“light step and unswerving feet” was a solo show in Temple Contemporary in April 2022. The show featured panels of hand embroidered and hand woven lace as well as an installation of hand painted silk. The following text was shared with visitors:
An orb weaving spider's web is part of its sensory system, like an external organ. Some orb weaving spiders are blind and will not venture beyond their web, relying on its feedback. I saw one of these spiders at the zoo once, and it was not behind glass. It didn't know we were there.
Some orb weavers only weave one web, making repairs to it as needed. Other orb weavers weave a new web a day.
Madagascar Orb Weavers have webs so strong that they can be used as fishing nets. When many strands of filaments are spun together by harvesting humans, the webs' natural color is a shimmering saffron. The resulting fabric was used for the garments of kings.
There have been a variety of gauzy and netted fabrics throughout human history-- the earliest textile artefact is probably a net hat from 50,000 years ago. Some scholars wonder what a bag so small and so full of holes could carry. There are tattoos, preserved on the mummified bodies of Egyptian priestesses, of net like grids along the edges of breasts and belly that would expand and contract with her body as she gained and lost weight from pregnancy.
When Flanders was the main producer of bobbin lace through the 17th century girls and women worked in basements lit by a single candle. The better lace makers could sit closest to the candle. Bobbin lace is made with a type of intricate braiding and weaving, each thread held on a bobbin. Sometimes the bobbin is called a bone.
Lacemaking came to Ireland late, after the Leavers lace machine had already devastated the industry. These machines are operated with punch cards controlling the pattern of braiding and weaving. One of the stories goes that during the famine, a convent of Poor Clares established a lace school after seeing poor women outside their abbey eating grass from desperation.
Saint Clare is the patron saint of eyesight and needle workers. She wrote this blessing in a letter:
"What you hold may you always hold.
What you do, may you always do and never abandon.
But with swift pace, light step and unswerving feet,
so that even your steps stir up no dust,
Go forward, the spirit of our God has called you."
Irish lace is regional. Some styles use the same techniques as other European laces, but the most popular style is crochet lace. Crochet uses a hook and human hands to make loops and chains. Crochet cannot be reproduced by machines. It's too complicated.
Once I was leaning on a wooden bridge on an early summer morning. I felt a tap tap tap on my hand and it was a jumping spider. Jumping spiders do not spin webs, and have the best vision of all spiders. This spider led me along the bridge, darting forward then returning to tap my hand to ensure I was following. At the end of the railing, it leapt into the air and I could not follow.