Night Tangler lace project updates
Lace maker “spindle puppet”
An experimental, simple rod marionette of a lace maker with real lace bobbins for arms. I thought that stair spindles look like giant lace bobbins, and was experimenting with the idea that the characters I was exploring as part of lace making folklore were like the bobbins weaving their own threads, each making up the fabric of the story of lace.
I haven’t written a post on here for ages and ages, but have been slowly plugging away at various different projects. I find I have an ever expanding list of things I want to do, and keep starting new things without finishing the ones I already have on the go! Without a “deadline” I never seem to finish anything. So, myself and Ulysses Black have agreed to do a little scratch performance based around the research we did for the lace project (which, since the R&D three(!) years ago, we’ve been very slowly trying to develop, though it’s been a struggle as the project became so “big” in my head), in whatever shape it may take, as part of a folklore night in Brighton a bit later in the summer. Here is a post just giving you some insights into our recent developments.
Above images show more spindle doll/ puppets. One of them is of the Night Tangler - the ghoulish liminal figure, “the Lurker in the lace”, around whose folklore our scratch show/ presentation will revolve.
Spindle dolls/ puppets
We experimented with using them as giant lace bobbins to make actual lace stitches.
I just rediscovered this sketch from three years ago and it reminded me that this was a very early idea!
Priest Puppet
The Catholic church were a great consumer of lace when lacemaking was a cottage industry. Lace patrons and those profiting from lace making (such as the lace merchants and dealers) wanted to perpetuate romantic tropes about lace making - for example, the poverty of the lace maker, the goodness and “purity” of the humble lace maker and the association of lace making with the Virgin Mary - as a political tool, both as a way of controlling the work force and also to preserve the special status of handmade lace as the machine pushed it into decline.
I made this little priest puppet quickly over two days as he is a character that will probably appear in the scratch show.
Various charms and talismans to ward away the Night Tangler
We’ve been making various “replicas” of different charms and talismans believed to have been used by lace makers to ward away the Night Tangler. There’s too much of the folklore behind all this to go into here, but we have a fully illustrated little booklet/ zine coming out any day now which goes into this in depth… Watch this space!
