Lace Unveiled: Joy Buttress & Manolis Papastavrou

Lace Unveiled: Joy Buttress & Manolis Papastavrou Boom, 2018 Film and drawing Boom is a film and drawing by artist Joy Buttress and designer Manolis Papastavrou that visually expresses, through the use of a large drawing machine, the rise and fall of the factories containing lace machines in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire between 1780 and the 1960s.

The factories often had multiple tenants connected with all aspects of lace work including machine building, lace making and finishing. A single factory could have many tenants; for example Whitehall’s Factory, Wollaton Street, Nottingham in 1881 had 26 lace makers within its complex (Mason, 1994). All tenanted factories are symbolised with a ‘T’ in the drawing.

All information in this artwork and film was taken from the comprehensive study carried out by historian and lace company director Sheila A. Mason in her publication ‘Nottingham Lace 1760s – 1950s’ (1994). The book gives the reader a unique insight into the complexities of the lace trade in Nottingham and surrounding areas.

The drawing machine featured in the film was built and programmed by Manolis Papastavrou, the drawing took 40 hours to complete.

The imagery of the drawing is taken from a Pusher lace parasol cover made between 1855 and 1865, now in the Nottingham City lace collection housed at Newstead Abbey. The lace was machine made, the outline threads of the pattern were subsequently embroidered by hand.

The Lace Unveiled exhibition is part of Lace Unravelled, a season of events to celebrate Nottingham City Museums and Galleries’ world-class lace collection and Nottingham’s machine-made lace heritage.