Artist embraces bags for life for new exhibition
Textile artist Celia Pym found her access to traditional materials challenged during the Covid crisis but, ever the innovator, she turned her attention to something different – with extraordinary results. visited her ‘unmissable’ exhibition, ‘Mending’
THE Covid lockdowns were a time of change for everybody. For many artists, denied their usual markets and workspaces, new creative avenues opened during those months of dislocation.
London-based Celia Pym is an artist who works with yarn and thread. Her established way of working with textiles inevitably brings her into contact with other people.
Because her starting point is the garments and fabric objects that are brought to her for the distinctive stitching she creates in her unique repairs, so the pandemic paused the flow of material. An inveterate worker and maker, Pym turned her attention elsewhere – to the paper bags in which food and other items came into her life from shops and friends.
Handled and creased by use, the bags become torn and creased.
Perhaps a bun from the bakery fell through the bottom, or a box inside split the sides.
The damage rather than the contents appealed to Pym’s artist’s mind. For her, damage is the start of the art process and not where it ends. The results are extraordinary: small-scale sculptures of remarkable invention, colour, subtlety and boldness.
Not meant for reuse, they have a second life as artworks to be looked at in a new way.
A selection forms her one-person exhibition at the Hweg gallery on Causewayhead, Penzance, until May 4. It is unmissable.
‘Mending’ is the word Pym uses. It may seem inadequate to describe the intimate involvement that she applies to all aspects of her work.
The bags take to another dimension the activity she devotes to the sweaters brought to her by, for instance, relatives of the beloved wearer who has died, or to rescue a treasured backpack that has accompanied its owner on memorable trips.
Her mends are by no means invisible. That is why people choose her; she both preserves and transforms a cherished item.
Often the holes and thinning are what people want to keep; objects are literally shaped by their users, so they can evoke an individual or experience.
Expressed in her sensitive approach are the intricate layers of her own background. British-born, she studied sculpture at Harvard University in the US.
That is where knitting came into her work, a process that freed her from the workshop and welding metal, and from achieving the fine finish she resists.
Instead, Pym says, she likes to “mend so that you can see what is missing, to make change visible.”
That is clear in the bags where her stitches gather around tears.
Stitches appear in varied combinations and directions, and mix to build a new layer that never obscures the old.
Her interventions strengthen and protect, and project a particular character. With their weaves and furrows, different heights and widths, the bags resemble a chorus line of assorted players.
In deciding how to make her mark with the needle, she says, “The damage always leads”.
The signs of wear themselves begin a kind of conversation with the object, suggesting which tone, thread or density to use. She finds a way forward through sight and touch.
The effect is like modelling or drawing; in some details, painting comes to mind.
The tear is like a wound; the scar is seen through the stitching; the yarns patch the area like new skin. Comparisons with repairing the body in surgery are appropriate.
From her art background, Pym retrained as a nurse in London, where she still lives.
Somehow the jump did not seem so huge or surprising; “mending” also refers to getting better; broken bones “knit” in recovery.
Once again a full-time artist, Pym balances her work of caring for garments with making her sculptural bags. Their new identity puts texture, colour, shape and stitch in the forefront, although their previous function is never forgotten.
Change emerges gradually; transformation takes time. Somehow, that process is sensed while looking.
The bags are entirely Pym’s own inspiration; she is not limited in her choices by having to match shades or worry about future wear and washing.
These small-scale sculptures, some borrowed for this show from private collections, possess an independent, abstract existence that springs out of their everyday origins.
Pym’s technique is framed by the language of care and optimism. There is no melancholy; the mended bags project refreshing vitality and a dose of good humour.
They are also a reminder that art assumes multiple forms to make surprising connections and stimulate the imagination.