Celebration Day for the Life of Joan Marsland

Guest Speaker: Sue Lawty

Following a eulogy about Joan’s life from Marjorie Tomsett and Joan’s niece Judette, who had come over from New Zealand, we were off on a whirling magic carpet ride through Sue Lawty’s life and work.

We visited a young Sue with her mother who taught Sue sewing skills.

We looked at some of the inspirational pieces from Bankfield Museum.

Brief touch downs in places that had inspired Sue included Wales, Nairobi, Jordan, where Sue had been commissioned to produce tapestries for the British Embassy and High Commission, Bhutan, Australia and Tasmania, Morocco, Nepal, Majorca, Italy and the Pyrenees.

We saw a fantastic piece of work made of tiny pieces of stone actually glued to the wall in the V & A and were treated to a look behind the scenes at conservation work and the reserve collections.

The way Sue’s work is developing now is fascinating: ‘stones in space’ with suspended stone ladders and their shadows are inspiring work that darts from linen, lead, stone, shadows and the negative images left behind by beaten or rubbed work.

It is well worth a look at the V&A website to see the World Beach collection of photographs gathered from around the world as a response to Sue’s ideas of creating work with stones:
www.vam.ac.uk/worldbeach and www.vam.ac.uk/suelawty
or just ‘Google’ up Sue to explore her vast body of work

The audience, which included visitors from several neighbouring guilds, were kept spellbound until lunch time when they were able to browse the trading stands set up by KCG Trading, DT Crafts and the Threshing Barn.

The day was rounded off in the traditional manner with tea and cakes!