The Liverpool Tapestry:
People, Places and Passions
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7
W
hat do you get when you put together 152 stitchers, 40
metres of canvas, 103 miles of wool and give them over
15,000
hours to sew? The answer is the Liverpool Tapestry, a
community arts project that uses some 5 million stitches to
create an artwork 23 feet long by 7 feet high, and a unique
project within the city of Liverpool.
The Liverpool Tapestry project first came into being some 4 years
ago when the Merseyside branch of the Embroiderers’ Guild was
approached by Joe Morris of TJ Morris Ltd, (Home Bargains)
as part of the company’s ‘Go Create in 08’ initiative to create a
‘
tapestry’ hanging to commemorate Liverpool’s status as European
Capital of Culture, which involved the people of Liverpool. As I
was Branch Chairman at the time, it was myself, and Elsie Watkins,
who was the Deputy Chairman, who went along to a meeting with
Joe to see what
it was he had in mind.
At that first meeting, Joe outlined his plans for a project that
would involve not only individuals, but schools and community
groups, and his hope for a finished piece of work that would be
approximately the size of the window we were sat next to – a piece
of about 7’ square.
I remember Elsie (designer of the overall layout of the Tapestry
and many of the individual pieces within it) and I looked at one
another with the realisation that this wasn’t going to be a quick
project to complete, and that it was going to involve a lot of people
and a lot of stitching. Joe explained that he had got the idea from
the Knutsford Tapestry, which was completed by the residents of
Knutsford to commemorate the Millennium, and on the basis that
if a small town could produce something like this then Liverpool
must surely be able to do the same. Both Elsie and I were very
enthusiastic, and agreed to become involved on some basis – with
Joe taking that as acceptance of the role of project manager and
emailing me to that effect the next day…!
We then began to give thought of how best to construct the
tapestry so that the maximum number of people could get
involved, but in a way that did not ‘over face’ them with what could
potentially be a huge project. Elsie came up with the idea of each
individual stitching a 6” square, with the squares then being joined
together to create a large triptych format. The central panel, which
would consist of bigger sections, would be worked by members
of the Embroiderers’ Guild, who would run the workshops; the
6”
squares would then be divided into two panels which would go
either side of this, which allowed for the tapestry to be as big or as
small as the number of pieces produced.