Working Class Stuff — Blog

And even though the big art knobs are talking about embroidery with the same reverence as Rembrandt, it has reminded me that I am sad.

I could barely contain myself, in 2018, when the Tapestry announced its plans to cross the Channel, and immediately started working on ‘Sheltered’, a piece inspired by it, made up of 34 buildings cut from newspapers and hand stitched to cloth.

Sheltered, Section 1. Copyright: Alison Aye.

2018 was an excellent year for me, time-wise. I was living my dream. The kids were older, I was working part-time instead of full, it was bloody great. But. The dream came to an enforced halt in 2020, more of that in a bit, and I have been having ‘a melancholic episode’ ever since. That’s six years of not being able to crack back on with my buildings. A terminal case of feeling-really-sorry-for-myself. And because of Emmanuel Macron, et ses amis, I’m currently experiencing a flare-up. I love my buildings. I want to finish them. And I am sad about it.

Sheltered, Section 2. Copyright: Alison Aye.

It’s stitched, obvs, but when I say ‘Sheltered’ was inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry, I mean in layout. It’s very long and thin and impossible to photograph.

Sheltered, Section 3. Copyright: Alison Aye.

So far, I have completed six sections. All were made between 2018 and 2020. It takes at least four days of chaos to prepare a section, covering every available surface of our living room and kitchen, including the floor, with newspaper images. And my bedroom. Cutting out and arranging, then rearranging, then more cutting out, then more rearranging, then all of this again, times a thousand. Until finally, after banning the other residents from watching television, cooking and eating, I’m finally left with a pleasing collage arrangement that’s ready to sew. The sewing can be done in dribs and drabs. An hour here, an hour there. It fits around life and stuff. It’s the assembly time, and how said time is needed in one big lump, that’s giving me first-world grief.

Sheltered, Section 4. Copyright: Alison Aye.

My housemates are my two adult children. They couldn’t care less about me using our living room as a studio. I say this, because yesterday I was talking to a friend, again, about my ‘blue period’. It’s all about me. She had assumed that lack of space was my issue, suggesting I ask another friend if I could borrow his studio for a bit. But the issue is lack of time, and how that time must come in one long flow. I haven’t had a long flow, I’m talking four consecutive days, since early 2020. Two art days in a row is a miracle, four an impossibility.

Sheltered, Section 5. Copyright: Alison Aye.

Each half-a-napkin section is 23 x 49cm, making it about 3 metres long in total. It has been publicly displayed in London twice, hence the pizza box ‘wall captions’, first at Westminster Arts Library in 2019 with the Paste Table Gallery, and second at the Barbican Library last year.

When I find the relevant notebooks, currently hidden in a safe place, the location of which I have yet to reveal to myself, I will write better credits.

Sheltered, Section 6. Copyright: Alison Aye.

Some positives. Although pre-stitching-assembly of ‘Sheltered’ has been impossible, I have continued to collect newspaper articles featuring buildings and have six years worth. They are waiting.

Some more positives. The sticking-plaster, I repeatedly put upon my wound, is ‘The Audience’. A collection of faces which do not take four days to assemble. I mostly plonk them anywhere (not quite) allowing me to continue with art making. Dribs and drabs. An hour here, an hour there.

The Audience 2026, so far. In which I stitch a newspaper face each day.

Regarding my work coming to a halt in 2020. You can read why here, if you want.

Uncle Rod with one of his pigeons in 1986

RIP Uncle Rod. May you soar with your pigeons.

A story in two parts, in which Alison Aye continues to write in the style of Wodehouse and talk about herself in the third person; and will be proceeding, through no fault of her own, with this wankerish behaviour for a predicted couple of months (or until the Belgravia Commission is completed).

Part 1: Mayfair, four days ago…

Bertie was lounging on the sofa, feeling a bit like a squashed tomato after a rather lively night at the Drones, when the whole business blew up.

"Sir?" Jeeves appeared from thin air, carrying the tea, with as little uproar as a jellyfish (that’s a direct quote from Wodehouse. And I’m not sorry. I’m imagining his joy, as he coined it).

"Dash it, Jeeves," Wooster said, propping himself up on an elbow. His head was buzzing, and the light coming through the window wasn't doing him any favours. "I thought I distinctly instructed you to untangle me from that woman’s electronic mailing list!"

"I did attempt to sever the connection, sir”, Jeeves replied, his face a mask of solemn regret. “But I am from earlier times and I don’t pissing-well know how to do it."

"Well, the damage is done. She writes to inform us that, just yesterday, her Uncle Rod has ascended to the heavens, kicked the bucket, conked out (Bertie’s words, not mine). Her father's youngest brother, apparently. There are now only two of the brotherhood left standing. Was the deceased an Eton man, Jeeves?"

"No, sir. He hailed from... the other place. Furthermore, I understand he was a pigeon man, sir."

"A fellow who resembles a pigeon?"

"A pigeon fancier, sir. He engaged in the competitive racing of the birds and was, by all accounts, a preeminent figure in his chosen field. The zenith of his career occurred in the year nineteen-hundred and eighty-one, an occasion marked by Aye purchasing him a cigar from the local purveyor."

"In eighty-one? She must have been a mere slip of a thing, Jeeves."

"Precisely fourteen summers. She procured a single cigar, and it appears the shopkeeper raised no objection whatsoever to a young schoolgirl in uniform engaging in the tobacco trade. Mind you, sir, from what I gather, Uncle Rod had been puffing away since infancy."

"Capital! The good old days, what? Do read the rest to me, Jeeves, my eyes are bleary."

"During her first year at Goldsmiths’, sir, when it still had the apostrophe, she captured numerous photographs, depicting her father and uncles alongside their pigeon crees. Regrettably, upon her return to the hoity-toity college, she lacked the necessary fortitude to show them to the dons. Not, you understand, that she harboured any sensation of shame regarding her ancestral background, but she found herself so thoroughly intimidated by the arty London set that she failed to trumpet her heritage."

"Pigeon cree, Jeeves? What in the name of everything holy is a cree?”

"It is the regional colloquialism for a pigeon loft, sir. A term from which Aye refuses to retreat, lest it be entirely erased from the historical lexicon. It is the selfsame principle that dictates her refusal to address 'The Big Meeting' by its officially sanctioned title of the ‘Durham Miners' Gala’, sir."

"The Big Meeting? Has a solid, no-nonsense ring to it, Jeeves."

"Indeed, sir. To the industrious gentlemen who actually extracted the coal, it was invariably known as ‘The Big Meeting’, but the ‘authorities’ gave it another title, perhaps to eliminate any ambiguity regarding the exact nature of the gathering to an outsider’s ear."

"Which is, Jeeves?"

"An annual assembly, sir, wherein all the pitmen from every mine in the county would march majestically in a celebratory procession to the Cathedral, with some overthrow-the-capitalists speeches thrown in along the way. They were accompanied by their heraldic banners, brass ensembles, and families. Although, nowadays they hire an omnibus, rather than walk the route. The lady considers it a matter of paramount importance to employ the vocabulary of the miners. She credits even the uninitiated observer with sufficient intelligence to grasp the meaning, without administrative interference."

"Very proper, Jeeves. Good for her. Stand by your guns and all that rot”.

He shimmered out of the room, leaving Bertie to contemplate the extraordinary habits of the northern working man over his morning beverage.

Part 2: Mayfair, present day…

“A forlorn telegram from that woman, sir.”

“Right-ho, Jeeves. Deep breath and get on with it.”

“She has discovered the AI scanner button, sir, and is entirely grief-stricken to learn that twenty-one percent of our above exchange is deemed to have been generated by a machine. EVEN THOUGH SHE KNOWS THAT ONE HUNDRED PERCENT OF IT WAS WRITTEN BY HER OWN FAIR HAND. She has written that part in capital letters, sir, which I believe means she is shouting. It appears the artificial-human-detector searches specifically for words like ‘selfsame’ and ‘lest’ and ‘wherein’ and ‘zenith’ and ‘fellow’ and ‘furthermore’ and ‘whilst’ and ‘indeed’ and ‘nineteen-hundred and eighty-one’ and ‘ascended to the heavens’ and ‘local purveyor’ and ‘historical lexicon’; general phrasing and outrageous similes, she notes, that ‘real people’ do not use. She has been trying to rewrite it for days, completely obliterating our language, rendering the story crap, sir”.

“WTAF, Jeeves! Are you telling me we are not real people? And what’s more, she has used those words twice now, so she is making matters worse for herself with that AI-detector contraption.”

“Precisely, sir. And furthermore, it would appear that Mr. Wodehouse is not the comical genius we have always believed him to be. Aye ran several pages of his text through the scanner, as an experiment, whilst she still had hair, and it turns out the gentleman didn’t write a single word of us himself. We are one hundred percent machine-written, sir.”

“Wodehouse! The sly old bastard! My illusions are shattered, Jeeves. Fetch me a snifter, I’m going to lie down.”