By Robbie LaFleur
Lindsey Marshall, based in Shropshire, England, is sending a marvelous banner to the upcoming exhibit at Norway House in Minneapolis, Minnesota: The Baldishol: A Medieval Norwegian Tapestry Inspires Contemporary Textiles. Her banner format emerged from thinking of the original tapestry fragment, and how it might have been part of a longer frieze depicting many months of the year. The Baldishol horse, birds, and medieval heads are highlighted.
Cotton, wool, linen. Tapestry weaving at 14 ends per inch with knotted ends 19″ x 4″
Lindsey Marshall’s new work reflects ongoing interests in her tapestry practice–look at the abstracted letter forms in the background.
I am interested in conveying meaning by the use of abstracted letterform shapes, colour and surface texture. My work merges two disciplines, visual communication and textiles – the influence of my background in typography being evident in the work where words are embedded in the design. Although lettering is an underpinning, fundamental element in most of the work, it is not necessarily intended to be legible or obvious.
Lindsey sometimes combines woven tapestry with other textile techniques such as knotting, wrapping and binding. What a wonderful braided beard, and bird wings capping each side.
The original Baldishol Tapestry, from around 1180, would have been woven on a variant of an upright loom; here is Lindsey’s tapestry loom.
As she wove, her sketch, or cartoon was placed behind the warp threads.
This is not a banner year, as it turns out, but the “Baldishol Banner” is a splendid tapestry, and will be part of a great exhibit.