Layers of Memory - holding on + letting go by Direct Design

B EVERLY

AY LI N G - S M I T H

University for the Creative Arts Falkner Road, Farnham, Surrey GU9 7DS, UK TEXTILE THINKING - the imprint of the International Textile Research Centre, University for the Creative Arts First published 2023 Images - Richard Brayshaw, except pages 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 18 Design & Production - Gerry Diebel, directdesign.co.uk Beverly Ayling-Smith has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1998, to be identified as Editor of this work. Individual essays © the authors 2023. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organisation acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by the University for the Creative Arts or the authors. ISBN 978-1-9995961-3-2

B EV ERLY

AY LI N G - S M I T H

Layers of Memory: holding on + letting go

The absence of nostalgia: old things and new meanings in the work of Beverly Ayling-Smith Introduction Professor Victoria Kelley, Professor of the History of Design and Material Culture, UCA September 2023

Beverly Ayling-Smith is a textile artist who makes works about memory using textiles. The textiles are old — cotton and linen sheets and pillowcases from Second World War military hospitals; gifted bed and table linen with monogrammed motifs. The work is richly material, layered up from torn fragments of cloth, juxtaposed, reassembled, folded, stitched over and through, printed, painted, waxed, sutured with thin lead strips. What is expressed is driven by the persistent trajectory of a creative process with its origin in Ayling-Smith’s contemplation, personal and scholarly, of loss and bereavement. This short essay is a personal response to the work written from my perspective as a historian of material culture. My interests and Ayling-Smith’s intersect in significant ways — most notably in domestic textiles, old things, and memory (personal and collective). I reflect on points of similarity and difference between her stance as an artist and mine as a historian, and between wider, common conceptions of the subject matter of this exhibition and Ayling-Smith’s approach, which balances sensitivity and discipline to reflect on universal experiences without resort to contemporary cliché or commonplaces. Letters as Reliquary is coolly white—not stained—and its fragments of letters are translated from handwriting on paper to print on fabric. They are contained, resolved and of the now.

There is no nostalgia in Ayling-Smith’s work. As a historian, I understand the past through its material traces. I am fascinated with the signs of wear and loving maintenance carried by old things. And I am terrified of the moment when old things (‘vintage’ or ‘found’ objects) are collected, ‘curated’ and traded, and run the risk of tipping into fetishes of patina and the uncanny sentimentality of old things commodified for old things’ sake. Ayling-Smith’s work has a rigour that avoids this. It is important (to her and her

Passed on, passed down and let go 2023 - detail Pillowcase, paint, wax, thread, lead 80cm x 94cm

audience) that these works are made on and with old bed linen, but the pillowcases are unused, and the patina they bear is created by Ayling-Smith to materialise memory in her unique vision. A Year of Dreams is made of 365 small cloth envelopes, and although we can see they could have something inside, we don’t know if they actually do. As history writing is not afraid to admit what is not known, so Ayling-Smith’s work leaves spaces and silences for her viewers to insert their dreams and recollections. There is no sentimentality, no trace of the self-absorption of confessional culture that foregrounds the subjective ‘I’. The work is personal, even autobiographical, but quietly and generously so. The materiality of the work is never excessive, always purposeful. These pieces are densely complex in construction, but also abstracted and restrained. In previous works Ayling-Smith has used huge cloths and sheets recalling the body in their shape and dimensions. Here there is a scaling back. Works based on pillowcases shift us from the whole body to the head, from somatic experience to interior mental and emotional worlds and the disembodied night-time wanderings of the mind disconnected from the body in sleep. The layering of materials and techniques creates complex accretions, but they are controlled carefully, each layer deployed, dare I say it, as a historian might layer up historical evidence. Such accumulated marks and materials, as in True Meaning Found in the Darkness, balance the harsh and the delicate. They are complex, nuanced and worthy of close and repeated looking. Professor Victoria Kelley

True meaning found in the darkness 2023 - detail Pillowcase, chiffon, paint, thread 93cm x 68cm

Layers of memory: holding on + letting go Dr Beverly Ayling-Smith September 2023

‘What more is a person than a collection of particular memories? What more is a relationship than a collection of shared memories? (Long, 2014:109) Sitting in my studio surrounded by the work I have made for this exhibition, with its torn and patched pieces of cloth from pillowcases, stained, stitched, printed and layered with plaster and wax; I have been thinking about how best to communicate what made me embark on this research and the meanings behind the work. The use of pillowcases reflects on the deeply personal emotions we all experience when in contact with bed linens. Pillowcases bear witness to passions spent before sleep and dreams forgotten on waking. Although we endlessly strive to clean and launder them, they remain keepers of our memories, dreams and tears. In this exhibition they have been torn, reconstructed, mended, pieced together and layered over each other, they are used as the substrate and metaphor for memories, layered over time. Memories of people, events and emotions, evoked through the use of letters, written to me from friends and relatives who are no longer with us. Printed and then covered either with plaster, wax, paint or stitch, like a palimpsest – where layers of previous use or words can still be seen on the surface of the work, suggest that time has moved on, new memories made, to be stored and retrieved, reimagined and reinterpreted anew.

Working with layers means that a conscious decision has to be made about what is covered and concealed, and what is revealed, what is visible and what is stitched over. We cannot force ourselves to forget, but layering over a positive memory is possible. Much of the work uses torn fragments

from a bigger whole, suggesting the fragments of memory which remain when others have been forgotten. As artist Bryon Draper states ‘the concept of layers and fragments speaks more telling or truthfully to the human experience than the seemingly whole’ (Draper, B s,d). The work in this exhibition explores the question ‘what is memory and how do we remember?’ Remembering, recalling, calling to mind, reminiscing, evoking. With the increased use of computer technology, we are all probably familiar with the idea of memory as simple storage and retrieval system, but Plato writing in c.369 BC described his interpretation of the different of steps of memory simply as encoding: storage: recall. He used the idea of the memory as a soft wax tablet that could be impressed with an image or like a gemstone that could be engraved. Once the imprint had been made it was unchanged for ever. Descartes likened memory to the mark of the fold left in a piece of paper after it has been unfolded. Recollection of the past 2002 - detail Calico, paint, muslin, paint, thread, plaster 41cm x 32cm

However, memory is selective – why do we remember some things and not others? It is also interpretative – why do two people remembering the same event remember it differently? Memories are not static, preserved things, they change with time, some fade and are lost, others remain potent and affecting. Memory therefore is not just passive storage. Researchers have categorised different types of memory. Something happens, we keep the experience in our short-term memory, until later it is transferred to longterm memory. This is episodic memory, when we recall specific events from our personal past including the time, place and associated emotions at the time of the event. Autobiographical memory is the recall of events from our earlier life – a subcategory of episodic memory.

Semantic memory is the accumulation of general knowledge and is context free and the memory of how to do something physical or practical like riding a bike or driving a car is known as procedural memory. We are all probably familiar with the question – ‘do you remember where you were when….’ for example, you heard that Princess Diana had died, or you heard about 9/11. This is an explicit or flashbulb memory – very specific to that set of circumstances in that particular moment. In contrast, an implicit memory refers to an influence on behaviour, feelings or thoughts as a result of an experience, but which is manifested without conscious recollection of the original event. In the book ‘Remembering’ (Bartlett, 1932) the author suggests that what people remember is in part mediated by their emotional and personal commitment to and investment in the original event. So instead of the same memory being recalled, a version of it is brought to mind with an element of reconstruction based on our existing expectations and mind set. This is the constructivist approach to memory recall – that memory is a combination of the memory, and the persons own expectations and ideas.

An essay in ochre and rust 2023 - detail Pillowcase, paint, gold leaf, thread 148cm x 46cm

Deepak Chopra, writing on his website suggests that we can be bound up by our memories and that ‘the past is a mental illusion created by memories. The present moment is free from the past and as we live in the moment more and more, our memories loosen their grip’. He likens living in the moment free from the burden of memories to them being written in stone, and then water and finally air – and that this is the path of enlightenment (Chopra, 2021). When remembering an event, some elements may be easier to recall than others. We then fill the missing gaps using our knowledge or our belief as to what happened. This is particularly likely when the event is related over and over again, each time with different influences present. Descartes likened this to piercing holes in a linen cloth with needles or an engravers point. Some holes will remain open remain

open allowing more recall and the recollection of one thing can be stimulated by another which was imprinted on the memory at the same time. He wrote that ‘if I see two eyes with a nose, I at once imagine a forehead and a mouth and all the other parts of a face, because I am unaccustomed to seeing the former without the latter and seeing a fire, I remember heat’ (Sutton, 2007:59). We therefore fill the gaps of what we can remember and what we believe to be true. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional character Sherlock Holmes had an extensive power of recall which he referred to as his ‘mind palace’. This was developed from the Roman legend of Simonides of Ceos who was able to identify people crushed and killed by a falling roof from his memory of where each of them had been seated at the feast. He argued that if this ability was to be developed to train the memory, one should select localities and form mental images of the facts that needed to be remembered store those images in the localities. The arrangement of the localities will then preserve the order of the facts.

Movement of thought 2023 - detail Pillowcase, paint, ink, silk thread 56cm x 56cm

So what of recalling traumatic memory? Concern has been expressed by writers in the field of trauma theory and the treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder that the viewing of artwork that brings to mind the memory of traumatic events may expose the viewer to an additional trauma. Psychologist William James argued that whilst we can remember feeling specific emotions, we cannot remember exactly how they felt. However, emotions are revivable in that “we don’t remember grief or ecstasy, but by recalling a situation that produces those sensations we can produce a new bout of emotion” (cited in Bennett 2005, 22). The recalling of emotions in this way may therefore bring about a recall of any trauma experienced. Alternatively, reliving, repeating, and experiencing again may have a beneficial effect in externalizing and reducing the impact of such strong emotions and feelings. Aristotle defined “catharsis” as the “purging of the spirit of morbid and base ideas or emotions by witnessing the playing out of such emotions or ideas on stage” (cited in Powell, n.d.). Aristotle proposed that in the viewing of tragic plays the viewer’s

own anxieties are externalized and purged in a socially harmless way. The spectator is then released from negative feelings such as fear or anger. Many sensory experiences can act as memory triggers, a smell, the feel of fabric, the pattern on a garment – taking you back to the moment of an intense emotional memory. This often happens when the memory and the present circumstances are similar. There are strategies to lessen the impact of these unsettling experiences, including relaxation techniques, being mindful and in the present when they resurface, and to gradually replace the memory with a more positive interpretation. So, when we remember, what are we remembering? When we think of our memories from a very young age, are we really remembering or is our memory affected and constructed from what we were told by others what happened at the time. Do we relive our memories in our minds, or do we reconstruct them? If we relive, then wouldn’t memories stay the same each time they are brought to mind? Reconstruction of memory means that when we remember we add in elements informed by our current emotional state and knowledge. So, when we remember we recall not the original event exactly, but we reconstruct it as it is informed by the emotional state, knowledge and understanding of what we remembered the last time we encountered the memory. Letters as Reliquary 2023 - detail Pillowcase, paint, plaster 40cm x 72cm

The use of cloth in textile art practice is an ideal medium to explore this subject. As Jenni Sorkin has written ‘Cloth holds the sometimes unbearable gift of memory. And its memory is exacting: it does not forget even the benign scars of accident: red wine on a white tablecloth, water on a silk blouse, dark patches beneath arms on a humid summer day (Sorkin 2001:77). What is it about cloth that helps us remember and hold onto memories? The sound of fabric as it moves, the smell of the person who wore it and feel of the cloth in our hands

all remind us, evoke memories of the person associated with the cloth or used it in the past. All the work in this exhibition is made using pillowcases as the main fabric and are created to the size of a pillowcase either folded, opened out or all the seams unpicked to reveal the inside. Some have been inherited, and the embroidered monogram is used to suggest the heritage and legacy from the family. The inherited trousseau, the family linens containing the history of the family.

Mottainai 2022 Pillowcase, tissue paper, paint, thread 52cm x 23cm

The relationship between sleep, dreams and memory is alluded to in the use of pillowcases. It is thought that during sleep the brain stores new information in long term memory - a process of consolidation, and whilst dreaming the brain ‘continues to replay memories and events, often combining them with other memories to create something new’ (Brandwein, 2023). The work ‘A Year of Dreams’ consists of 365 folded pockets of cloth stitched in layers on a pillowcase, suggesting that each may contain the memory of a dream. The piece ‘Letters as Reliquary’ has a patched and pieced surface which has been plastered over to conceal text underneath. Small scrolls of fabric printed with letters are pushed into a recess, totemic fragments of a bigger whole. ‘Passed on, passed down and let go’ reflects on the idea of bedlinens as inherited items and uses a print of the embroidered monogram on family linens. All the works in the exhibition explore the idea of dreams and recollection of times past, private, hidden or shared. Layers of memory in cloth. As Professor Lesley Millar has written ‘Dissolving, slipping through the porous membrane of time, conflating experiences; memories are the wayward threads we use to reconstruct the narrative of our life’ (Millar, 2013:13). Dr Beverly Ayling-Smith

Bibliography

Bartlett, F. C. (1932) Remembering Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bennett, J. (2005) Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma, and Contemporary Art. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press. Brandwein, S. (2023) The relationship between dreams and memories At: http://www.sleepopolis.com/education/therelationship-between-dreams-and-memories (Accessed 7th September 2023) Chopra, D. (2021) Writing memories in air At: https://www. deepakchopra.com/articles/how-to-write-your-memories-in-air/ (Accessed 7th September 2023) Draper, B (s.d) At https://www.verumultimumartgallery.com/ projects-7-2 (Accessed 7th September 2023) Long, K. (2014) ‘Memory, Dreaming and Death’ In: Belaguer M. G. (ed.) Chiharu Shiota ‘The Hand Lines’ Actar Publishers Casa Asia. Millar, L. (2013) Cloth and Memory: Fragments, re-contructions and re-creations. In: Millar L. (ed) Cloth and Memory {2} Bradford: Salts Estates Ltd. Powell, E (s.d) Catharsis in psychology and beyond At: http:// www. http://primal-page.com/cathar.htm (Accessed 22 June 2016) Sorkin, J. (2001) ‘Stain: on cloth, stigma and shame’ In: Third Text 53 pp. 77-80. Sutton, J. (2007) Philosophy and memory traces: Descartes to connectionism Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Letters as Reliquary

Echoes of a dream

2023 - detail Pillowcase, paint, plaster 40cm x 72cm

2023 - detail Pillowcase, paint, earth pigment, thread 50cm x 79cm

A year of dreams 2023 - detail Pillowcase, paint, silk thread, lead 51cm x 79cm

Looking back 2023 - detail Pillowcase, paint, silk thread, lead 42cm x 31cm

Half remembered on waking 2023 - detail Pillowcase, paint, thread, earth pigment 85cm x 48cm

Coming to the surface

2023 - detail Pillowcase, paint, thread, plaster 41cm x 30cm

Dr Beverly Ayling-Smith Beverly is an artist and researcher whose Doctoral thesis examined how cloth can be used as a metaphor for loss and connect with the emotions of the viewer. Beverly has exhibited widely in both the UK and internationally; she has work in the Whitworth Art Gallery collection in the UK and in collections in the USA. She has had her research published in the UK and been a speaker at international conferences in Athens, Budapest, Prague, Lisbon, Greece and keynote speaker at the MAKE symposium in Cork 2022. She has been an Associate Research Fellow at the International Textile Research Centre at the University for the Creative Arts since 2016. www.beverlyaylingsmith.com Acknowledgements Thank you to Professor Lesley Millar, Director of the International Textile Research Centre, UCA for supporting this publication and to Professor Victoria Kelley, Professor of the History of Design and Material Culture, UCA, for writing the introduction. I would also like to thank Gerry Diebel at Direct Design for his generous advice and guidance.

An essay in ochre and rust

2023 - detail Pillowcase, paint, gold leaf, thread 148cm x 46cm