Sally Baldwin
Fragile Life
Fragile Life: A series of pieces using the garment form to evoke the human. To look at our fragile, precarious lives, transient and inextricably linked to our environment, be it through climate change, conflict, life events or simply the passage of time.
Ghost: (LHS) This piece evoking a ghostly lace dress is shown hanging in Can Vivot, a 700 year old former palace in Palma, Mallorca, as part of Xtant, a sustainable textiles exhibition.
Lost: (above) Embroidered flowers thin out towards the hem of the adult coat and become almost non existent on the chidren's. Indigenous plants disappear as the climate warms and it is future generations who will suffer the worst effects
Wonder: Jumping dolphins, blooming flowers and dancing swifts fill us with wonder and joy. Yet all are threatened, whether by warming and polluted oceans, heating temperatures and pesticides and habitat loss. Each piece has the feel of a ghostly costume, wearer unknown, and links the human experience to the environmental
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Disasters of War: Created as an installation for Wells Cathedral as part of Wells Art Contemporary 2024, and hung in the North Precept opposite the statue of the crucifixion. Unlike Goya's prints of the same name which graphically illustrated the atrocities of the Spanish wars against Napoleon in the early 1800s, this piece looks at the suffering of women and children in all war. Golgotha is evoked, whilst the black robes suggest death, mourning, burning and the embroidered flowers conjure up lives lost in full bloom.
The piece later won the Grand Prize at Fiberart International in Pittsburgh, USA.
Lost Flowers: A ghostly white, hooded, stitched paper robe adorns a figure who appears to be ascending the 700 year old limestone Chapter House staircase of Wells Cathedral. The robe has flowers embroidered into it which become smaller and sparser towards the hem. Whilst the loss of indigenous flowers due to warming temperatures is referenced, the figure also conjures up all those who have climbed this staircase in its long history, and thus the transience of all life. Shown as part of Wells Art Contemporary 2022
