As an exhibiting textile artist Gail’s craft heritage is in bobbin lace but she has long broken free from the traditional constraints to pursue her own style of contemporary lace. For Gail the term ‘lace’ does not require the use of specific techniques or stitch patterns, it is perhaps best summed up as; a pattern of constructed holes, random or geometric as the subject requires and constructed in whatever medium is most appropriate.
Gail’s work can be found in private and museum collections, she undertakes commissions and consultancy projects. Gail is a co-founder and director of the Lace Research Network
She has recently completed a practice based PhD:
Re-viewing lace in archives: Connecting the lacunae.
Case studies have been undertaken at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery and the International Centre for Lace and Fashion in Calais. The research considers the ways in which lacunae in archives challenge the conventional meaning of museum text and therefore the meaning of objects. It also looks at the relationship between the lacunae in the archive and the established reading of the archive as the solid foundations of historical accuracy.
In 2013-2014 Gail worked with Calais lace designer Frederic Rumigny to develop a new design for lace to be manufactured on one of the historic Leavers lace looms at the International Centre for Lace and Fashion, Calais.
In 2016 Gail was a Research Fellow at Nottingham Trent University. She was working with the University's Lace Archive on a project which sought to uncover the educational pedagogy of lace design in the first half of the 20th century.
|