Haptic & Hue

Latest Episodes:

Stitches by Candlelight Dec 01, 2022

Show notes

Mary Queen of Scots is one of the most written about women in history. We think we know her well – but here's a new account that re-interprets her life from the point of view of the textiles she wore and the embroideries she stitched. It casts a completely different light on her difficult existence and brings her fully into focus as a living, breathing human being. Here is a renaissance queen displaying her power in violet taffeta and purple velvet, who wore silver to mourn, black to display her statesmanship, and white for innocence and piety.

The book is Clare Hunter's Embroidering Her Truth, Mary Queen of Scots and the Language of Power, and it is Haptic & Hue's choice for our Book of the Year 2022. In this special end-of-year episode, Jo talks at length to Clare about her research and what it told her about Mary. It sets Mary in context both as a consumer of elite textiles and also as an embroiderer during her long captivity. At her death, Mary left over 300 embroideries, many of which can still be seen both in Scotland and England, which she used to tell her own story. They give us an insight into her state of mind and the messages she was trying to convey to the outside world.

You can find a full script of this podcast, pictures, links and show-notes at www.hapticandhue.com/listen. Embroidering Her Truth, Mary Queen of Scots and the Language of Power can be bought in the Haptic & Hue UK bookshop. Haptic & Hue earns a small commission on this at no extra cost to you.

Returning The Spirit of a Soldier Nov 03, 2022

Show notes

A ragged flag and torn flag, nearly eighty years old was posted last month from a home not far from London. It doesn't look like much but it is infinitely precious, both to the person who sent it and to the family in Japan that created it. If the family can be found, this flag may be the only thing that remains of their brother, father, uncle or grandfather who went missing in the Second World War. If it is returned to them they will have something to mourn after all these years.

The women who posted it is the daughter of a British soldier who fought the Japanese in the War. She hopes the flag can be repatriated and she says in her letter: "I have no illusion how my father came by this flag but I do hope that somehow, just maybe we can put a tiny piece of the horror of war to rest."

The new episode of Tales of Textiles is about Yosegaki Hinomaru, good luck flags signed by the friends and families of Japanese soldiers going off to war. Many became war trophies for Allied soldiers and now finally, after all these years, some of them are being returned to the families of the men for whom they were first made. For their descendants this small piece of cloth is so much more than a textile, it represents the return of their relative's spirit home.

This episode deals with war and loss, death and mourning.

You can find a full script of this podcast, pictures, links and show-notes at www.hapticandhue.com/listen.

If you would like to find out about the Obon Society you can find them at https://obonsociety.org/eng/

Strong Community Threads Oct 06, 2022

Show notes

Imagine the person who sits behind the counter in the post office or serves your coffee in the Main Street coffee shop has a superpower, one that she shares with your child's teacher, the administrator in a building company, and the nurse you met last week at the clinic. All of them are talented textile designers, part of a community that works to the highest standards and turns out work that bears comparison with the best being produced in America.

The Folly Cove Designers were an extraordinary group of people who created beautiful and inspirational textile designs in a little-known community in Massachusetts. They had no professional qualifications and they were taught around a kitchen table by one woman. For nearly thirty years they formed a close creative and supportive network making work of the highest quality. Even today, over half a century later the story of the Folly Cove Designers has a lot to tell us about how excellence happens and why communities matter.

You can find a full script of this podcast, pictures, links, and show-notes at www.hapticandhue.com/listen.

The Secret Life of Second-Hand Clothes Sep 01, 2022

Show notes

What happens to your old clothes? Do you drop them off at the charity shop or turn them into the textile recycling bin at the store? They leave your wardrobe and your thoughts – but what happens next and where do they end up? This episode of Haptic & Hue's Tales of Textiles wraps up old clothes, flea markets, the invention of a special form of jazz, the horror of today's textile excess, and glimmers of hope for the future.

This edition of Haptic and Hue is about the past, the present, and what could be the future of second-hand clothes and textile recycling. Once we lived in an age when yarns and fabrics were hard-won and precious, today we live in an era of textile excess where cloth production uses far too much of the world's precious resources for clothes that we wear a few times and then throw away. But it doesn't have to be like this. Come on a journey with Haptic and Hue to find out the secrets of second-hand clothes.

You can find a full script of this podcast, pictures, links, show notes and more at www.hapticandhue.com/listen.

The Long and Winding Road of Lace Jul 07, 2022

Show notes

The long arc of human history has been accompanied since the 1400s one way or another by lace. The Italians call this, delightfully, 'Stitches in Air' and it has many origin myths from the Venice lagoon to the gently rolling countryside of northern Europe. It has been smuggled and stolen, worn and desired by kings and cavaliers, by maids and madmen. It has been painted and preserved and the songs and rhymes of lace makers have been passed down the generations.

This episode of Haptic and Hue is about one of the most intricate and complex human skills ever developed – lace-making. But it is not just about the deeply storied history of lace, it's also about its modern revival as a new and beautiful art form and how contemporary craftswoman and men are using lace techniques to address complex issues like gender, sexuality, and climate change.

You can find a full script of this podcast, pictures, links and show-notes at www.hapticandhue.com/listen, as well as detail on how to find your own lace classes and lace books.

Pears and Pomegranates Jun 02, 2022

Show notes

The Italian Renaissance produced glorious masterpieces by artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michaelangelo who are justly feted for their talent. But look again at these pictures and you realise that they show the work of other artists as well, artists whose work was hugely skilled, well rewarded, and just as valued by the elite of the day who could afford to buy it. But the names of these spinners and dyers, the weavers and embroiderers are lost to us, and their work has largely crumbled to dust. This episode is about them and the painters who depicted the marvels they could create by hand.

Five hundred years after the Renaissance it is often the paint that survives, rather than the fabric depicted. But the extraordinary skills needed to produce the lustrous and sumptuous cloth that we see reflected in the paintings lit up this age, provided a rich spectacle, and told us so much about how the people of this time wanted to be seen and the stories they told about themselves.

Across Italy, as machines replaced humans those skills have faded almost – but not quite - entirely. This episode explores two workshops where the old ways are still followed and ancient skills kept alive as beautiful fabrics are produced and processed by hand.

For a full script of this podcast, pictures, links, and show notes please go to www.hapticandhue.com/listen.

Fabric and Foundlings May 05, 2022

Show notes

In 18th century London, the secret of your birth could literally hang by a thread. If your mother took you to the Foundling Hospital because she was unable to care for you, you were given a new identity to avoid any shame. But, in case she was later able to reclaim you, she left a token, often a textile cut in two, and she kept the other half as a way of proving she was your mother. Often it was just a scrap of cloth, the only thing that could prove the link between you and your birth mother.

This episode looks at how the system of leaving textile tokens at the Foundling Hospital worked, and also the information that one of the best collections of the clothing worn by the poor in the 1700s gives us into the lives of ordinary people.

The dress of the elite tends to be preserved, but we know very little about the garments of the poor: did they dress in hand-me-downs or homespun, or did they have access to anything fashionable? Two hundred and fifty years after these tokens were first left in desperate circumstances, we can now see them both as a way to tell us about the lives of women in the past and to understand what they wore and how they dressed their babies.

For a full script of this podcast and show-notes please go to www.hapticandhue.com/listen, where you will also find pictures and links to further information about the people you hear in this episode.

The Refugees Who Dazzled London Apr 07, 2022

Show notes

Over the past months, we have watched in horror as nearly ten million people have fled their homes in Ukraine to escape the Russian invasion. They have become the world's latest refugees. That word was first applied to some of the most skilled and expert handweavers who began arriving in London in the 1500 and 1600s to escape death and persecution in France. This is the story of how these forced migrants – known as Huguenots - changed the face of London, and created some of the world's most complex and beautiful silk fabric. It is also a tale of hope and resilience in a time of difficulty and darkness.

This episode tracks the story of the Huguenots, who they were, and why a summer wedding ignited a violent massacre that forced them to flee France. It looks at some of the striking parallels between the Ukrainian refugees and the arrival of the Huguenots in Britain, and it also thinks about the amazing silk cloth the Huguenots were able to create on draw looms, working entirely without power in London weaving lofts.

For a full script of this podcast and show notes please go to www.hapticandhue.com/listen where you will also find pictures and links to further information about the people you can hear in this episode.

Introduction to Season 4 Mar 31, 2022

Show notes

Welcome to the fourth season of Haptic and Hue's Tales of Textiles. This season is called Threads of Survival and the eight episodes focus on people who have seen hardship and difficulty, but who have survived and often flourished against the odds.

This introduction sets the context for the new Season and provides a mini-guide to the thinking behind the episodes.

In it, we will explore stories of different peoples and different threads and textiles that in the face of poverty, intolerance, violence, enslavement, or sometimes just indifference, have shown great resilience, and have survived and often triumphed. I hope these podcasts give us a fresh way of looking at the world - one that allows us to hear what textiles have to say and helps us understand the central role cloth plays in our cultures and how it enables us to express our deepest feelings and emotions.

There are some changes to Haptic and Hue for this season. Episodes will now be uploaded on the first Thursday of every month and will continue throughout the year with a short break in the summer. This is to give us a chance to explore more widely and to research some topics that we don't know so well. We will also be announcing shortly details of a Haptic and Hue Membership or Community scheme where we hope to provide a regular behind-the-scenes look at what we are doing, as well as some extra content.

For a full script of this podcast and shownotes please go to www.hapticandhue.com/listen.

Canada's Forgotten Quilts Jan 27, 2022

Show notes

Can a nation simply forget an astonishing operation in which its women and children made nearly half a million quilts to comfort the victims of the Second World in Europe? It seems that Canada has come close to doing that. Only now, nearly 80 years later, is this story being pieced together for the first time by some very determined researchers and textile sleuths. It's a tale that has never been properly told and the women and children who made these quilts have never been honoured or thanked properly for their work.

This episode of Haptic and Hue's Tales of Textiles begins with a mystery quilt that turned up on a cold winter's morning 30 years ago with a strange handwritten label on it. It tracks my efforts to find out what the quilt was and how it came to be made. It uncovers the astonishing story of how millions and millions of items from bandages to sheets, from pajamas to quilts were made by Canadian volunteers as 'comforts' to send mainly to Britain in the Second World War, but also later to the Netherlands, France, and Germany, to help those who had lost their homes and all their possessions. The podcast hears from someone who made the quilts and someone who received a quilt and it looks at why this amazing effort was almost completely forgotten.

If you would like to know more about the quilts or if you have a quilt and would like to register it or tell someone about it then please go to www.hapticandhue.com/listen, where you can find useful links, pictures and a full script of the podcast.

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