A Creative Christmas at Kingston Lacy

Towards the end of last year I was working with the National Trust's Kingston Lacy on their 'Creative Christmas' project for December 2018. Myself and two other artists selected female members of the Bankes Family to represent via handmade decorations, which were then placed around the house as part of the Christmas festivities.

This was the second project I've done based on the Bankes Family (the first being Threads of Narrative), so I feel fairly well acquainted with the family now. This time I based my pieces on Anne Bankes, who was the sister of William John Bankes, a stained glass artist in her own right and after William John's exile she took on much of the work overseeing the refurbishment of Kingston Lacy. Not a lot of detail about her life is known, however I was able to take a few of her personal letters, portraits and some photos to design a print in homage to her:

I had this digitally printed onto velvet and cotton in two colourways, the cotton was then stretched onto a pyramid-like frame designed by me and I personally made 12 cushions of different sizes using the velvet. These were the couple of ideas (out of many) that were accepted to be brought to fruition by Kingston Lacy, although I originally had a lot more creative and unusual ideas up my sleeve!

I used various different luxury trimmings to finish the cushions and they turned out really gorgeous and exquisite. I've even had a few people ask about buying them, which is lovely! At the moment they're an installation only, but who knows what the future might bring.

Here's some pictures of the whole lot installed in the Spanish Room at Kingston Lacy:

The Christmas exhibition ran from 30th November 2018 until 1st January 2019.