A suit of armour for the unknown woman

Over the last month I've been busy in my studio, which is my favourite place to be, so it's been a joy to have the time to focus on making something for this project. This work has come out of a couple of things that have been sitting in my studio for quite a while and images and thoughts that have resonated strongly with me from my visits to the abbey.

The things that had sat waiting for an opportunity to be used in my studio are two large boxes full of tree bark,  an image of a suit of armour from a book in Newcastle central library and my desire to create something like my favourite object in the Hancock Museum in Newcastle which the suit of  Kiribati armour made out of coconut fibre.





In the Abbey I have been drawn back time and time again to the tombs for the unknown women and their armour clad counterparts, the knights, who are depicted with their protective layers.





So I have been building a suit of armour from the sections of tree bark, it still needs a bit of fine tuning, but my aim is for it to be wearable. I am not planning to go into battle but perhaps I will use it as a way of contemplating the day to day battles women have to undertake both today and in the deep  historical past of the abbey. It feels to me that Etheldreda was a woman who had to develop a protective layer in order to pursue the life she wanted to lead.






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