Tanya Bentham Talk

 Yesterday we had a real treat when Tanya Bentham came to give us a talk about her work. Packed into her car and unloaded for display were two trolley loads of bags and boxes plus a few extras! She covered four tables and two double sided hanging rails with beautiful stitched pieces. I think it's the most we've ever had at a talk and my goodness it was all fabulous.

Tanya researched medieval embroidery and started producing the lovely work we saw. The Bayeux tapestry has a lot of open area with no stitch, but medieval laid and couched work fills the base fabric. This red piece is based on an Icelandic design and used as an altar frontal.

Tanya loves using natural dyed wool in her pieces with the limited colour palette available to medieval embroiderers. The eight or nine colours feature in all the parts of the panel making the piece coherent. The medieval pieces have a cartoonish quality, no worries if you can't do anatomically correct animals! People at the time were able to understand stories without the need to be able to read.

Inspiration for Tanya's pieces are taken from marginalia and bestiaries in original illustrated texts, but are not direct copies; somewhere in there you can often find a modern reference. 

Here's a little chap with a Cadbury's Creme Egg, he's looking pleased so it must be before the palm oil fallout!

Tanya's cats appear a lot.

Guess who!

Some large hangings currently being worked on are inspired by the Lutrell Psalter. This was commissioned by Sir Geoffrey Lutrell in the fourteenth century (see the British Library website for images) and is perhaps most fmous for its portryal of the ordinary lives of medieval people. Again these panels have a modern twist in there. In the music one there's an electric guitar and some album covers.

The dragon panel references the Hogwarts motto - never tickle a sleeping dragon.

Medieval folk loved a rude picture and so does Tanya (they even appeared on pilgrim badges), so there are a few risque images in her work - I've left those out to save your blushes 😳 but you can stitch your own with one of her kits.

Tanya's real love is Opus Anglicanum a highly prized style of English embroidery of the 12th to 14th centuries. It is worked in filament silk thread with gold and silver threads as well. This means the embroidery catches the light and can create shadow effects. A distinctive feature is the spiral stitching you can see on faces. It feature split stitch and underside couching. The effect is stunning and I have to say the photos don't do Tanya's work justice.

We thoroughly enjoyed Tanya's visit and she's back with us in January for a workshop. 

Here's a few more pieces, I treat myself to the kit of the first one!