Tread Softly

This last line of Yeats's famous poem He wishes for the cloths of heaven forms the title of a large drawing still in progress. Meant to be a work to put on the floor rather than on the wall the chalk and pastel grew too thick for the paper to be manageable at all. At this stage, with quilts being sewn and an atmosphere of fabric around the studio, it suddenly seemed a more appropriate realisation of the text and image to transcribe it into cloth itself.

At the same time I was working on the costumes and sets for The Winter's Tale at the Globe Theatre. For Autolycus I had supervised the making of a large patchwork cloak and was fascinated to see how humdrum pieces of the cloths of the world rather than of heaven when juxtaposed sang out as rich and rare. Some of the 'dye and drab' of the cloak of Autolycus started off this present piece. As with Women's Work and Manpower Alice Wood solved the problems that arose both artistic and technical.

Sacred and Profane / Drawing to a Conclusion (1997),  pp. 7-10.