing this she celebrates everyday objects and materials and makes us do the same.

Coin Icon and Rag Tales Katya Robin

Coin Icon refers to the traditions of silk scarves, while subverting them, mimicking the silky appearance because the allure of shimmering fabric is part of the language of luxury. Before globalised cheap mass production, a polyester scarf was often one of the few affordable garments to provide a flash of colour, a flourish, a sense of individuality, an expression of positive self-identity.

In Rag Tales, visitors were invited to sit with unglamorous ordinary fabrics and feel the textures of cleaning cloths, uniforms, interfacing, linings, header tape. It is a space of recollection of stories related to fabrics of everyday life.

These ubiquitous hard-working cloths are surprisingly ephemeral. When worn out they are disposed of or, in a new twist, in the vein of New Britain’s appropriation of people’s culture, some are saved but in a sanitised, “vintagised” way that erases their provenance.

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Becky Fawcett also aims to show the importance of humble materials which are often overlooked.

Her embroidered poems give new life and purpose to discarded materials and emphasise that no one should be consigned to the scrap heap.

Embroidered Poems Becky Fawcett

T-shirt cotton from clothing donated to charity shops, deemed too damaged to be resold, has been salvaged and used again in these works. By continuing the recycling and re-purposing theme, I have created something completely different to clothing, and something permanent. Like the cotton threads, the old connections within an injured brain are being re-used and renewed (my art is the result of working hard to overcome the after-effects of a stroke). Things seen as “shoddy� can in fact be of use.

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Sandy Holden communicates a message of social responsibility through the use of recycled materials such as discarded paper, fabric and packaging scraps as a format for embroidery and sculpture. At the same time, she challenges traditional connotations of embroidery with her work.

Webs of Ambition Too and Phoenix Sandy Holden

These intricate embroideries are made using the sewing machine as a drawing tool and a variety of media including natural plant dyes, acrylic paints, pencil and appliquĂŠ.

In the installation Webs of Ambition Too, dense, free motion machine stitches on polythene packaging create web-like structures inspired by patterns found in nature.

Phoenix is embroidered on a scrap of canvas fabric, with acrylic paint added.

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Scraps and off-cuts have become striking large artworks, a synthetic sculpture and a colourful wallhanging, in the hands of Pyramid of Arts’ High Rise and Sensory Groups.

Every member of the group made their mark and is represented in these vibrant pieces.

The High Rise Visual Arts Group took the concept of shoddy as re-using something and changing its purpose.

Using different plastics to create a synthetic textile, the group created a piece that combines each individual member’s marks, stitches, and hand woven parts to form a large sculpture that can be viewed from all sides.

The High Rise Sensory Group opted to document their sessions and how attending the group affects their life in a positive way. Photographs of the group as they explore and experience different sensory elements have been transferred to fabric and hung from branches.

The group has created a wall hanging that represents all members, what they have brought to the group and what they have gained as their experience grows.

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Un-dyed shoddy fabric contains the bright flashes of colours from the mixed scraps and rags that it is made from. Andrew Towse and Anne-Marie Atkinson, working together as D4, have produced scanned images that resemble shoddy in their patterns of light and shade.

The Dark Light D4: Andrew Towse and Anne-Marie Atkinson

We placed scraps of coloured cloth, silver foil, cotton wool, bandages, balls of wool and steel wool onto a scanner. We made the room we were in dark. When the light of the scanner came down, we moved the items on the scanner in different directions and different speeds.

This made the picture stripey. We made three scans for each picture, putting them together in Photoshop, and changing the layers’ see-through. We can see faces in the patterns.

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Natalia Sauvignon mixes shoddy with other materials and objects to create colourful felted sculptures. Leftover wool, plastic plants, seashells from a trip to Bridlington and even the artist’s own hair made their way into this piece to be re-used and combined in an unexpected way.

Beautiful but Deadly Natalia Sauvignon

I have recently been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Being a positive and accepting person I always noticed life’s little miracles, the beauty in the world and all the tiny details people tend not to notice. What the exhibition Shoddy represents for me personally is that no matter what condition you have, everyone has potential.

You could either try to discard or hide your condition like discarding the leftover wool or make the best of it, creating something unique and sharing it with the world.

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In a synthesis of the themes of Shoddy, Faye Waple’s embroideries contrast the different meanings of the word.

Shoddy Sampler: 1832 and Shoddy Sampler: 1862 Faye Waple

When I received the brief for Shoddy I did a quick ‘straw poll’ and was surprised to find that no one knew of the term’s original ties to the textile industry.

As a textile artist I perhaps took for granted the meaning of shoddy. I decided my work needed to simply highlight shoddy by creating a duo of samplers explaining the origin of the original noun and the later adjective that is more widely known and used.

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Other artists have expanded on the themes to show that shoddy treatment is not the preserve of the Treasury or Department for Work and Pensions. Its effects can be felt, for example, in medical procedures used when the medical profession and wider society consider disabled people are second rate and need fixing. Gemma Nash and Jennifer Bryant’s work challenges these assumptions.

A Womb With A View Gemma Nash and Jenny Bryant

This multisensory piece is a response to growth attenuation treatment, gender identity and reproductive rights.

It was sparked by the controversial ‘Ashley X’ case, and explores the ‘shoddy’ treatment disabled people face from the medical profession and wider world. Funny, hopeful and at times heart-wrenching, the piece features spoken narratives from disabled activists, artists and academics.

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Meanwhile, Kirsty Hall addresses the contradictions and challenges of disability and illness with a very personal piece: 255 stones encased in recycled white cotton, one stone for each month since January 1995 when Hall became ill with ME/CFS.

Tatterdemalion Kirsty Hall

Tatterdemalion 1:Â ragged or disreputable in appearance 2:Â being in a decayed state or condition Disabled people are often perceived as vulnerable, worn-down or damaged, yet we often have a hidden core of inner strength. We need that strength not only to accommodate any limitations of our own bodies but also increasingly to deal with the prejudice that disabled people face in these harsh times.

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Aoife O’Rourke’s deep curiosity about the human mind, paired with her own experience of mental health issues, provides the inspiration for much of her work.

Hyde Your Shadow Aoife O’Rourke Everyone – disabled or not – has fragile sides to their personalities, which are often kept hidden.

My work explores this idea of the hidden self, stemming from interests in the Jungian theory of ‘Shadow Aspect’ and literature such as ‘The Curious Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’.

Hyde Your Shadow explores the contrast of these opposing traits through use of opposing materials to create an abstract character portrait. The cage represents people’s outer self, strong and rigid but not without flaws; within is held our inner self. Our inner self can be fragile but beautifully strong and resistant.

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Again and again throughout the exhibition we see the artists drawing on and being inspired by the strength of disabled people:

Complexity, confidence and vibrancy

Vitality and richness

Spectrum of light within every one of us

Everyone has potential

Hidden core of inner strength.

This exhibition is a timely celebration of that strength and of the value of disabled people’s creativity and contributions to society. This strength enables disabled people to challenge exclusion and fight for our rights.

And disabled people are fighting back – through our organisations, trade unions and community groups, using creativity, talent and imagination. Shoddy is a small part of this movement of disabled people and non-disabled allies.

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Thanks This publication was funded by Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society.

The Shoddy exhibition was supported with funding from Leeds Inspired, part of Leeds City Council.

Thanks also to the many individuals and organisations who supported – and continue to support – the project, whether in promoting Shoddy, lending equipment, giving invaluable advice or sheer hard work: Live Art Bistro, East Street Arts, Batley Art Gallery (particularly Mark Milnes), Pyramid of Arts, Inkwell Arts, Hammerson plc (especially community executive James Rogers) and the amazing team of volunteers, with special mention to Helen Astaire and Stuart Harrison. http://shoddyexhibition.wordpress.com Twitter: @ShoddyArts

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Shoddy is proud to support Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), fighting for justice and human rights for all disabled people at a time of austerity and welfare cuts.

DPAC organises high profile direct actions and demonstrations, with a network of local groups around the country. They also publish and collate research, reports, blogs and other information. You can donate, join or find out more: http://dpac.uk.net

Gill Crawshaw is a long-standing disability rights activist, living and working in Leeds.

This publication is also available in Braille and large print.

Please get in touch via http://shoddyexhibition.wordpress.com to request a copy.

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