The film Whomade was created for the exhibition Narrative Cloth held at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum in September 2015. Exhibited alongside work by Fine Art lecturers from the University of Chichester, Whomade resulted from collaboration with social historian, Danae Tankard. The starting point for the work was Danae’s published article ‘A pair of grass-green woollen stockings: the clothing of the rural poor in seventeenth century Sussex’^[1].  Danae’s research considers narratives associated with cloth and draws on a diverse range of primary sources including probate lists of testator’s moveable goods taken immediately after death.

When visiting the Weald and Downland museum Shirley was able to see firsthand the ancient proves of preparing flax and wool into yarns for weaving and was fascinated by the extraordinary nature of transforming these materials in to the woven cloth a warms, protects and identifies us. The original processes remain relevant and continue to inform the highly evolved material world that now surrounds us.

The split screen format of the film includes closely observed footage of flax and wool being prepared for use. Another section shows how a caught strand of wool is being spun by the wind. Flanked by film of edges and lines in the landscape we see how spinning and weaving are echoed in the movement and motion of the world around us.

In ‘A pair of grass-green woollen stockings: the clothing of the rural poor in seventeenth century Sussex’ Danae Tankard describes how important the making of cloth and clothing was to the rural poor and how raw materials and products are accounted for in detail as items travelled between people and communities. Although professionally produced by weavers, course woollen cloth was sometimes referred to as ‘whomade’, a phonetic spelling of ‘home-made’. Often basic in its production and value, such cloth is nonetheless recorded in probate inventories such as that of Walter Deane of Rudgwick^[2].  For Shirley, the 17^th century term was intriguing in the way that it suggests the original unknown weavers and, consequently, the essential nature or their products in most rural families.

Whomade considers how landscape forms the basis of our existence and how communities are defined by their ability to use and process the produce of the world around us.

With thanks to Cathy Flower Bond and Jez Smith, Weald and Downland Open Air Museum.

Narrative Cloth was funded by the University of Chichester and Weald and Downland Open Air Museum.

[1] Tankard, D. A pair of grass-green woollen stockings: the clothing of the rural poor in seventeenth century Sussex in Textile History, 43 (1), 5-22, May 2012. Pg 12-14

[2] Probate inventory of Walter Deane of Rudgwick, Mercer, 1661 (WSRO Ep1/29/160/50)